How To accept friends on Yubo without paying

Yubo was created by Sacha Lazimi, Jérémie Aouate and Arthur Patora when they were engineering students at CentraleSupélec Graduate school of the Paris-Saclay University and Télécom Paris.[5] Formerly known as Yellow, it was launched in 2015.[6][7] According to the founders, the app seeks to create a space for "socializing online" and to "facilitate communication between people all over the world who share mutual interests."[8]

In December 2019, the app raised $12.3 million (€11.2 million) in a funding round led by French private equity firms like Iris Capital, Idinvest Partners, Alven, Sweet Capital and Village Global.[9] The funds will be used to develop its technology and expand its global user base.[10]

Between 2015 and December 2019, app users have created an estimated 2 billion friendships, along with exchanging more than 10 billion messages and launching 30 million livestreams.[11]

In 2019, the startup has generated $10 million in revenue.[11]

In 2020, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, Yubo recorded a significant rise in use due to quarantined teenagers, with 550% increase in time spent in video discussion groups.[12] And Yubo doubled the number of new daily signups, which reached 30,000 per day in mid-April. In October 2020, the app had 40 million users worldwide, 60% of whom are Americans and Canadians.[13][14][15]

In September 2020, Yubo established its U.S. headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida.[16] At the same time, Yubo opened a new office in London.[15][17] In November 2020, Yubo carries out a new fundraising, raising $47.5 million (€40 million) from its historical investors and a new entrant, Gaia Capital Partner. The announced objective is in particular to strengthen moderation and develop the Asian market.[18][19] In addition, Jerry Murdock, co-founder of Insight Partners who invested in Twitter and Snapchat, joined the board of directors of Yubo.[20][19]

In November 2021, Yubo opened a second office in the U.S., in New York City.[21]

Live streaming video is one of the main features of the app. Each session can host up to ten streamers with an unlimited number of viewers. Streamers can only join a session room if they are invited by another streamer or if they create it. Viewers can send comments to interact with the streamers. Viewers and streamers can become friends. Viewers can choose the live they want to join based on a variety of topic (gaming, talent shows, debates...) or the nationality of the participants. The app also offers a swiping feature to swipe on other people profiles with similar age and messaging features. Users can choose to see only profiles with specific location, or specific gender.[22][13] Unlike many social networks that preceded Yubo, Yubo does not offer a "like" function on its app, and is not focused on "followers" either.[23][11] Yubo feels like an internet forum,[3] a place where users can socialize in a group setting, and like in "real life",[13][24] what is the goal of the app sought by its designers.[13][23]

Snap Camera Inc.

In December 2020, Yubo through its partnership with Snapchat, the AR lenses from the Snap Inc. camera kit were included directly in the app.[25][26]

Gender and pronouns

For Pride Month 2021, Yubo has added a new feature which includes 35 gender options for users to identify with on the app. The list has been compiled with the UK NGO Mermaids.[27]

Pixels

Mid-July 2021, Yubo launches its Pixels collection. This is a collaboration with pixel artist Banfan to create collectible digital art representing qualities, moods and personalities. Yubo users can purchase these in-app and can start their own collection or send it to their friends.[28]

YuBucks

In July 2021, Yubo launched its virtual currency. The application's business model is not based on advertising or the sale of user data, so they offer an in-app microtransaction system. Available in the Yubo store, YuBucks can be purchased in packs or via a weekly or monthly subscription system.[29][28]

Add by tag

Tags are categories that users can add to their profiles to share their interests (such as TV Shows, Games, Videos, Music, Movies, Sports, Languages, Manga and Anime, Books...). In November 2021, Yubo launched Add by Tag. Now users can search for people with specific tags to find friends.[30][31]

Communities

Yubo consists of two communities, one for young people aged 13–17 and an adult community for people aged 18 and over. Members of one community can only interact with other people in their group and cannot communicate with anyone of the opposite community for safety reasons and child protection.[22][32]

Verified Profiles

The app uses face-recognition and age-estimation technology on every photo uploaded during sign up. The aim is to detect if a user is under 13 or if an adult has given a wrong age. Moreover, Yubo scans Google to see if user has collected a photo on internet to feed his profile, and every message is scanned in real time to identify problems. Flagged accounts have to download another app called Yoti to get their age verified.[8][33] Verified users are marked with a yellow badge on their profile.

