How to Stay Safe on Kik

Safety Teams at your favorite platforms work hard to ensure that you and your content are protected. The following post was written by the safety team at Kik to provide you with their top tips on staying safe online.

At Kik, we take online safety very seriously. We believe that our users need to feel safe and respected when they use our services, and we’re continuously assessing and improving our trust and safety measures. Here are some quick tips on how to balance having a great experience on Kik and making the right choices to stay safe online:

1. Only chat with people you feel comfortable talking to.

When someone first messages you on Kik, their message will appear in your ‘New Chats’ section and any photos or videos they send will be blurred. If you don’t want to see new messages from people you don’t know, you don’t have to! You can choose to ignore, block, or report a new person right from the ‘New Chats’ section.

2. Keep your personal information private.

We definitely want you to make new friends on Kik. However, we don’t recommend sharing personal information with them, like your address, phone number, or password. Additionally, on Kik (and with all your other social media and chat apps) it’s possible for someone to send you a link that can be used to collect your personal information. If you’re sent a link that you don’t recognize, do not not to click on it, and if you do, make sure not to enter any of your personal information on the site.

3. Block people who you no longer want to chat with.

If you’ve been chatting with someone and you decide you no longer want to talk to them, or if they start to make you feel uncomfortable, you can block them from ever contacting you again.

Don’t worry, you can choose to unblock them at any time (just go into your block list and tap ‘Unblock’).

4. If something bad happens, speak up.

Unfortunately, receiving unwanted messages is a risk with any communications platform. If something inappropriate or abusive happens towards you on Kik, please feel free to use our in-app reporting feature, and we’ll do our best to address the issue as soon as possible. You can also reach out to our Trust & Safety team to report a safety-related issue, by emailing safety@kik.com.

We’ve proudly partnered with Thorn, an organization committed to leveraging technology in order to combat online child exploitation, accelerate victim identification, and protect vulnerable children. We’re excited to support Thorn’s Stop Sextortion campaign, which is aimed at de-stigmatizing and creating awareness for online sexual extortion. Check out the the video that was created to help bring awareness to subjects like sextortion, as well as staying safe online.

5. Use your best judgment.

Go with your gut – if you think sending something or talking to someone is a bad idea, you’re probably right. Just in case, it’s always a good idea to review our Terms of Service and Community Standards to learn what behavior we do and don’t allow on Kik. If you don’t want to chat with someone anymore, you don’t have to 🙂

If you’re experiencing sextortion, remember: you’re not alone. The good news is that you can handle this, you’re going to be okay. So, take a few deep breaths and check out some resources here.

If you need help now, text “THORN” to 741741, and a trained Crisis Text Line counselor will be there to support you anonymously.

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