What happened to Holla app and why is it not available on the App Store?

Holla is a popular social networking app that allows people to connect and video chat with random strangers from all around world. It comes with live swipe cards and instant video chats which allow users to meet people nearby and hang out with m offline. app offers both voice chats and video chats along with regular text chat before users can finally meet up.

And while most of conversations may stay clean, a number of users have reported widespre profanity on platform. Several reports also complained about lewd behaviour and nudity on app.

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What happened to Holla app?

According to a Washington Post investigation, re have been well over 1,500 complaints that were me against popular social networking apps available on Apple’s App Store. Most of se complaints were based around unwanted sexual approaches, with some of m also targeting children. This was in contrast to how Apple prominently markets App Store as a safe and trusted place for its users.

A majority of se complaints h to do with popular social media apps that connected strangers in video conversations, also kwn as “random chat apps". Holla was one of six apps investigated and it turned out that re have been numerous complaints of unwanted sexual approaches on platform.

post was able to identify App Store reviews which h complaints of unwanted sexual content, racism and bullying using a machine learning algorithm. investigation h scanned more than 130,000 reviews of six random chat apps that were among top 100 ranked social networking apps by Apple during that month. Post h gone through over a thousand reviews that h mentions of uncomfortable sexual situations.  social networking apps that were part of investigation were apps like Monkey, ChatLive, Chat for Strangers, Skout and Yubo.

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Why is Holla t on App Store?

It was learnt that Holla, along with Monkey, Chat for Strangers and ChatLive, offered roulette-style chats. se are kind of chats that automatically place users in conversations with or people at random. On or hand, Skout and Yubo also allowed people to connect with strangers; however, it was found that y provided more control to users over whom y wanted to connect with. Holla app was later removed from App Store; however, it h promised users that it will be back very soon to offer a better experience to its users.

As per Phillip Shoemaker, who is former Apple’s director of App Store review, h stated that entire category of random chat apps or chat roulette was banned during his time with  company. According to someone familiar with Apple’s guidelines,  reason why apps like Holla and Monkey among ors were allowed on App Store was se apps h used certain content moderation and or safeguards.

While Holla app has been removed from App Store, it is still available on Google Play Store and has over 10,000,000 installations.

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Im credits: Chill with Holla | Twitter