What is the Yubo App?

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Yubo (formerly Yellow – corporate website: www.yubo.live) is designed to do one thing, allow teens to connect and flirt with each other in a “Tinder” atmosphere (swipe right or left).

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Think of it as Snapchat and Tinder rolled into one, which is what makes it easy for teens to use because they’re already so comfortable with Snapchat and all of its fun filters. 

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How Does Yubo Work?

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Yubo is a social discovery app designed to help teens and young adults meet new people online rather than connect with friends they already know.

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After creating a profile with photos and interests, users swipe through profiles, join live video streams, or start their own livestream where others can join, chat, and send reactions in real time.

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The app groups users by age ranges (for example teens and adults are separated), and conversations often happen with strangers through live video or chat instead of traditional posting.

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Yubo functions less like Instagram and more like a virtual hangout space where users talk, watch, and interact live.

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What Do Parents Need to Know About Yubo? 

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Yubo is a flirting app for teens: that’s it. Called “Tinder for Teens.” It’s Parisian creators even go as far as to limit the age you can self-select in the app to the range 13-17, which proves their purpose.

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When I tap “Discover” at the bottom, I can swipe left to dismiss a picture, tap on the picture numerous times to see what other photos or videos were uploaded by the user, or swipe right to let the user know I “heart” their profile and if they reciprocate, then a friend is made who I can connect with through the app.  

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The rating was too low: based on the Tinder-like culture of the app, no 12-16 year old should be using it. 

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Age Verification for iPhone Users: Those using Apple devices will have to verify their age using Yoti’s age estimation technology. Users must take a selfie and a short video of their face. It is 98.9% accurate and if the verification doesn’t match the age listed, the user is prompted to go through a full ID check.

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What Can I Enable or Disable In Yubo? Yubo’s settings allow parents to disable location services, hide profiles from the “swipe” section of the app, and hide your phone number if you provide it to the app. It’s worth doing all of these for teens who are using the app.

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Are there predators on Yubo? Wherever the kids are, that’s where the predators are, and they (predators) especially congregate around apps whose purpose is hooking up because they can play along with fake accounts. Various news sources are warning about the predator risk.

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Also, note that the default privacy settings are to show our city and phone number to friends. To the app’s credit, when I created a profile without a real picture (it was a Ferrari), I was blocked within a week because that violates Community Guidelines. So, it seems someone might be watching, but faking a profile picture isn’t difficult.

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Yubo encourages using Snapchat: Yellow is linked to photo-sharing app Snapchat. As soon as two users swipe to accept each other, they are automatically added as “friends” on Snapchat, meaning they can begin sending each other photos right away — even if they don’t know each other.

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How to Make Yubo Safer:

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Regardless of the app, three actions mitigate the risks we’ve shared. We teach these actions in our parent presentations:

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1. Require approval for all app downloads.
2. Follow the 7-Day Rule
3. Enable in-app controls and settings

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We explain each of them briefly below. If you’ve already set up approvals for downloads and have used the app, please skip to the In-App Controls & Settings.

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Require Approval for App Downloads

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You can control app stores by requiring permission for apps to be downloaded. This is ensures your child doesn’t have access to an app without your knowledge. Here are the steps (for Apple and Android users):

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For Apple Devices:

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To require permission to download an app, you’ll need to set up Screen Time and Family Sharing (Apple’s Parental Controls). We explain this process step-by-step in our Complete iOS Guide (click here).  

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Once Screen Time and Family Sharing are established, here’s how to require permission to download apps on an Apple device:

1. Go to your Settings app.
2. Select your Family.
3. Select the person you want to apply this setting to.
4. Scroll down to “Ask to Buy” and enable.

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For Android Devices:

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You’ll have to use Family Link (Android’s parental controls) to ensure you retain control over what apps are downloaded. We explain this process step-by-step in our Android Guide (click here).

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Once Family Link is established, here’s how to require permission to download apps on an Android device:

1. Go to the Family Link App
2. Select the person you want to apply this setting to.
3. Select “Google Play Store”
4. Select “Purchases & download approval” and set it to “All Content.”

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Follow the 7-Day Rule

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This is our tried-and-true method of determining whether a specific app is safe for your specific child.

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Before you let your child use it, download the app and use it for 7 days.

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Create an account with your child’s age and gender and use it for 7 days. Play through a few levels, review the ads, see if anyone can chat with you, and poke around like a curious child.

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After a week, ask yourself, “Do I want my child to experience what I did?”  Even if you decide to allow them to download the app, now you have a basis for curious conversations about the app when you check in.

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Enable In-App Controls & Settings

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There are no parental controls or meaningful safety settings. See our final thoughts on the app below.

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Bottom Line: Is Yubo Safe for Kids?

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No.

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This app is not meant for kids, and it's not safe for kids.

What if I have more questions? How can I stay up to date?

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Two actions you can take!

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1. Subscribe to our tech trends newsletter, the PYE Download. About every 3 weeks, we’ll share what’s new, what the PYE team is up to, and a message from Chris.
2. Ask your questions in our private parent community called The Table! It’s not another Facebook group. No ads, no algorithms, no asterisks. Just honest, critical conversations and deep learning! For parents who want to “go slow” together. Become a member today!

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