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KOKOBOT - The Airbnb-Owned Tech Startup - Data Mining Tumblr Users' Mental Health Crises for "Content"
I got this message from a bot, and honestly? If I was a bit younger and not such a jaded bitch with a career in tech, I might have given it an honest try. I spent plenty of time in a tough situation without access to any mental health resources as a teen, and would have been sucked right in.
Chatting right from your phone, and being connected with people who can help you? Sounds nice. Especially if you believe the testimonials they spam you with (tw suicide / self harm mention in below images)
But I was getting a weird feeling, so I went to read the legalese.
I couldn't even get through the fine-print it asked me to read and agree to, without it spamming the hell out of me. Almost like they expect people to just hit Yes? But I'm glad I stopped to read, because:
- What you say on there won't be confidential. (And for context, I tried it out and the things people were looking for help with? I didn't even feel comfortable sharing here as examples, it was all so deeply personal and painful)
- Also, what you say on there? Is now...
- Koko's intellectual property - giving them the right to use it in any way they see fit, including
- Publicly performing or displaying your "content" (also known as your mental health crisis) in any media format and in any media channel without limitation
- Do this indefinitely after you end your account with them
- Sell / share this "content" with other businesses
- Any harm you come to using Koko? That's on you.
- And Koko won't take responsibility for anything someone says to you on there (which is bleak when people are using it to spread Christianity to people in crisis)
I was curious about their business model. They're a venture-capitol based tech startup, owned by Airbnb, the famous mental health professionals with a focus on ethical business practices./s They're also begging for donations despite having already been given 2.5 million dollars in research funding. (If you want a deep dive on why people throw crazy money at tech startups, see my other post here)
They also use the data they gather from users to conduct research and publish papers. I didn't find them too interesting - other than as a good case study of "People tend to find what they are financially incentivized to find". Predictably, Koko found that Kokobot was beneficial to its users.
So yeah, being a dumbass with too much curiosity, I decided to use the Airbnb-owned Data-Mining Mental Health Chatline anyway. And if you thought it was dangerous sounding from the disclaimers? Somehow it got worse.
(trigger warning / discussions of child abuse / sexual abuse / suicide / violence below the cut - please don't read if you're not in a good place to hear about negligence around pretty horrific topics.)
Kokobot is incredibly predatory and exploitative. I wrote a post about how it exploits minors' empathy and gamifies "giving mental health advice", resulting in an unregulated mess that can only do harm to teens' mental health in the long run.
There are young people on tumblr that actively seek support from KokoBot right now, if you check the tag for recent posts. Those people did not get paid to promote it, so do not harrass them. If you can, direct them towards resources about Kokobot (like this post) that are more transparent about what this company is up to.
This... is DEEPLY DISTURBING.
SIGNAL.
BOOST.
my dads recently been jokin a lot about “mystic runes” like i asked what we were gonna do when we took a rest stop in santa barbara and he said “look for mystic runes” and then i asked if we were gonna eat or just walk around while my mom shopped and he said “the runes will tell us”
Please for the love of god, if you value whatever media or whatever you're creating a wiki for:
DO NOT USE FANDOM WIKIA
Not just because Fandom wiki is just straight up adware. But because they will happily take all your rights as a wiki owner away and give it to a corporation in the name of profits, like they did to the McDonald's wiki or y'know, completely destroy LGBTQ+ wikis on many identities (including removing nearly every aroacespec labels including demisexual, greyromantic, and many other labels, including many more I used!) all without the permission or consent of the admins of the wiki to "make LGBTQ+ identities easier to understand" and replaced the admins with their own chosen ones, of which iirc were very questionable in their behavior.
"What are alternatives then?"
Fandom Wikia runs off a FREE open-source software known as MediaWiki, it's the same thing Wikipedia, Bulbapedia, and many others use.
This means that you can host your own wiki, or use any other wiki farm such as Miraheze, which is what the wiki I help run uses.
The best part about WikiMedia is that something made on one wiki can be cross-compatible with another. We often use and base our templates off of other wikis, and it makes it somewhat easier to transfer from FANDOM if necessary.
Stop FANDOM's monopoly over wikis, they'll stab you in the back as soon as it's a choice between the user or profits.