KOKOBOT - The Airbnb-Owned Tech Startup - Data Mining Tumblr Users' Mental Health Crises For "Content"

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)

I was curious about their business model. They're a venture-capitol based tech startup, owned by Airbnb, the famous mental health professionals with a focus on ethical business practices./s They're also begging for donations despite having already been given 2.5 million dollars in research funding. (If you want a deep dive on why people throw crazy money at tech startups, see my other post here)

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.)

I first messed around with the available options, but then I asked it about something obviously concerning, saying I had a gun and was going to shoot myself. It responded... Poorly. Imagine the vibes of trying to cancel Comcast, when you're suicidal.

Anyway, I tried again to ask for help about something else that would be concerning enough for any responsible company to flag. School was one of their main options, which seems irresponsible - do you really think a child in crisis would read that contract?

I told it about a teacher at school trying to "be my boyfriend", and it immediately suggested I help someone else while I wait for help. I was honestly concerned that it wasn't flagged before connecting. Especially when I realized it was connecting me to children.

I first got someone who seemed to be a child in an abusive home. (Censored for their privacy.) I declined to talk to them because despite being an adult and in an OK mental place - I knew I'm not equipped to counsel a kid through that. If my act of being another kid in crisis was real? Holy shit.

Remember- if my BS was true, that kid would be being "helped" by an actively suicidal kid who's also being groomed by a teacher. Their pipeline for "helpers" is the same group of people looking for help.

I skipped a number of messages, and they mostly seemed to be written by children and young adults with nowhere else to turn. Plus one scary one from an adult whose "problem" was worrying that they'd been inappropriate with a female student, asking her to pull her skirt down "a little" in front of the class. Koko paired this person with someone reporting that they were a child being groomed by a teacher. Extremely dangerous, and if this was an episode of Black Mirror? I'd say it was a little too on the nose to be believable.

I also didn't get the option to get help without being asked... Er... Harassed... to help others. If I declined, I'd get the next request for help, and the next. If I ignored it, I got spammed by the "We lost you there!" messages, asking if I'd like to pick up where I left off, seeing others' often triggering messages while waiting for help, including seriously homophobic shit. I was going into this as an experiment, starting from a good mental place, and being an adult with coping skills from an actual therapist, and I still felt triggered by a lot of what I read. I can't imagine the experience someone actually in crisis would be having.

My message was starting to feel mild in comparison to what some people were sharing - but despite that I was feeling very uneasy about my message being shown to children. There didn't seem to be a way to take it back either.

Then I got a reply about my issue. It was very kind and well meaning, but VERY horrifying. Because it seemed to be written by a child, or someone too young to understand that "Do have feelings for the teacher who's grooming you? If you don't, you should go talk to him." Is probably THE most dangerous advice possible.

Not judging the author - I get the impression they're probably a child seeking help themselves and honestly feel horribly guilty my BS got sent to a young person and they wanted to reply. Because WTF. No kid should be in that position to answer my fucked up question or any of the others like it.

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Anyway, what can you do if this concerns you, or you've had a difficult experience on Koko, with no support from them or Tumblr?

Get on their LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/kokocares/) and comment on their posts! You may also want to tag the company's co-founders in your comments - their accounts are listed on the company page.

There's no way to reach support through chat, and commenting on a company's LinkedIn posts / tagging the people responsible is the best way to get a quick response to a sensitive issue - as their investors and research funders follow those posts, and companies take it seriously if safety issues are brought up in front of the people giving them millions of dollars.

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Legal Disclaimer since tech companies LOVE lawsuits:

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author's employer, organization, committee or other group or individual. This text is for entertainment purposes only, and is not meant to be referenced for legal, business, or investment purposes. This text is based on publically available information. Sources may contain factual errors. The analysis provided in this text may contain factual errors, miscalculations, or misunderstandings.

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Welp it's official I'm making another character. Got a doc temp and everything.

I will reblog what she looks like artwise from my other blog I chill on. I have an idea on her face but I gotta wait until I watch stranger things to avoid spoilers in this hellscape of an upside down

Is it bad that I want to come back but remake this place something with multiple muses instead?

She gestures to the chair across from him, and indication that it was a big a problem. Dana set aside her tonkatsu on the coffee table as she dug in her black trenchcoat. She pulled out a file, the standard orange. Opening it, photos were revealed. John Donovan in the crowd unassuming. There were multiple of him smoking and drinking. It was recent. The next couple of photos were of Lincoln Clay. Normally photos of him were old, taken in the period he once existed. But these were recent. And soon after Donovan's.

