There are more than 20 million users of the “Wizz” app, which has been marketed as a safe way for kids to make friends. However, many features of the app are similar to dating apps like Tinder. On the Wizz app, you can swipe right or left on people to find “matches,” just like on Tinder. The Wizz has no parental controls and there is little to no way for parents to see what their kids are doing on Wizz. Child predators have remained a perennial part of the Wizz app’s operation ever since the app was first released in 2019.
For example, according to CWB Chicago, a 27 year old man assaulted a 13 year old girl in Chicago after meeting the girl through the Wizz app. This is not the only case of predators using Wizz to find their next victims. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement arrested a 20 year old man for using a computer to solicit sexual photos from a 14 year old girl, posing as a 16 year old boy.
The Wizz age detection AI is meant to stop incidents like this from happening by requiring users of the app to post a selfie to verify their age. However, this system is prone to error. For example, according to the New York Post, a 52 year old man was able to create an account on Wizz as a 15 year old boy. The account was flagged for human review, but moderators manually approved the account within 5 minutes. Employees at Canada’s National Center for Reporting the Sexual Exploitation of Children were able to create accounts as 16 year old males despite being female and more than 23 years old. After a representative from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children contacted Apple and Google about sextortion scams being run on the Wizz app, it was taken off the App Store and Google Play Store briefly, but it was reinstated after about a month.
The people of Baldwin High School have very different opinions about Wizz. Some people had very firm opinions about whether someone should use the app. “If there are ‘pedos’ on the app, you shouldn’t use it.” a student who asked to remain anonymous said. “It is a platform for not serious relationships,” another student said. “You are constantly meeting new people.”
