Internet security company tells Giggle that they dont support their terf views but want to help resolve a security problem - and get a great reply!

[stumbledin]

Digital Interruption — founded by Jahmel Harris and Saskia Coplans in 2017 — sent Giggle an initial DM, explaining that they represented a “cyber security company in the UK” and had “discovered some issues with the Giggle app.”

Two days later, they had not had a reply, so they tried contact Giggle publicly on Twitter, with the caveat that they “disagree with a lot of the views” of Giggle’s founder Sall Grover; a self-declared “Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist” (TERF).

“Negatively evaluating my views which are in favor of females when you want to talk about security on a female app is not a great way to start a business conversation. No thank you,” came the prompt response; followed with the comment that “Giggle HQ has a security team. We don’t need random Twitter people. Move along.”

(Grover says in a Medium blog that Giggle, launched with her mother, was “inspired, in part, by my experiences as a screenwriter in Hollywood. I was there for almost 10 years. I experienced sexual abuse, assault and harassment”).

www.cbronline.com/news/responsible-disclosure-giggle-security-bug

The biggest issues with the Giggle app is that 1) whilst they say it's female only, their definition of females includes transgirls and transwomen. TWAW is better than TWAF! 2) There's a part of the app which allows girls to connect with 'Mentors' to support with career choices. One of those choices is 'Sex Work'.

The whole platform is a con.

There's a good thread in it here:

twitter.com/adulthumanfem10/status/1284062222155644929?s=21

When Giggle is telling Mums that the app is a safe female only daughters yet is accepting boys and men (and there is no way to verify age), then it's scary stuff. I'd go further to add that it might be making fraudulent claims.

Also, 'sex work'?
Giggle don't even have the guts to call it prostitution. This app needs to be called out for what it is. A potential grooming site.

^^ Terrible writing and grammar there, sorry!

I'm not posting this to support giggle but just as a point of interest that the whole I must tell everyone how woke I am has now taken over the tech companies as a way of soliciting business!

As to the are trans women welcome, I dont know, but as you have to send a selfie that is then assessed by a software programme to see how female you are, and most trans women dont pass, has meant it has been accused of being transphobic!

How do we maintain a female only space?

The aim is to create a safe and secure female only platform. Each time a new user attempts to register on the app, they are asked to take a “selfie”. This image is then sent via an API call to our partner, Kairos.

Kairos is a leading face recognition AI company with an ethical approach to verification, that reflects our globally diverse communities. Through computer vision and deep learning, they recognise females in videos, photos, and the real world.

In less than a second, the image is analysed. The AI does this by comparing the image in question with thousands of other images. From this, it determines the likelihood of the subject being female at a stated confidence level, based on the bank of past results. This information is received as a Json string showing the percentage likelihood of the subject being either male or female.

We have set the image confidence level at 95% for a female.

The image is also subjected to a “liveness” algorithm. The algorithm detects pixel-level patterns in a single selfie taken by the end-user. In this way, a user attempting to access giggle by taking the “selfie” of a female photograph is rejected, and access to the app is withheld by a kind message advising that they have not been verified.

Giggle has no need for facial recognition. The app does not call for facial recognition, and does not record personal identity to any image. The privacy of our users is paramount.

If you are experiencing any difficulty, Giggle HQ can help you! Contact us here.

joinagiggle.com/faq/

I don't really know what your response above means, as I'm not sure which is your text and what has been copied and pasted from the Giggle site. Sall herself has admitted to transwomen getting through the AI validation (apparently just recently they've behaved inappropriately so she has apparently booted them out) and has also said that if transwomen don't then the workaround is to contact Giggle who will let them in.

The whole thing is a farce. What worries me is that she is engaging with girls in developing countries, leading them to believe the site is a Girl Guides-esque platform. (Which I guess is apt as in the U.K. they too accept transgirls without consent from other girls).

I'm quite surprised at this. Sal is openly gender critical on twitter, which obviously carries huge risks for a female. Why would she do this when being woke is 1000 times safer? She comes across as genuine - perhaps as someone who only came to these issues recently, which I relate to! Aaargh what's going on?!

research.digitalinterruption.com/2020/09/10/giggle-laughable-security/

Read this, especially if you're on the app. The way that Giggle handled this is extremely worrying.

Aaargh what's going on?!
I feel like this about Sal and Giggle too. I can't decide if it's a personal/work split. So Giggle's position is TWAW and pro-sex work but her personal position is vocally gender critical. I agree with a lot of her posts on Twitter but don't support Giggle.

I have a bit of an issue because I can never tell whether a woman is being the target of misogynists, especially in the tech industry, or there are genuine concerns. I wish I could feel assured either way.

Anyone????

