Wizz, a growing social media app among US teenagers, was removed from the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store on January 30.
Apple and Google had been contacted by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, a US conservative anti-pornography organization, who thanked the two giants on X “for booting the Wizz app from their app stores after our outreach to them.”
Wizz is a Tinder-like app for teenagers (aged 13+) owned by Voodoo, a French mobile video game developer.
Voodoo markets Wizz as a safe space for teenagers. The Wizz website provides a Q&A section called “Is Wizz Safe?”, where the company details how it prevents fake profiles and offensive content.
Nevertheless, Wizz was mentioned in a recent report by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) as one of the top platforms used by cybercriminals in a new surge of financial sextortion attacks targeting children and teenagers in Australia, Canada and the US.
Read more about the NCRI report: Nigerian 'Yahoo Boys' Behind Social Media Sextortion Surge in the US
Specifically, the NCRI report indicated that Wizz was the third most used app for sextortion purposes after Instagram and Snapchat.
It also said that the dating app was where sextortion schemes were fastest-rising.
“In the Google Play Store and the App Store, dozens of minors have reported that they were coerced into producing self-generated child sexual exploitation material (SG-CSEM) and blackmailed on Wizz – alongside other child safety concerns, including a high frequency of complaints that the app is serving pornographic ads to minors,” the NCRI researchers observed.
Wizz Is Working with Apple and Google
On its Instagram account, Wizz said the app was “taking a break from the app stores due to a technical hiccup” and started using the hashtag #freewizz.
No tags.
