Has the world’s most popular app got a dark side? 

Reports have emerged this week which give cause for concern and pause for thought in regard to the world’s most popular app. Yolo, which is an app developed for Snapchat which allows users to anonymously ask other Snap users questions, has rocketed to the top of both the App Store and Google Play in recent days.

However, despite its millions of downloads and huge surge in popularity seemingly out of nowhere, the world’s number on app could have a dark side according to a warning from the charity NSPCC.

As Yolo affords the user asking the question anonymity, experts are concerned that it could be used to abuse or exploit youngsters.

NSPCC's associate head of child safety online, Andy Burrows says the app may even be a breach of Snapchat’s own duty of care to its users. He told newspaper reporters, "Apps such as Yolo that allow anonymous comments could be easily misused to send abusive or upsetting messages.

"Snapchat should justify how this app meets their duty of care to children.

"It's essential that the Government brings in an independent regulator that will have the powers to make tech companies consider the risks that their services present for children.

“We recently issued a warning on our Net Aware site, which we created with O2, about anonymous apps as they are starting to rise in popularity again amongst children."

The Yolo app was developed by SnapKit, which allows developers to create their own apps and plug ins to integrate with the main Snapchat app. This means that Snapchat could be forced to answer questions about potential misuse of Yolo or take a firmer stance when it comes to policing SnapKit creations.

Yolo has spread like wildfire since it was released, with millions of Snapchat users downloading the app. Once installed on a mobile device, the user can send questions anonymously to any other Snapchat user. The recipient can post their response to the anonymous question directly to their Snapchat story as they would any other update, meaning all Snapchat connections for that person can see the response. With Stories the main driving force of Snapchat, the posting of the response is a clever way for Yolo to spread the word and market directly to its user base.

Neither Yolo’s developers or Snapchat itself has yet publicly commented on the concerns raised by the NSPCC.