The clubhouse is an invite-only social media platform where users can create digital “rooms,” and host live, audio-only lectures, courses, etc. Users can create their profile through its tidy interface and then join and create different “clubs” and rooms within it.
One of the biggest privacy concerns that Clubhouse faces is that anyone can potentially record a room and stream the content elsewhere. Clubhouse has been criticized for lacking adequate moderation measures to keep its users safe. Just like all free internet tools, users risk sharing their data and information with Clubhouse as well.
Let’s Know if Is it safe to share contact with Clubhouse?
Whenever users sign up on Clubhouse or any other app for that matter should take a close look at the terms of service and privacy policies. When joining Clubhouse, users sign up and invite other users through a text message. Clubhouse has access to one’s phone’s contact if it is allowed permission to sync with the mobile device. It can upload one’s contacts and important information from one’s phone if it is permitted.
Clubhouse’s user recommendation engine relies on access to one’s contacts. Once we give the app access to our contacts, it will show us, everyone from our contact list who is on Clubhouse. Like all standard social media apps, Clubhouse will also urge us to invite those who are not on it and let us know whenever someone from our contacts has joined Clubhouse.
But one of the most decisive privacy concerns the app faces is that even if we did not give Clubhouse access to our contacts, the app could make it possible for our contacts to know that we use Clubhouse. It also encourages our contact list to follow us. What’s even worse is that even if we don’t have someone’s contact number, but they have our number. That person(s) will also be notified when we join the app and recommend following us.
This is not something that only Clubhouse does, though. Most social media platforms are also quite aggressive with their connection recommendations. But most of these platforms have a set of settings and we can keep our profile reasonably locked. Nor do we have to link our phone number with most of the other social media platforms like Facebook, for instance.
Clubhouse at present does not have such privacy options. It has been criticised for having inadequate moderation tools, which can allow misinformation and hate speech to spread.
Although Clubhouse provides exciting opportunities for audio-based creators and helps one keep up with the latest social media trends, it still needs some security adjustments on codes and policy to ensure users’ privacy. For the time being, we can wait for a stable version of the app and see if the issues mentioned earlier are resolved.