Following concerns about the app's safety, harassment, nudity and incidents between minors and adults,[34][35][36][37] Yubo took various measures. Yubo entered into a partnership with Yoti in February 2019 to use their age estimation technology to analyze faces and estimate how old users are. The company claimed it has already checked more than 22 million profile pictures and removed a "few thousand" profiles belonging to under-13s as a result.[38][33] Safety advocates and governments have supported Yubo's efforts to place safeguards on the app, such as by creating a proactive "engage and educate" approach for their community, a mix between AI and human moderators, banning sexually explicit profile content and auto-blocking fake profiles.[39][40][41][42]

In 2018, Yubo joined the eSafety Commissioner's Tier 1 social media scheme in Australia for resolving cyberbullying. Australian eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, declared : "I applaud Yubo for extensively reworking its safety features to make its platform safer for teens. Altering its age restrictions, improving its real identity policy, setting clear policies around inappropriate content and cyberbullying, and giving users the ability to turn location data off demonstrates that Yubo is taking user safety seriously".[39]

In 2020, Yubo implemented an algorithm which scans livestreams. If the algorithm detects inappropriate content in a livestream, the livestream is automatically removed.[16] In February 2020 in the United Kingdom, an independent report on child sexual abuse (Independent inquiry into child sexual abuse) estimates that "the value of human moderation is evident from the success achieved by the social network Yubo, whose moderators interrupt livestreams to tell underage users to put their clothes on".[43]

In February 2021, Yubo Yubo launches pop-up alerts to fight inappropriate requests in private chat.  When a user is about to share private information, such as their phone number or location, they receive a pop-up message warning them of the risks and giving them a choice to consider whether to share this private information.[44][45]

In July 2021, Yubo introduced the Muted Words feature. With this new feature, users can choose any word, abbreviation or emoji that they find offensive or triggering to them and which they no longer wish to see in comments or content on the app. Users are also able to choose from whom to mute the words – they can block from all users or just those who are not in their friends. Then the comments with these words will be automatically hidden from the user’s view.[46]

Partnership

The company has established partnerships in several countries with associations engaged in the fight against online harassment and child protection.[35]

In April 2020, Yubo announced a partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), an American NGO dedicated to the search for missing children : Yubo will share data in the event of "suspected illegal activity involving minors". And the NCMEC participates in the "Safety Board" of the social network, a committee of ten international experts in cybersecurity and child protection.[35][47]

In July 2021 to accompany the release of its new "Muted Word" feature, Yubo launched an in-app campaign to raise awareness about sexual harassment. This campaign was carried out in partnership with the NCMEC in the U.S., Childnet and the Diana Award in the UK, E-Enfance in France and Red Barnet in Denmark.[48]

In wake of the Robb Elementary School shooting on 24 May 2022 in Uvalde, Texas, the app came under criticism for being late to remove the perpetator's profile from their platform - leaving the profile up for four days after the shooting.[49][50] Multiple sources reported that Ramos was known to have boasted about purchasing a firearm, and posted threatening messages to the platform, having been nicknamed "school shooter" before committing the crime.[51]

The app is not supported by advertisements. Yubo has a freemium model which originated in video games, where users agree to spend real-world currency to get in-app upgrades. Yubo offers microtransactions which allow users to, for example, give more visibility to their profile.[23][3] In July 2021, Yubo added a virtual currency called "YuBucks".[28]

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51. ^ "Texas shooter Salvador Ramos threatened to kill teens on Yubo: report". New York Post. 2022-05-28. Retrieved 2022-05-28.

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