Social app Skout suspends teen community after rape allegations

13.06.2012
Skout, which offers a social networking app for iPhone and Android devices, has suspended temporarily access to its teen community, after three cases of alleged rape involving adults posing as teenagers on the network were reported.

The app to flirt, find a date, or discover new friends "at the local neighborhood bar, at a concert at Madison Square Garden or on a bus tour in Barcelona."

Skout said in a on Tuesday that it had set up its teen community for people aged under 18 about a year ago after it found a number of underage users were entering the community meant for people older than 18.

In each of the alleged rape cases, the men are accused of posing as teenagers in a Skout forum for 13 to 17-year-olds, The New York Times on Tuesday.

A 15-year-old Ohio girl said she had been raped by a 37-year-old man, while in another case, a 24-year-old man is accused of raping a 12-year-old girl in Escondido, California, the newspaper said. In the third case, a 21-year-old man from Waukesha, Wisconsin, is facing charges that he sexually assaulted a 13-year-old boy.

"We actively monitor and screen to ensure that the two separate communities for users 18+ and for teen users are kept distinct and that behavior is age-appropriate," Christian Wiklund, founder and CEO of Skout said in the blog post.