Your Facebook Photos Could be at Risk Thanks to Creepy 'Pikinis' App

Pikinis is an iPhone app that claims it is a “fun new way to follow and *enjoy* your friends’ summer photos.”

Summer photos? What do you mean by this, Pikinis?

If you hadn’t guessed or worked it out from that pun-tastic name, then let me break it down for you.

This app, apparently uses algorithms to sort through your friends' Facebook photos to filter out the bikini shots.

Unfortunately for the creeps, the photos for Pikinis will only come from Facebook. Poor them, because we know all the best beach pics are put on Instagram, doy? As if this wasn’t limiting enough, after the initial 20 friends you can “DOWNLOAD” on Pikinis, you can only do a further 5 friends per week. Oh, what a shame.

Long story short, this app makes me sick. If it really was just about seeing “summer photos” then I would question the “gender preferences.”

I would also question the app’s made up verb “to pineapple: you pineapple, we pineapple, we all pineapple.” You can pineapple a picture, which basically means save it in your personal collection of bikini shots.

And guess what? 

Pineappling is top secret, so you can pineapple away and nobody will ever know.

Why would anyone want to pineapple a picture for later…? Oh wait.. right... yeah, I see.  

pikinis.com

The worrying part about Pikinis is, we have all uploaded pictures of us in the summer time. Whether we are male or female, we have all put them out there. Before there was nothing to stop people downloading them and saving them in their personal fun bank, but there also wasn’t a tool to help them do it efficiently.  

Unless you’ve aced your privacy settings, you could be at risk here. I know I’m going home, downloading the app on my boyfriend’s phone and hunting myself down to make sure I’m in the clear.

There are pictures of my friends in my pictures and apparently they will show up for people too?!  What about young people in your photos? This doesn’t sit right with me folks, I’m telling you.

It just doesn’t feel consensual, somehow.

I know pervs are gonna perv, but why on earth is anybody making it easier for them? Why are there men (yes the creator was a guy) who are trying to normalise pervin’ and creepin’? WHY?

I really hope that me writing about this app doesn’t encourage anybody I know to download it, but I have little faith in many men on my Facebook. 

Don’t get me wrong, I don't want to offend anyone and I'm sure women are involved in this and enjoying the pics of men in their swim shorts. 

But at the end of the day, the app is named after the female’s swimming garment, the logo includes a bra and the website features an image of a torso and lower half of a female.  So let’s face it, who’s the target audience for this app?

It’s not on and I can’t believe an app like this has been released. As a woman, I will be thinking twice about what I upload this summer. I hope you do too. 

Facebook just got dangerous.

Megan Herdson

Megan is a country girl who moved to the city with some big dreams. She is studying her MA in Creative Writing whilst also managing an American Football Team.  She loves her blog and wants nothing more than to have her words read. That and to win the Championship, obviously. Follow her @MeganAtSMF

 

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