Zift Advisory
Kik is a free messaging app that uses the internet instead of cellular service to send and receive messages. Kik is available for both iOS and Android devices and is rated for users 17 years of age and older. There are no in-app purchases or advertisements. The Kik app is not safe for kids.
What is Kik?
Kik is a free messaging app that uses the internet instead of cellular service to send and receive messages.
Kik is available for both iOS and Android devices and is rated for users 17 years of age and older. There are no in-app purchases or advertisements.
Individuals sign up with usernames instead of phone numbers, that are shared with others to begin chatting. Anyone can message a user if they know their Kik username or unique and scan-able chat code.
Users can send pictures, videos, GIFs, and emojis to individuals or chat groups. Kik group messaging lets users with any device communicate easily in one place.
Kik has a number of different bots that users can download to interact with. In the Bot Shop, users can choose a bot by category, such as entertainment, fashion and beauty, and lifestyle. Through bots, users can get news, play games, and even receive daily meditation tips.
With Kik, users can communicate with other users, including friends and strangers, without content filters or monitoring. All types of media can be sent through this app, including photos, GIFs and video.
Is Kik safe for my kids?
Kik is unsafe for kids of any age, as it allows kids to send messages, that parents or adults can't see, and verifying the identity of both sender and receiver is very difficult, as the app does not require a phone number or email address.
Parents need to know that Kik is extremely popular with kids under 18 years of age, making the app also very popular with sexual predators.
Child exploitation has been an ongoing issue on the Kik mobile app since its inception, and the platform has been almost routinely called out by law enforcement agencies and media outlets for enabling the exposure of young children to inappropriate content and potentially dangerous situations.
The popularity of the platform with bots – used by companies to communicate with and take orders from consumers via Kik – has also opened the door for users to be spammed with commercial content, pornography or hateful messages.
To combat this, Kik's developers have incorporated Microsoft's PhotoDNA service into their app to detect and remove child porn from the platform, though the service only works by comparing images to a database of 'known' images featuring exploited children.
The company sponsors an annual conference on online child abuse and exploitation, and is a participant in the international Virtual Global Taskforce, a non-state coalition of governments and corporate interests which combats child pornography and exploitation online.
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