The app under discussion encouraged users to meet in private circles during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Vybe Together app, which promoted independent group gatherings, has been removed from the Apple App Store, got banned from its account in TikTok, and scrubbed most of its online presence, with the app’s creators telling The Verge that Apple had banned it.
What Is The App About?
Vybe Together billed itself on TikTok and its website as a place to organise and attend mostly illegal parties in contravention of social distancing laws, using the tagline “Get your rebel on. Get your party on.”.
“Miss playing beer pong, flirting with strangers, and generally just having a blast with the crew? Vybe is here for you,” the website read.
How It Worked?
The app has allowed people to create private events “no randoms will appear” on. Users can then apply for event invitations, hoping that the host will find them “interesting” enough for them to agree.
Once listed, visitors would wait to receive details of the location two hours before the start of the event.
One of the founders of Vybe Together said the app has a few thousand users, and that a few thousand more applicants have requested access since the company started publishing videos on TikTok.
The app’s FAQ page – now deleted – acknowledged that Covid-19 was “a major health problem in the country, our communities, our friends and family”, but said the app was designed to promote “smaller circles” rather than “large groups”, which it described as “dangerous”.
“But Vybe is a compromise […] We could be living, at least a little during these times with Vybe.”
It is not yet clear whether the app – which has only a few hundred followers on Instagram – has strongly encouraged illegal or unsafe circles, although it did encourage “weekly meetings” on the TikTok video.
Creators of Vybe Together have been contacted for comment. Their Instagram account also includes a message: “The App Store has taken us down !!! We will be back !! ”
