KOKOBOT - The Airbnb-Owned Tech Startup - Data Mining Tumblr Users’ Mental Health Crises for “Content”
I got this message from a bot, and honestly? If I was a bit younger and not such a jaded bitch with a career in tech, I might have given it an honest try. I spent plenty of time in a tough situation without access to any mental health resources as a teen, and would have been sucked right in.
Chatting right from your phone, and being connected with people who can help you? Sounds nice. Especially if you believe the testimonials they spam you with (tw suicide / self harm mention in below images)
But I was getting a weird feeling, so I went to read the legalese.
I couldn’t even get through the fine-print it asked me to read and agree to, without it spamming the hell out of me. Almost like they expect people to just hit Yes? But I’m glad I stopped to read, because:
What you say on there won’t be confidential. (And for context, I tried it out and the things people were looking for help with? I didn’t even feel comfortable sharing here as examples, it was all so deeply personal and painful)
Also, what you say on there? Is now…
Koko’s intellectual property - giving them the right to use it in any way they see fit, including
Publicly performing or displaying your “content” (also known as your mental health crisis) in any media format and in any media channel without limitation
Do this indefinitely after you end your account with them
Sell / share this “content” with other businesses
Any harm you come to using Koko? That’s on you.
And Koko won’t take responsibility for anything someone says to you on there (which is bleak when people are using it to spread Christianity to people in crisis)
They also use the data they gather from users to conduct research and publish papers. I didn’t find them too interesting - other than as a good case study of “People tend to find what they are financially incentivized to find”. Predictably, Koko found that Kokobot was beneficial to its users.
So yeah, being a dumbass with too much curiosity, I decided to use the Airbnb-owned Data-Mining Mental Health Chatline anyway. And if you thought it was dangerous sounding from the disclaimers? Somehow it got worse.
(trigger warning / discussions of child abuse / sexual abuse / suicide / violence below the cut - please don’t read if you’re not in a good place to hear about negligence around pretty horrific topics.)
There are young people on tumblr that actively seek support from KokoBot right now, if you check the tag for recent posts. Those people did not get paid to promote it, so do not harrass them. If you can, direct them towards resources about Kokobot (like this post) that are more transparent about what this company is up to.
I mean it’s literally not streaming anywhere yet nor does it have a home media release at this time but I would like to get hyped in hopes of one of those things happening eventually.
It has a good style! I would like to see the tragedy!
my cat is incredibly sweet and wants nothing more than to be within a 5 ft radius of a person at all times, gently chilling in your orbit. he is also VERY, VERY DUMB
it’s a slow morning so husband and I are reading, not making much noise. meanwhile, Barold goes downstairs to use his box and when he comes out, he starts yowling like his lil heart done broke. husband goes to to the top of the stairs all worried like, “Barold, what’s wrong?”
kitty zips back up the stairs and just oozes onto husband’s feet, purring high-powered lawnmower style. the realization hit us both at the same time…
this. boy. this itty bitty kitty boy.
he couldn’t see or hear us for ten continuous seconds, forgot. we. were. home. and immediately burst into tears !!!!
I was just focusing on the fact that you named your cat Barold for the entirety of that post
I want this cat to be named Barold Bluejeans so bad
On how a video game about fucking a bear interrupted furry discourse
People don’t realize the absolute comedy that just went through Furry social media.
See, feral smut (i.e. smut of four-legged characters who otherwise satisfy the Harkness test) has always been a contentious subject in the furry fandom, due to how easily it leads to unwarranted real-life accusations of zoophilia. It’s an annoying bit of discourse that has been rearing its head every other year since the modern fandom began four decades ago.
Which, you know, pretty rich, coming from the fandom where a pretty large percentage readily admit to having had some form of sexual awakening over the TLK and MLP:FiM franchises.
And anyway, that discourse was exactly what was going on last week. People getting harassed on Twitter, as an extension of the whole “groomer” moral panic. A lot of fandom relative newcomers parroting arguments right out of the Burned Furs movement (a late 1990s/early 2000s movement dedicated to “purifying” the furry fandom from “perversion” and “degeneracy”).
And then, just as the discourse was at its most heated, Baldur’s Gate 3 entered the chat.
Suddenly, everyone was talking about the game that will let you fuck a bear. Yes, a bear, as in Ursus arctos. A Druid shapeshifted into a bear, to be fair (again: the Harkness test), but a bear nonetheless.
And mainstream media erupted with reports that the game’s sales skyrocketed based on that scene alone.
And the discourse suddenly screeched to a hilariously embarrassed halt.
