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Porn platform poses as a snack delivery app on iOS

Porn is illegal in China, so one porn platform is hiding in plain sight

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Porn platform poses as a snack delivery app on iOS
Masha Borak
This article originally appeared on ABACUS

At first glance, the app Love Snacks appears to be a family-friendly online store for ordering nuts and dried fruit. But once downloaded from the iOS App Store in China, the app suddenly becomes a platform for pornography and gambling.

This isn’t a one-off: We found another app pulling the same trick, offering content illegal in China while pretending to be something else.

As first reported by Chinese state-owned media outlet Beijing News, the apps offer access to a platform filled with pornographic material called Rich Kids. Originally named Guochan Fuerdai (meaning “China-made second-generation rich”), Beijing News said it was also disguised as a river monitoring app and an alarm clock app.
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Abacus was able to find and download both Love Snacks and River Flow Control System on the iOS App Store in China before they were taken down. Both apps had names, icons, descriptions and screenshots that did not match what was contained inside: Sexually explicit content.

Rich Kids, a platform focusing on peddling gambling and porn, was hiding under innocuous apps for monitoring river flow and ordering snacks. (Picture: Apple iOS App Store/Rich Kids)
Rich Kids, a platform focusing on peddling gambling and porn, was hiding under innocuous apps for monitoring river flow and ordering snacks. (Picture: Apple iOS App Store/Rich Kids)
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Apps must pass a review by Apple before they even make it to the iOS store, a process that has become notorious for the company’s strict adherence to its rules -- rules that appear to have been broken in this case. For example, App Store Review Guidelines ban pornographic material and inaccurate screenshots. 

By Tuesday, both listings identified by Abacus were no longer available in the iOS App Store in China. We reached out to Apple, asking them about the removed apps and their App Store Review process, but have yet to hear a response.

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