Being a parent of the 21st century your first and most important priority should be the safety of your kids on online platforms. There are predators waiting to groom your innocent child and abuse them for their sadistic pleasures. Such criminal-minded people take advantage of the security flaws of social media platforms to commit crimes and never get caught. If you are concerned about your child’s safety you must keep an eye on all their social media accounts.
Out of all other apps, you should be most concerned about Kik, because it is considered one of the most dangerous apps for kids. Even law enforcement has advised parents to delete this app from their kid’s devices. Now you must be willing to know what makes this chat app more dangerous than others and why Kik is not safe to use. Let’s have a look at the dangers associated with Kik and how you can keep your kids safe on it.
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Dangers Of Kik For Kids & Parents
1. It Provides Anonymity To The User
Anonymity on a social media app is a good thing, you must think. But criminals and scammers also take advantage of this feature of Kik and do heinous crimes on it because they know they can’t be tracked. You can create your account on Kik without giving you personal details and therefore criminals love it. Using an app on which you can come in contact with a potential scammer or criminal is not safe at all for you and your kids.
Besides criminals, cheaters also use this app a lot to cheat in a relationship because they know it’s hard to track them here.
2. Pedophile’s Paradise
Approximately 40% of teenagers in the US use Kik and hence pedophiles are always interested in this app. Also, it is very easy to impersonate a 15-year-old boy for a 40-year-old guy because there is no age verification on Kik. A predator acts like a teenager to come in contact with other teenagers on Kik and later groom and sexually assault them. Also, you can search people by age on Kik which makes it easy for pedophiles to search their next target.
3. Privacy Issue
Like with most other social media apps there is always the risk of privacy with Kik as well. Anyone can record your chats and share them with others. Also, Kik allows access to a total stranger in your inbox which makes it even more problematic especially for kids.
4. Explicit Content
Apart from text messages, you can also send images and videos on Kik. A lot of explicit content including child pornography is circulated on Kik in the form of images and videos. Hence it is not at all safe for 12-year-olds to use this app.
5. Hard To Monitor
There is no parental control on Kik, so it’s hard for you to monitor your kid’s safety on it. Also, you cannot read their messages on your device even if you know their login credentials. When you log in to their account from your device all the chats will be deleted and you won’t be able to read anything. Therefore to monitor your kids on it you will need third-party Kik spy apps.
6. Blocked Users Can Easily Create New Accounts
One of the main reasons why Kik is not safe to use is that you cannot permanently block someone on it. A blocked user can easily create a new account and start bothering you again. They just need a different email ID to create a new Kik account.
How To Be Safe On Kik?
By now you must be familiar with the various dangers of Kik. Let’s have a look at some tips that might help you keep yourself and your kids safe on this particular app.
1. Tell Your Kids To Not Share Anything Personal Online
Kids are innocent, they don’t know the consequence of sharing private data with strangers on Kik or any other social media platform. Being a parent or teacher it is your duty to encourage them to not share personal stuff online with anyone. It can be their phone number, address, and other information. If your kids are well aware then they can be safe on Kik or anywhere else.
2. Don’t Meet Strangers Found On Kik
The other way to keep your kids safe from the dark sides of Kik is to tell them never to meet strangers found on Kik. It is not uncommon that criminals will trick your kids to meet in person and once they meet them in real life they can do anything wrong with them.
3. Not Use Kik
This is the best way you can keep your kids safe from the dangers of Kik. Tell your child that it is not safe to use this app and they should uninstall it from their device as soon as possible.
Is Kik A Safe App? My Take On It
Kik is one of its type messaging app that allows strangers from different parts of the world to chat with others without showing their faces or revealing their identity. This makes it a dangerous app because it provides a medium of communication for scammers and criminals without getting tracked. Therefore according to me, you should not use this app, especially for kids because predators are waiting to groom and sexually assault them on Kik.
FAQs
Is Kik Anonymously Safe?
Yes, Kik is anonymously safe and this is one of its main features.
What Are The Dangers Of Using Kik?
The biggest danger of Kik is that you can not track users on it, they always stay anonymous.
Is Kik Used For Affairs?
Yes, it is the most used app by cheaters for having affairs followed by Snapchat.
