Talking Angela
Logo for Talking Angela used from January 13, 2014 until March 24, 2021
Developer(s)Outfit7
Publisher(s)Outfit7
SeriesTalking Tom & Friends
Platform(s)iOS, Android, Windows[1] (formerly)
ReleaseiOS: December 18, 2012
Android: January 11, 2013
Windows: August 1, 2015
Genre(s)Entertainment
Mode(s)Single-player

Talking Angela is a videogame app (formerly a chatterbot), developed by Slovenian studio Outfit7 as part of the Talking Tom & Friends series. It was released on November 13, 2012 and January 2012 for iPhone, iPod and iPad, January 2013 for Android, and January 2014 for Google Play.[2] The app's successor, the My Talking Angela app, was released in December 2014.

Paedophile hoax

In February 2014, Talking Angela was the subject of an Internet hoax alleging that the application encouraged children to disclose personal information about themselves, which is ostensibly then used by paedophiles to identify the location of these children. The rumor, which was widely circulated on Facebook and various websites claiming to be dedicated to parenting, claims that Angela, the game's main character, asks the game's user for private personal information using the game's text-chat feature.[3] Other versions of the rumor even attribute the disappearance of a child to the app,[4] or claim that it is run by a paedophile ring, while some go so far as to even claim that the user is recorded by the camera and can be seen in Angela's eyes.[5]

It was debunked by Snopes.com soon afterwards. The site's owners, Barbara and David Mikkelson, reported that they had tried to "prompt" it to give responses asking for private information but were unsuccessful, even when asking it explicitly sexual questions.[3] While it is true that, in the game with child mode off, Angela does ask for the user's name, age and personal preferences to determine conversation topics, Outfit7 has said that this information is all "anonymized" and all personal information is removed from it. It is also impossible for a person to take control of what Angela says in the game, since the app is based on chat bot software.[6]

In 2015, the hoax was revived again on Facebook, prompting online security company Sophos and The Guardian to debunk it again.[7] Sophos employee Paul Ducklin wrote on the company's blog that the message being posted on Facebook promoting the hoax was "close to 600 rambling, repetitious words, despite claiming at the start that it didn’t have words to describe the situation. It's ill-written, and borders on being illiterate and incomprehensible."[8] Bruce Wilcox, one of the game's programmers, has attributed the hoax's popularity to the fact that the chatbot program in Talking Angela is so realistic.[9]

However, genuine concern has been raised that the game's child mode may be too easy for children to turn off, which, if they did, would allow them to purchase "coins", which can be used as currency in the game, via iTunes.[10] Disabling child mode also enables the chat feature, which, while it is not "connecting your children to paedophiles", still raises concerns as well, according to Stuart Dredge, a journalist from The Guardian. Dredge wrote that in chat mode, Angela asks for information such as the user's name.[7]

Impact

The scare has significantly boosted the game's popularity, and is credited with helping the app make it into the top 10 free iPhone apps soon after the hoax became widely known in February 2015[11] and 3rd most popular for all iPhone apps at the start of the following month.[9] By 2016, the chat feature, along with the camera function were removed from the app.[12]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Talking Angela app on Microsoft Store". Microsoft.
  2. ^ "Talking Angela". Outfit7. Retrieved 10 May 2014.
  3. ^ a b Mikkelson, Barbara (19 February 2014). "Talking Angela". Snopes. Retrieved 10 May 2014.
  4. ^ Kovacs, Eduard (24 February 2014). "Talking Angela Hoax: There Is a Man in the Cat's Eyes". Softpedia. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  5. ^ Azar, Kellee (20 February 2014). "Talking Angela app at center of hoax". My Fox DC. Archived from the original on 12 May 2014. Retrieved 11 May 2014.
  6. ^ Lee, Jolie (20 February 2014). "Talking Angela app scare based on a hoax". USA Today. Retrieved 10 May 2014.
  7. ^ a b Dredge, Stuart (20 February 2014). "What the Talking Angela app is really saying to your kids". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 May 2014.
  8. ^ Dredge, Stuart (17 February 2014). "No, the Talking Angela app is not dangerous for your children". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 May 2014.
  9. ^ a b Terdiman, Daniel (1 March 2014). "'Talking Angela' programmer talks hoaxes, AI mastery (Q&A)". CNET. Retrieved 10 May 2014.
  10. ^ Russon, Mary-Ann (20 February 2014). "Why the Talking Angela App is Completely Safe For Your Children". International Business Times. Retrieved 10 May 2014.
  11. ^ Smith, Josh (19 February 2014). "Talking Angela App Scare Skyrockets App to Top of Charts". GottaBeMobile.com. Retrieved 10 May 2014.
  12. ^ O'Rourke, Ciara (14 May 2019). "No, the Talking Angela app isn't secretly taking your child's picture". PolitiFact. Retrieved 21 June 2022. It seems that now the app doesn't have a chatting option at all, regardless of the users' age. A Change.org petition from 2017 complains that even though rumors about the app were false, the option for adults to chat with Angela was removed.
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