05-03-2019 00:03
05-03-2019 00:03
Fitbit has set up communities in the app which appear to be left unmoderated, and which are being used by children as young as eight, who are passing around medical and sexual misinformation. There is an obvious safeguarding problem here. The "Periods" community in particular is full of children who are between the ages of eleven and fourteen, telling each other to do really unsafe things with tampons, for instance. There are also problems with children telling other children not to seek medical attention when they are bleeding dangerously ("so much I thought I would die") but to pray to Jesus instead. The "Birth control" community has similar problems with people being anti-medicine, pushing a religious agenda, spreading very bad myths about birth control, and as in thr "Periods" community, people blowing up at anyone trying to discuss medical facts.
Both communities have problems with men coming in and trying to hit on the members. I don't know if there has been any sexual grooming of children yet, but if not, it's only a matter of time.
You can't rely on people like me to spend all our time moderating the communities for you as a volunteer, and I don't have time to do it. You need to look t this professionally. I'd suggest closing down communities relating to sexual health in any way unless you are prepared to moderate them at a high level.
05-03-2019 04:11
05-03-2019 04:11
Dear @Calathea77
I really fully agree with your concerns.
But how did you imagine that Fitbit can check that? It is impossible to know the intentions of all the people behind the accounts. And to be honest, if you replace the word Fitbit for "the Internet"...
Although the internet is mostly very useful, it is also an open sewer.
Maybe you should give a cry for help that we as a society finally teach our children and ourselves to look more critical at the information offered to us on the internet, in publicities, political campaigns and other media and stop swallowing all that information offered as being a given truth.
05-03-2019 08:24
05-03-2019 08:24
Fitbit moderates these forums carefully, so I think it's reasonable for them to either decide to do the same for the app-based communities, or to put in a lower age limit, for instance. There isn't even a mechanism for reporting a post. They're the ones who set up these groups to begin with.