Is CrushOn AI Safe for Kids? No! Here's Why

If you know Character AI, you may also hear about CrushOn AI, a platform to simulate romantic interactions through AI chatbots.

Well considering the moment you Google the site ‘CrushOn AI’ it explicitly states that it is a ‘No Filter NSFW Character AI Chat’, that should be indicator enough on the type of content and chatbots people can engage in on the site.

It may be okay for adults to use CrushOn AI. However, as parents, you may have a variety of safety concerns if kids use CrushOn AI. Is CrushOn AI safe for kids to engage with?

The short answer is NO! Here’s the review and explanation.

1: What Is CrushOn AI?

As the name suggests, CrushOn AI is a ‘roleplaying’ site that allows users to engage with a variety of AI chatbots that have specific characteristics. For example, we’ve seen several ‘anime-style characters who might be a supervillain, a shy best friend, a mafia boss, or a demon queen.

While Character AI is primarily designed for creating AI characters in various fields, CrushOn AI focuses on simulating romantic interactions and dating scenarios.

When you start a conversation with one of the AI chatbots available on CrushOn AI, that selected themed chatbot will respond to the user as per the description. From there, users can engage and chat with the bot or ‘roleplay’.

The problem for kids is that the ‘theme’ of these chatbots is more often than sexual or otherwise inappropriate. In the next part, we will fully discuss the safety concerns for kids on CrushOn AI.

2: Safety Concerns of CrushOn AI

Now, we will discuss the 5 safe concerns into details. After that, you will better understand whether CrushOn AI is safe for kids and why.

NSFW: No NSFW Character AI Chatbot

Safety Score: ★☆☆☆☆

When talking about AI, NSFW (Not Safe For Work) is always one of the critical factors to consider.

When you Google “CrushOn AI’ on the browser, you will see the website states “No Filter NSFW Character AI Chat”, which typically means the AI chatbots are designed to engage without restrictions on content that may be considered “Not Safe For Work”.

This can include explicit or adult themes, languages, or scenarios, which can be harmful for children.

Additionally, during our initial testing of the CrushOn AI site, we saw an ‘Unfiltered’ toggle. We clicked the toggle and were immediately met with a plethora of NSFW AI character chatbots that were leagues beyond the more ‘innocent’ bots on the homepage.

They do have a ‘Confirm your age’ pop-up to confirm you are over 18 before proceeding, but this was easily bypassed by simply clicking the button. Mind you we had not signed up for an account for the testing phase yet so I was surprised to access these ‘NSFW’ bots so easily.

However, CrushOn AI does not purport itself as a platform that is safe for children to access since a majority of its content is skewed towards NSFW content. But after testing the sign-up process and without age verification, you will see how easily it is to use the website and view the content for kids.

Content Moderation: No Effective Filter and Reporting Policies

Safety Score: ★★☆☆☆

CrushOn AI does have a pretty solid set of Community Guidelines which explicitly state several important key points. They mention they will review and take action against content that goes against their guidelines. After reviewing their community guidelines, we’re doubly sure it is not a safe space for children.

Here’s a list of the included content that goes against their community guidelines:

• Illegal Activities
• Malicious Use
• Hate Speech
• Misinformation
• Personal and Confidential Information
• Account Hijacking
• Child Exploitation
• Misinformation
• Spam
• Sexually Explicit Material
• Imagery of Sexual Activity
• Fetish Content
• Beastiality
• Non-Consensual Sexually Explicit Material
• Harassment and Bullying
• ...

While the list does seem comprehensive, there are some obvious loopholes. In the ‘Sexually Explicit Material’ clause, this only really bans ‘real images’ or ‘overly realistic AI-generated’ images.

They also allow exposed nipples, fully nude buttocks or visible anus, and nude female genitalia. Considering that already these aspects are allowed, is enough to gauge that CrushOn AI is not safe for children.

Age Restrictions: 18+ but Lack of Age Verification

Safety Score: ★☆☆☆☆

Firstly, the platform already states that it is intended only for an 18+ audience. When we initially tested the platform without an account, we were not able to send messages or interact with any of the chatbots.

Our next step was to create an account and see if they required any age verification. We used the ‘Google Sign-in’ option to test this out. Using Google to create an account, we were immediately able to create the account without any need for age verification.

CrushOn AI offers several ways to log in: Google account, Apple account, Discord account, or email address, and it doesn’t require any age verification, so we will see how easy it is to set up an account without requiring additional input about the user. That means that teen and children under 18 will be able to use CrushOn AI easily.

This is a risk when the website claims to be available only to users 18 and older, it doesn’t feature any age verification for the users. Teens and children can easily access the platform and be exposed to inappropriate content.

User Data Protection: Excessive Data Collection

Safety Score: ★★★☆☆

Besides being a potential safety concern for children engaging with inappropriate content, there is another big concern regarding user data protection. This relates to what data CrushOn collects, how it’s used, and other causes for concern.

