WASHINGTON — The Federal Trade Commission and the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office have banned a controversial anonymous messaging app from serving kids under 18, taking an unprecedented and aggressive step against what regulators called “rampant cyberbullying and threats against children and teens” on the platform.
The targeted ban is the FTC’s latest move in a wider crackdown on social media companies, data brokers and other businesses that allegedly mishandle consumer data or make overhyped claims about artificial intelligence.
As part of a lawsuit and settlement announced Tuesday, the app being penalized — known as NGL — will also pay $5 million to settle what FTC Chair Lina Khan said was “reckless disregard for kids’ safety.” The app will also have to implement an age gate to block its services to current and new users who are under 18 years old. The regulators wrote that the app billed itself as a “safe space” for teens but, in reality, preyed on them.
People are also reading…
The NGL app is displayed on a phone screen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on January 19, 2023.
In addition to highlighting FTC follow-through on earlier promises to police AI hype, the lawsuit directly names the company’s co-founders, reflecting recent agency commitments to holding individual executives accountable for corporate wrongdoing.
The app, known as NGL, had been downloaded millions of times, according to the complaint. NGL is an internet abbreviation for “not gonna lie.”
NGL actively marketed itself to young users and violated federal laws aimed at protecting children’s data, the lawsuit claimed, while its employees allegedly mocked paying users as “suckers” while profiting from their ignorance.
…
