Zift Advisory
Lipsi is an anonymous social networking app that allows people to send and receive anonymous feedback about their friends’ Instagram accounts Available for iOS and Android devices, Lipsi is free to download and use for users 18 years of age or older. This app is not safe for kids to use and the anonymity features may lead to cyberbullying.
What is Lipsi?
Lipsi is an anonymous social networking app that allows people to send and receive anonymous feedback about their friends’ Instagram accounts. Available for iOS and Android devices, Lipsi is free to download and use, and requires users to be at least 18 years of age or older.
Per the developer, “Lipsi is a community for the young & bold.” The developer also states that “We employ anonymity as a tool to empower, support and encourage our peers.” If anything, Lipsi, by its own description, seems like the perfect recipe for cyberbullying.
To use Lipsi, users download and register the app, and are then given their own, custom feedback link. Users paste the Lipsi feedback link into the bio on their Instagram profile, and users may use the link to submit feedback about their account.
First and foremost, this can pose issues if a teen does not have their Instagram profile set to private, as anyone who stumbles across their profile can use the link to submit feedback, be it spammy, trolling or bullying in nature. Add in the anonymous factor and Lipsi has become the perfect tool for someone to stalk and harass another person.
The Lipsi app does not have any sort of age verification tool, so users simply tap a button to “verify” that they are 18 years of age or older when they first open the Lipsi app. Without any sort of gatekeeper, parents can be sure that children are using the Lipsi app in tandem with their Instagram profiles.
Is Lipsi safe for my kids?
Anytime “anonymous” is listed in an app description, it’s a pretty good bet that it’s not a good fit for kids. Pair that with the ability to delete entire conversations from the app, Lipsi is really not an app parents want their children to have. And since terms of use state that users must be 18 years of age and older to download and use the Lipsi app, minors should not have it on their devices. Lipsi is not a safe app for kids.
Parents already familiar with the Sarahah app, which was subsequently banned from both the Apple and Google app stores for facilitating bullying, will have a general idea of how Lipsi works and why they don’t want their children to use the app.
However, the Lipsi app has gone to great lengths to try to keep abusive behavior away from the app such as posting multiple warnings throughout the app about behavior that is not tolerated, but the threats can only do so much and are definitely not stopping people from engaging in unkind and bullying behavior anonymously.
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