In particular, CrushOn collects a wide swath of sensitive user information including:

• Audio/Visual data
• Contact data
• Device/network data
• Financial data
• General location data
• Health data
• Identity data
• Inference data
• Transaction data
• User content
• Consumer health data

For the most part, the data collected by CrushOn is industry standard like general location from your IP, financial and transaction data for purchasing subscriptions on their platform, etc.

However, the one abnormal here is their collection of Health data. This includes information about the users’ mental health, gender-affirming care, reproductive/sexual health, and psychological, and behavioral data, among others.

The bigger problem is this information is also shared with third parties and affiliates which is a big red flag. The Mozilla Foundation report https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/crushon-ai/ also highlights many concerns about the platform: "CrushOn can also collect personal data automatically from your device and from third parties (like social media and service providers). And CrushOn can use all those kinds of personal information for “Commercial Purposes" which includes ads and marketing.”

Your NSFW chats might have really sensitive information in CrushOn AI but doesn't seem to treat that data differently in any way. This causes a potential risk for our data. Your data may be sold to other third-parties.

Parental Control: Lack of Parental Control

Safety Score: ☆☆☆☆☆

CrushOn AI is only available for users who are above the age of 18. But as seen through our testing, without any solid age verification methods, this rule is easily circumvented.

And since the platform is intended to be used by an 18+ audience, there are no built-in parental control features to help filter out their content.

As parents who want to safeguard children’s only activities, there are risks if kids use CrushOn AI and parents have no idea how to protect them.

3: Is CrushOn AI Safe for Kids?

According to our test and review, CrushOn AI is not safe for kids. Contrary to other AI chatbot platforms that are a little more kid-friendly, CrushOn AI explicitly states that it is NSFW-oriented and is only meant to be used by people over the age of 18.

Here are a couple of reasons why we think the platform is not safe for children to use:

1. From the home page itself, it contains many images and scenes that are not suitable for children, full of sexual-innuendo images and descriptions.

2. A majority of the AI chatbot characters and content on the site are inappropriate for kids to chat with. Many of these chatbots are trained to act a certain way and can include sexual content that is not age-appropriate. Even though many of the characters are ‘animated’, they are suggestive and not suitable for kids to chat with.

3. The platform has ‘group chats’ which include other real humans chatting along with the same AI chatbot. This can lead to unwanted interactions with other (possibly adult) people.

4. Lacking any real ‘age verification’ methods to dissuade or filter out children from accessing their site and content.

5. Possible user data leakage or misuse of user data. Considering the amount and types of information CrushOn AI collects, this can be a potential security risk if your children provide sensitive information to the platform.

In addition, chatting with AI chatbots can be addicted, if children spend too much on the platform, considering children’s mental development, they can not tell between the reality and internet.

According to CBS News, there was a real-life case where a 14-year-old boy used another platform - Character AI, alleging sexed-up AI bots, conducted a virtual romantic and sexual relationship with one chatbot and tragically shot himself in the head.

"It's words. It's like you're having a sexting conversation back and forth, except it's with an AI bot, but the AI bot is very human-like. It's responding just like a person would," the boy’s mom said. "In a child's mind, that is just like a conversation that they're having with another child or with a person...He thought by ending his life here, he would be able to go into a virtual reality or 'her world' as he calls it, her reality, if he left his reality with his family here,"

All in all, CrushOn AI is definitely not safe for kids to use. It’s recommended to safeguard your kids and stay away from this platform. While children may be accidentally use the app or website, it’s always recommended to block the website or application on your child’s phone.

Bonus: How to Monitor Child's Online Safety

In order to monitor your child’s online activities so that they can stay away from websites or content that are inappropriate in their age, consider tools that can help you keep an eye on your child’s activities online.

Software like AirDroid Parental Control can help you monitor and control your child’s online browsing and downloading applications, and stay informed with real-time alerts when your child tries to access a blocked app.

Here’s how to block apps/websites like CrushOn AI on your child’s phone using AirDroid Parental Control:

Step 1. Download and install AirDroid Parental Control on your phone, and install AirDroid Kids app on the child’s phone.

Step 2. Create an account and follow the on-screen wizard to sign in and tie up two devices.

Step 3. If you want to block accessing specific apps, tap ‘App & Content Restrictions’, then tap ‘App Blocker’ to block any apps that are not suitable for children.

Step 4. If you want to prevent your child from accessing websites like CrushOn AI, install AirDroid Browser, and add crushon.ai to the blacklist.

By doing so, you can protect your child from inappropriate applications or content and protect them in safe online space.

Conclusion

At its core, CrushOn AI is not a ‘bad’ platform since for adults, it can be a useful tool to communicate with ‘someone’ and not feel lonely. For children, however, the platform is notably not safe for them to use since they can easily be exposed to NSFW content.

Not to mention the platform’s seemingly ‘shady’ data usage tactics which makes us question whether the site is truly safe to use for anyone at all.

As a TL;DR, your kids should steer clear of CrushOn AI.