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Invented in the 1930s, one might have thought that the walkie-talkie was an outdated piece of technology. Even though it is still widely used in certain professional circles, it would be hard to imagine the benefit of an application mimicking a walkie-talkie on our smartphones. And yet. This is the goal of the Ten Ten application, launched on April 4. In a short time, it has become very popular, especially among young people. Available on iOS and Android, it has already exceeded one million downloads. You will quickly understand why this is problematic.
A dazzling but controversial success
The application is the brainchild of Antoine Baché, a developer and former student of the 42 engineering school, and Jules Comar, a graduate of Sciences Po Paris and former consultant at McKinsey. The duo now heads around twenty people who worked on the development of Ten Ten. You will see, graduating from 42 and Sciences Po to to create such a marvel for us, it’s quite funny.
The principle of Ten Ten, is intended to’ ;disarmingly simple: after downloading, all you have to do is create a profile with a pseudonym and photograph. It is then possible to add contacts to your directory and communicate instantly with them, even when the application is closed and the screen locked< /strong>. You said intrusive? It's even the master communication element of the application: “sings , shout or whisper… your friends will hear you in real time, even when the phone is locked ! ”. A language, we see, perfectly oriented to seduce the youngest.
On the TikTok application, hundreds of videos of middle or high school students using Ten Ten are already online. They sometimes have fun showing how they use Ten Ten to disrupt classes. A real joy for the teachers. The only way to prevent Ten Ten communications from coming out of the speaker is to put the phone in airplane mode, or do not disturb. Another more radical solution: turn it off completely.
If we wonder what the designers of the application were really thinking at the time of its creation, the misuse that students can make of it is already a concern in itself. Even if some videos on TikTok are staged, there is something for everyone. Middle schoolers who harass others with the help of Ten Ten, others (mostly minors) who ask their community to add them to Ten Ten without even knowing the people concerned and other more or less intelligent videos.
We can already imagine the excesses that could occur with Ten Ten, especially since the creators admit that they have not yet finalized Ten Ten's privacy policy. The risks associated with uncontrolled use of this application are obvious: involuntary dissemination of information relating to private life, ease of dissemination of hateful messages, lack of control over recordings, addiction and social pressure, etc. Ten Ten has at least this merit: that of making us seriously reconsider the ban on smartphones in class.
- Ten Ten, a French application mimicking a walkie-talkie, has exceeded one million downloads since its release in April.
- The principle: being able to talk to your contacts even when the application is turned off and the phone is locked.
- The abuses and risks of this application, particularly among the youngest, appear quite obvious.
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