Group Pushes FTC to Investigate App Used For Anonymous Bullying

A kids online safety group and parent advocate are urging the Federal Trade Commission to investigate an anonymous messaging service they say is putting children’s safety and mental health at risk.

Fairplay and parent activist Kristin Bride requested in a complaint filed Thursday that the FTC investigate NGL Labs for deceiving consumers and allowing anonymous cyberbullying. The complaint highlights a movement by children’s advocacy groups and parents pushing regulators and lawmakers to do more to protect kids’ safety online.

The application by NGL, which stands for “not gonna lie,” provides users with a link they can share on Instagram that allows other users to message them anonymously.

The complaint argues that this feature facilitates cyber bullying and online abuse, putting minors at risk of harassment. The groups cite online reviews in addition to parental testimonies about children who’ve received abusive messages through NGL’s tool, including one child in Oregon told “to kill herself,” according to the complaint.

The filing follows a request by Fairplay last month asking the FTC to investigate Google and YouTube’s potential use of personalized ads targeting children. Fairplay also led a coalition in 2018 asking the FTC to investigate YouTube for children’s privacy violations , leading to a record $136 million fine.

The FTC addressed mental health harms to children as recently as March when the agency finalized a settlement with EPIC Games, the maker of the video game Fortnite. The agreement emphasized alleged harms created by the game’s default feature allowing unknown adults to speak to kids in a live audio feed, subjecting them to abusive language.

“We’ve seen this FTC really deeply scrutinize a lot of practices as it comes to kids and teens,” said Haley Hinkle, policy counsel at Fairplay. “We have through EPIC Games seen interest in thinking about mental health as a substantial injury in a very concrete way and this is a very natural continuation of that thinking.”

The groups also accuse NGL of using deceptive advertising practices to get users to spend money on the app. NGL advertises a premium subscription that allows users to reveal the identity of anonymous messengers. However, the service does not reveal the name of the sender. NGL on its website acknowledges that “we no way of knowing the identity or username of the message senders” and would be unable to retrieve the information for law enforcement.

NGL did not immediately respond to Bloomberg Law’s request for comment on the call for an FTC investigation.

NGL Labs is just the latest anonymous messaging app to attract scrutiny. Yolo and LMK: Make New Friends, anonymous-messaging apps, were also sued in a class action lawsuit in 2021 by Bride, whose son died by suicide after anonymous cyber bullying. The apps were acquired by Snap which suspended both in response to the lawsuit.