2023-11-07 20:24:36
After the child abuse observed on the Rencontres Ados site at the end of August, it is the turn of the Crush application to raise serious concerns. This Monday, the influencer Ophenya published on her TikTok account to 4.8 million subscribers three promotional videos for this application whose aim is to allow users between 10 and 21 years old to discover their “secret crush”. Strongly criticized by Internet users, the application was updated late this Tuesday morning.
In its first version, Crush was designed as a dating application for 10-21 year olds. A surprising age range, which mixes minors and adults. Especially since no identity verification is carried out when the user indicates their age on the application. After that, the user had to indicate their class and the name of their school.
The objective is then to respond to “positive and anonymous surveys between friends”, explains its founder, Marc Allain. More simply, users can send compliments anonymously. A premium option at 3.99 euros per week allows you to discover the identity of your “crushes”.
Risk of sexualization of children
As of Monday, and its promotion by Ophenya, voices have been raised against the risks presented by an application intended for such a young audience. “Problematic application”, “It’s very serious”, “An app for predators” can we read in the comments section of the TikTok videos of the influencer Ophenya, also nicknamed “the cupid of hearts”.
“At ten years old we are talking about children who are in CM2, not teenagers. They have a lot to learn before flirting or being in a relationship. This kind of application puts it in children’s heads that sexuality must be part of their concerns,” worries Samuel Comblez, director of operations at the E-enfance association.
“This type of dating application that brings children and adults together leaves room for a real risk of child crime,” says Neila Moore, a mother from Lyon who founded “Team Moore” four years ago. , a collective whose mission is to hunt down online sexual predators by pretending to be teenagers themselves on social media.
Radical transformation of editorial line
Under fire from criticism, the application carried out a major update this Tuesday morning, attempting to erase the dimension of seduction. Exit the flame emoticon, the “naughty” smiley, and the “find your secret crush” subtitle. Now room for a more neutral logo, on a sky blue background, and the subtitle “surveys between friends”. More importantly, the age range of users has also been changed and must now be between 13 and 18, although there is still no verification of this claimed age.
This Tuesday morning, a radical update was made to the Crush application. (screenshot)
Questioned by Le Parisien about these hasty changes, the founder, Marc Allain recognizes “clumsiness”. “I never thought of the application as a dating application but as an application to combat school bullying. The goal was to allow teenagers to send compliments to their friends or more isolated people in their classes. But we had to make the application sexier so that students would want to go there,” explains the developer, who himself was the victim of harassment during adolescence.
“We made the change to address this legitimate misunderstanding. But there is no functionality in the application that could lead to abuses since users cannot speak to each other directly,” continues Marc Allain. As for verifying the identity of users, the founder affirms that it is “to date, technically impossible to verify the minority of users without being abusively intrusive. This is why we chose not to include any direct interaction between users and to limit ourselves to simple surveys.”
Marc Allain does not rule out changing the name of the application to definitively exclude any ambiguity.
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