I don't know exactly what is going on with Sal and Giggle but I got the impression she wasn't GC at first, but got so viciously attacked by TRAs for that deeply invalidating application use of facial recognition software that she became somewhat GC - there might also have been some opportunism there as GC women are a good market for a woman-only social network.

The security company also posted about it on Linked In:

www.linkedin.com/pulse/shooting-messenger-story-vulnerability-disclosure-jahmel-harris/

I'm pretty GC but there have been a few instances where GC people on Twitter have had very knee jerk reactions to things and come off looking quite silly.

As for this app; in theory it sounds good but I believe it uses facial recognition for access which IMO is a bit dodgy.

I have a bit of an issue because I can never tell whether a woman is being the target of misogynists, especially in the tech industry, or there are genuine concerns.

The security concerns that researcher raised are genuine, and quite scary.

The particular problem she found has been fixed now but the extent of the problem and the way that Sal reacted to it being pointed out are concerning.

I was pretty sure she specifically said that trans people were not permitted.

DivaEx

"I'm pretty GC but there have been a few instances where GC people on Twitter have had very knee jerk reactions to things and come off looking quite silly."
I agree with you on this, but I don't think this is the case here. I feel the owner has been gas-lighting the whole time.

It's a really difficult situation - whilst the owner does seem to be very GC on twitter, there are red flags everywhere.. Have a look at some of the screenshots in that Twitter post. She DOES think that transgirls are girls. From when I last looked, she was accepting transwomen who'd had had facial fem surgery, but not transmen.

Just checked - her FAQs have changed again since yesterday.

Sall - if you are reading this; if you made it clear in your FAQs that the following is the truth, you may not be getting such a hard time on social media. We do know that you have said TWAW and that transwomen are welcome 1000% on the site but it is very confusing when you write that it's a female only space.

I would encourage my DD to join if there was a statement along the lines of:

1. "This is a single-sex platform for age 16+ females only. Transwomen and trangirls are not allowed, and any which are currently using the app will be removed by the mods immediately".

And perhaps remove the mentoring capability for minors to be advised on prostituion as a career choice? That is particularly disgusting.

Whilst the security issues are concerning. I have never heard of a company to be called out publicly for not replying after 2 days, I've seen researchers get frustrated after 3-6 months of multiple attempts via multiple routes and only them resort to publicly call the company out. I wonder what was different this time

Also highly unusual for a vulnerability to be accompanied by a personal attack on the legal views of the founder, I wonder what was different this time so I'm unsurprised Sal thought they were trolling.

Tech Security industry is incredibly toxic in its attitudes to women then they wonder why women leave the industry in droves

I'm sure I saw a post from her specifically stating trans women were not eligible to join so this is confusing. Am off to see if I can find it....

Sorry if the bit I quoted wasn't obviously a quote, but I thought the sub heading "How do we maintain a female only space?" so clearly wasn't me that what followed was the explanation of how they did that.

However, as I said up thread I started it because I was interested that a tech company touting for business would feel it necessary to publicly state how woke they are.

But from the subsequent posts it does seem that the site / app giggle is not at all clear, or is being deliberately evasive in saying who it is actually for.

But as it is Australian (?) based and given recent rulings I doubt they could say it is for biological women only.

Does Australia have an EA with a protected characteristic element of sex.

It would be a shame if an online space that could provide young women with a safe space gets bogged down in endless sniping.

But then of course that is one of the tactics of the TWAW game. You just wear people down who are wanting to get on with things and think sacrificing women only autonomy is not worth taking a stand over.

@DisillusionedTech I agree with everything you have said. Even by the tech company's timeline, there was only 2 to 3 days between them raising an issue and the issue being resolved.
Their 'statement' also read to me that the tech company didn't actually access other user's details. They assumed there weren't any other safeguards but didn't do a deep dive because they weren't contracted to do so. I think Sal's response to all of it was fine.

It sounds like the security issue was real, and sall/giggle initially didn't take it seriously. Partly because she has to wade through so much communication telling her that how she runs the platform is wrong (I follow her on twitter & she's criticised for being woman only, being too trans inclusive, not being trans inclusive enough, and for the stuff about sex workers...) and some of the tactics have come in the guise of people making false claims about security. According to the article on feminist current anyway. I expect the first tweet looked to her like another techy type having a go at her for being gc. But really they should not have dismissed it out of hand because it's too important. A quick look at the company shows they are a serious outfit, not just a twitter random. Giggle is responsible for their users' data so should have dealt with it much differently initially. But at least now it's rectified and I'm sure she will know for the future.

If she wants to make the service available to trans women as well as women I have no problem with that because it's clear from the terms of service.

Stumbledin I don't think they were touting for business. well I guess it raises their reputation & they hope to get work out of it, but it wasn't a case of 'we have found a security issue, please employ us to tell you about it and fix it'.

Can't make head or tail of all that.