STARING at her young daughter’s phone, Jane* felt sick to her stomach.
The 12-year-old had been inundated with vile sexual messages, numbering well over 1,000, from complete strangers – after joining a stomach-turning app dubbed ‘Tinder for kids’ by horrified parents.
Disturbing messages exchanged through the mobile phone app Wizz on a 12-year-old’s device[/caption]
Multiple schools have published public warning letters online about the app[/caption]
The Wizz app, which is marketed to under 18s, brands itself as a “safe space” to find friends, allowing users as young as 13 to set up accounts.
But sickened mums have taken to Facebook to share their fury, claiming the app is a “breeding ground for predators”.
An 11-year-old-girl told Childline: “I was using Wizz app with my friends when someone (who I thought was 13) cut in and pm’d [private messaged] me.
“They asked me for a nude photo and threatened me, saying that they knew where I lived, so I sent it to them.
“I spoke to Childline about it. It’s making me feel anxious and sick.”
The app was removed from the Apple App Store and Google Play in the US in January 2024 after concerns were raised about alleged ‘sextortion’ scams appearing on the site.
Parent company Voodoo, a French developer of mobile games and apps, says it was later reinstated after they provided additional details on safety measures.
However, Brit mum-of-two Jane shared her distress with The Sun after she discovered a deluge of inappropriate messages to her 12-year-old daughter who had no problem accessing the app, despite being underage.
Jane said: “I was honestly disgusted, I had never come across anything like this and I go through her phone weekly.
“She had the account for four days and there were easily 1,000 messages from strangers. It is horrific.”
The 32-year-old mum explained that to use the app you take a photo and chose if you want to meet older or younger people. Her daughter’s age range was set from 13-17 years old.
Jane added: “There are messages saying, ‘Do you want to go for a drive?’ She’s 12, she should be using her skipping rope in the garden.
“You can send pictures and they disappear too.
“I emailed them and tried to delete the account, the email bounced back even after I explained she was too young.
“There were men asking if she wanted to be a sugar baby and said they’d pay her for projects.
“It is a dating app for kids but it is disguised as if it is for making friends.”
Jane added: “My neighbour’s daughter was sending photos on the app too.
“I’ve had to email the doctors to ask about therapy this morning.
“My daughter is a really happy bubbly girl. This online persona is not her.”
One school shared a safety campaign to warn parents about the app[/caption]
Growing fears
Our shocking probe comes as MPs ramp up pressure on tech companies to protect children from harmful material with the Online Safety Act, which requires platforms to show they are committed to removing illegal content.
And Jane is far from alone in her concerns about apps like Wizz, with charities, school teachers and even the police airing their fears.
Rani Govender, policy manager for Child Safety Online at the NSPCC, said: “We know from Childline and our own data that apps like Wizz are being misused to groom, abuse and intimidate children.”
Multiple schools have already sent out emails to parents about the app.
She is threatening to post the pics to my friends on social media unless I pay her £50
Childline testimony
Smestow Academy in the West Midlands published a formal letter in January explaining that there are serious risks associated with Wizz that every parent and carer should be aware of.
The letter said: “There is no fully secure way to verify the true age or identity of users. Alarmingly, predators can easily misrepresent themselves as young people to gain the trust of children.”
Parent Jo Seymour commented online: “I asked my son and he said his friend received a d**k picture on the app.
“One of the older kids he knew was receiving nude pictures and talking to god knows who.”
Another Facebook user said: “It is promoting predatory behaviour.”
Stacey Walsh, assistant headteacher at The Friary School in Staffordshire wrote in a letter online: “Wizz is rising to prominence and it is important that our work in school is complemented by conversations at home that warn of the risks.”
The app has already been banned in the US[/caption]
Warning about the dangers of sextortion scams, Lincolnshire Police said that Wizz was among the social media platforms used where predators would use a fake identity to speak to people online.
A 17-year-old user of the app told Childline: “I am being blackmailed by someone I met on Wizz.
“This person, who claimed to be a 16-year-old girl from America, told me to go on WhatsApp and send her explicit pictures of myself.
“Now she is threatening to post the pics to my friends on social media unless I pay her £50.
“She thinks I’m on my way to getting the money but I’m not, I don’t have that much. I’m really scared.”
NSPCC advice on keeping teens and pre-teens safe online
- Follow age requirements – Many popular apps, sites and games are 13+, it’s important to check and follow these with pre-teens.
- Speak to phone providers – If your child owns their own smartphone then contact the service provider to make sure it is registered as a child’s device. This means additional safety restrictions can be put in place.
- Support your child with their settings – Support your child to manage their safety and wellbeing settings across devices and accounts.
- Focus on regular safety conversations – It’s important to keep conversations regular at this age. Check our advice on tackling challenging conversations including tips for how to use technology to support you with this.
- Share youth facing help and support – Make sure your child knows about services that can help like Childline. You could start by sharing the online safety advice content and the Report Remove tool created by the IWF and Childline.
- Revisit parental controls – you will likely need to revisit your parental controls again at this age and adjust them. Keep checking these regularly to make sure they are in place.
- Explore healthy habits together – Healthy habits work best when all the family agrees to following them. This could be agreeing to charge devices away from beds to support sleep and not using devices during mealtimes to help take breaks.
If your child asks you a question you don’t know the answer to, or speaks to you about a negative experience they had online, here are some of things you could do:
- Visit the NSPCC online safety hub: nspcc.org.uk/onlinesafety.
- Call the NSPCC helpline 0808 800 5000 to speak to an advisor.
- Ask another parent.
- Speak to your child’s teacher.
- If your child needs more support, they can contact Childline: childline.org.uk.
Daisy Greenwell, co-founder and director of the campaign group Smartphone Free Childhood, said: “There is a large amount of sexual predators that populate on these apps and catch young kids on social media for the first time.
“Families are really lost with this new technology and it can be a massive point of conflict.
“For these app companies it is not in their best interest to identify and remove underage users.”
In some cases, children on messaging apps are groomed into producing and sharing a sexual image or video of themselves online or they are completely unaware they are being recorded.
According to the Internet Watch Foundation, children aged 11 to 13 appear most frequently in abusive ‘self-generated’ imagery. The number of children aged seven to ten rose by 65 percent from 2022 to 2023.
A spokesperson for Voodoo said Wiizz has a “multi-layered approach to safety, combining technology, human moderation, and user education”.
They said that this included using AI-powered age verification technology, identity verification, pre-posting moderation and preventing repeat offenders.
They added that they remain in close contact with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to ensure ongoing compliance with the Children’s Code, and are partners with the Internet Watch Foundation.
The spokesperson said: “In addition to our AI-powered safeguards, users can report concerns directly to our moderation team, which reviews nearly 100% of flagged content within 24 hours.
“Our team continuously updates moderation guidelines to enhance safety measures and ensure alignment with industry best practices.”
Children can be unaware of the risks they are exposed to at a young age online[/caption]
*Names have been changed
