Kik Messenger, with over 10 years of history and millions of users worldwide, has an excellent track record. While Kik’s lax content restrictions and private messaging features give it a positive reputation as an approachable, secure service, people have taken to misusing it to meet strangers for sinister reasons; such as sexting. A subreddit called Dirty Kikpals even has its own dedicated page for connecting Kik users seeking hook-ups via images sent between Kik users.

Kik’s policies do not permit pornography or inappropriate content, yet due to their commitment to privacy it remains unmonitored by the company. As a result, this has allowed spam bots and even kidnapper bots to send explicit images and videos directly to children even when their settings have been set to obscure messages from unknown contacts. Forbes recently reported this development.

As such, parents cannot protect their children from sexual advances that could be initiated by anything from an innocent “hello” to unverified users sending sexually explicit pictures and messages. Although the app tries to combat this with its revamped privacy dashboard and increased “Notify for New People” feature, they’re up against an expansive community that does whatever they please in order to have fun.

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