Yubo, a social discovery app for Gen Z, has partnered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to launch Take It Down. This free online service helps minors remove explicit photos and videos from the internet to combat child sexual exploitation.
Yubo has been collaborating with NCMEC since 2018 to fight online child exploitation. Take It Down complements it’s existing detection tools, aiming to prevent, remove, and report inappropriate imagery involving individuals under 18 and enhance user protection.
Take It Down assigns unique hash values to submitted explicit content, allowing platforms like Yubo to identify and block similar content while preserving privacy. The entire reporting process occurs without the content leaving the user’s device or being viewed by anyone else.
Through the partnership, the company will scan its platform to remove and report any explicit content found on the app submitted via Take It Down.
Users, including minors and adults, can submit explicit images or videos taken before turning 18 to NCMEC through Take It Down. The content is hashed, creating a digital fingerprint for identification. The original files remain on the user’s device and are not seen by NCMEC or the service.
Hash values are added to a list shared with participating platforms like Yubo. Platforms voluntarily scan for these hashes and remove or report matches, reducing the circulation of explicit content involving minors.
To support Take It Down’s launch, Yubo has integrated an option in its reporting flow, redirecting users to the NCMEC Take It Down site for anonymous reporting of inappropriate content.
The service is currently available globally in English and Spanish, with plans for future enhancements, including additional languages and matching for live photos and Boomerang videos.
Yubo’s partnership with NCMEC and the introduction of Take It Down represent significant progress in addressing online non-consensual sharing of explicit content, making the internet safer for children and teens.