In the online social platform game, Yubo has been carving its own path as an app that is growing massively in popularity by mainly attracting Gen Z users between 13 and 25. Yubo’s community has its own culture and communication style.
On Yubo, users connect and interact with others in their respective age groups through livestreams, chats, and games. Yubo makes it easy to find others with similar interests through profile tags, which users can click on to filter profiles by interest. Every day, users from around the world are interacting and establishing meaningful friendships. What’s even better is that through this process, users can expand their worldview and learn to respect and appreciate each other’s differences.
Yubo wants its users to interact in a safe and healthy online environment. This is especially important for Yubo, as its audience has a large teenage population. To achieve this, Yubo uses a combination of technological tools, human safety specialists, livestream moderation, and other measures to ensure that its community can socialize as safely as possible with the resources they need.
How Big is Yubo’s Reach?
In 2020, Yubo experienced exponential growth, in fact, since 2020, Yubo has garnered over 60 million young users in over 140 countries. Much of this growth took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced people to stay inside and caused them to turn to online means for social interaction. Yubo offered young people everywhere a place to break out of isolation online and create authentic friendships through real-time interactions. In addition to expanding its community, Yubo also saw a 550% increase in the time spent per day on livestreams during the first year of the pandemic.
Yubo’s Tech and Logistics
In 2015, Yubo launched the first version of the app, which at the time was named Yellow. Since then, new features were added to help young people make meaningful connections online similar to how they would in real life.
Today, users can download the app for free via Google Play or App Stores. If they want to get more out of Yubo, they can choose a monthly subscription that offers more features in-app.
If a user is interested in learning more about Yubo or if they have any questions, they can visit the Yubo website, which is loaded with FAQs, blog posts, and most importantly support tools. It is important to Yubo that every user can easily access their Community Guidelines, which can be found on the Safety Hub section of their website and explains Yubo’s robust safety features and policies. Yubo also has a blog section that highlights its unique and diverse community, consisting of testimonials, insights into Gen Z, and the famous Yubo horoscopes.
Yubo’s Key Features
Yubo is a unique social app that focuses on active socializing as opposed to passive scrolling. Yubo does not use any “approval metrics,” there are no likes, upvotes, or follower counts – allowing its users to enjoy a pressure-free social environment. The app is also designed to help users forge friendships outside of their immediate social circles. Rather than connect them with existing friends or friends of friends, they introduce them to new people based on interest and age. Yubo’s livestreaming feature is unique from other livestreaming platforms as it is built for smaller, more “natural” groups, where people are encouraged to interact, as opposed to the typical “solo streamer” with high viewership platforms. Yubo also prioritizes its user’s safety, which is why Yubo ensures that 100% of its users are age-verified. This allows users to be more confident with the people they are interacting with. By the way, Yubo is the first social platform to have 100% of its users’ age verified.
Age-Separated Users
99% of Yubo’s community consists of users between the ages of 13 and 25, but within this age range, Yubo separates users’ interactions based on their verified age. For example, a 13-year-old cannot interact with a 20-year-old user. And remember, 100% of Yubo users are age-verified, which makes this system reliable.
Separating teens and adults is not only a way to protect users but also more realistically mimics real-world interactions. It is not as common for teens and adults to be in similar social circles. Since all users must prove their age through a comprehensive and accurate age verification system, bots, scammers, and those with bad intentions are also prevented from joining Yubo and preying on more vulnerable users, such as minors.
Livestreaming (a.k.a. “Lives”)
Yubo’s Lives have become the app’s most popular and notable communication method. In each Yubo Live, up to 10 people can stream at the same time and each Live can be viewed by an unlimited number of viewers. Even viewers can interact through the comments section. Streamers often enjoy showcasing their talents, telling funny stories, ranting, engaging in lively debates, and just sharing moments of their lives. Every day there are thousands of Lives from around the world.
Chats
Yubo users can partake in one-on-one chats with other users. Before two users can start chatting they need to become friends first, this is done by sending and/or accepting a friend request. This gives everyone the choice of who they want to engage with. Each feature on Yubo focuses on creating friendships. This can be seen in the swipes section, where users swipe on profiles to create friendships or connect with people in a Live.
Real-Time Interactions
Yubo differs from most other social media platforms in a great way. When you think of social media, you think of scrolling through curated feeds of posts and targeted advertisements, Yubo avoids all of these passive interactions and instead focuses on real-time ones. There are no likes and follower counts on Yubo. By removing the “popularity” aspect, people can just focus on meeting people and being themselves without the added pressure they often feel on other platforms.
Yubo’s Dedication to User Safety
Yubo considers online safety to be a top priority and its actions clearly demonstrate that. The app is constantly upgrading its safety features to reflect evolving trends and technological advances. Yubo’s safety toolkit consists of hands-on safety specialists and the latest technology.
For perspective, Yubo is the first app to implement real-time livestream audio moderation and real-time livestream interventions to help protect users. Yubo has become the first major social media app to require 100% of its users to be age-verified and to achieve this goal Yubo partnered with Yoti, a digital identification provider, to perform age estimation with 98.8% accuracy (and it’s only getting better). What’s more, is that Yoti technology carries the coveted iBeta certification.
Yubo’s age verification system is seamless and simple for its users. In fact, users can verify their age in-app without providing any sensitive personal details. The process looks like this: users take a real-time photo of themselves in the Yubo app, Yoti’s liveliness algorithm captures a short video to ensure the image it is vetting is not a fake. Then the algorithm estimates an age for the user and if it matches with the one the user entered at sign up, they are clear to use the app. If the ages do not match up, users must provide additional identification documents, or they will be blocked from using the app.
Yubo understands the importance and value of user privacy. Yubo ensures that the verification process meets the “privacy by design” protocols mandated by European data privacy laws. It is worth noting that Yoti’s algorithm can never link a real person’s identity to a specific facial image.
Real-Time Moderation
Yubo is the world’s first major social media platform to implement real-time video and audio moderation. Its artificial intelligence tools filter and analyze second-by-second screenshots of each livestream and automatically transcribe audio to detect harmful behavior or content that might violate Yubo’s Community Guidelines.
If a user violates these guidelines or they are displaying risky or inappropriate behavior, Yubo’s artificial intelligence will flag the incident to a human Safety Specialist. The Safety Specialist will receive an alert, swiftly assess the situation and take action if necessary. Actions include user warning, content removal, temporary bans, and permanent bans at a device level. If the situation requires it, it can be escalated to local law enforcement.
Users can also submit reports about events that violate the Community Guidelines. To submit a report, users can simply tap the shield icon and select “Report.” A Safety Specialist will immediately receive the report and handle the incident. Yubo’s powerful AI algorithms also remain on alert for a user’s harmful language along with inappropriate or sensitive content. If the algorithm detects an issue, it sends a real-time pop-up that suggests the user reconsider their actions.
Yubo’s “Muted Words” Feature
Yubo users can control what they want to see with the “Muted Words” feature. This allows users to enter words or phrases they do not wish to see in the app, Yubo will then automatically block them for that user. This gives users a trigger-free environment based on their individual needs and preferences.
Yubo’s Safety Board & Their Key Role
To ensure proper guidance and best practices are being met, Yubo turns to its respected Safety Board, consisting of online safety experts from across the globe. Each Safety Board member is recognized as a leader in the safety industry and shares their experience and expertise to help Yubo be a leader in the online safety field. Board members hail from renowned NGOs and organizations such as Thorn, The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, INTERPOL, and The Diana Award. At its core, Yubo wants to help Gen Z enjoy a safe online experience and its partnership reflects that.