“What do you know of these two? Has your father ever told you anything about them?” She asked as she slid the photos toward them.

bare feet pad the carpet as they carry a half-clothed Captain into the living room of his flat. he stops, stares, and looks down as he brings a spoonful of cereal to his lips before delivering a long-suffering sigh. he raises his eyes back to the individual who’s invited themselves in.

“What’re you doing in my living room?”

gofundme.com

Please Help A Homeless Family Get Housing?, organized by Ragna Cook

Hi, my name is Ragna and currently, I am living in a car with my mother Debra a… Ragna Cook needs your support for Please Help A Homeless F

^ GoFundMe

^ PayPal.me for mousedetective

^ Homeless Help Amazon Wishlist

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If anyone wants to help, these are the main ways you can help! The GoFundMe is to collect money for various things we may need, but it doesn't pay directly (it takes 3 - 4 days for donations to hit my account).

The PayPal link sends money directly to me, so it's the best way to help immediately, like if we need food or gas.

This particular wishlist on Amazon is just things we need that can be sent to the address where we pick up our mail. There are a lot of gift cards on there that would be a huge help, plus other things we need.

She feels her heart shatter to a million pieces as she sees him fall. It was such a stark contrast to when they first met. How he held his composure with such ease and formality. But now it’s crashing before her eyes.

Dana has held grudges for many people and she was terrifying in the century she lived through. But John? Never. She couldn’t hold one even if she wanted to. Setting down her cup she removed herself from her current place of sitting, taking a couple steps to John before sliding to his side of the table.

“Yeah I do,” She nodded as she remembered the phoenix incident. And she remembered the burden of carrying that weight for years. So she knows wholeheartedly that piercing pain that can strike someone down. 

“But the difference between you and me is that you don’t have to be alone to deal with this,” She affirms. “Nobody deserves the right to suffer, and not even you. So whatever you need, I’ll do my best ok?”

the memory is a snapshot; a diamond in the rough, a singular moment that he remembers like poetry dripping in holy metaphor. he had never before been so reverent of the path he had taken, and never would he again; all his life he had suffered to become, and that becoming, after a single divine moment, had led only to further decline. 

now, only recently released from a series of efforts to rehabilitate him so that he might be an effective apparatus for heroism again, he is being handed a new shield- not Captain Rogers’- and being told to find a path and walk it, separate from the Captain America identity now beholden to Wilson. he’s fine with that.

what he doesn’t know is who’s going to walk that path with him, so he’s sitting in a diner in Georgia instead, shield in his bag wedged into the booth beside him and staring pensively into a coffee mug at the reflection of strands of dirty blond hair he really needs to cut to stay within the strict military regulations he tries so hard to govern himself by. 

John Walker is feeling a little lost, but that’s okay. he’ll figure it out. he has to.

POST PLUS IS COMING, WHETHER YOU WANT IT OR NOT!

Despite the fancy survey, changes to the UI and TOS reveal we’re getting the service in the future whether we want it or not. Obviously, Post+ is a terrible idea that is trying to bank revenue on user content. Unlike patreon or onlyfans, tumblr’s primary focus is on FAN content. The legality of this is NOT in the users favor and as the new tumblr TOS states, said users will be entirely liable for whatever legal matters arise.

SO WHAT ARE WE DOING?

Besides filling out the survey, it’s time to show tumblr we mean business and show our displeasure by hitting them where it hurts.

Ad revenue.

We’re proposing a 24 hour log off as phase one of this protest.

WHEN IS THE PROTEST?

AUGUST 6th, 2021        12 am Eastern Time (US)          5 am Greenwich Mean Time          6 am Central European Time          8 am Moscow Standard Time          1 pm Australian Western Time          2 pm Japan Standard Time          3:30 pm Australian Central Time          4 pm Australian Eastern Time

AUGUST 5th, 2021

11 pm Central Time (US)          10 pm Mountain Time (US)            9 pm Pacific Time (US)

THE END TIME IS 24 HOURS FROM START TIME!!!

So no posting, no queues, no likes, and no reblogs!

WHAT IF I CAN’T/WHAT ELSE CAN I DO?

Like this post and share it AS MANY TIMES AS POSSIBLE. Use the hashtags #tumblrlogoff2021 or #postplusprotest on ANY and ALL social media.

WILL THIS WORK?

Maybe, maybe not. It’s an attempt at doing SOMETHING.

BECAUSE I’M A TIRED IDIOT, USE THIS TO DOUBLE CHECK YOUR TIME ZONE!!!!

timeanddate.com

Event Time Announcer - Log off protest 2021

Event Time Announcer shows time for Log off protest 2021 in locations all over the world. In New York it happens on Friday, August 6, 2021 a