White People Create App to Avoid 'Sketchy' Areas Maxwell Strachan - The Huffington Post
go to original August 12, 2014

SketchFactor Teaser (SketchBeGone)

Two white people are launching an app that seeks to help people avoid "sketchy" areas.

That would all be well and good, except that the app depends in large part on a Yelp-like rating system based on the personal views of Americans, a people historically known to mask the occasional racist view behind words like "dangerous" and "drugs."

The app, SketchFactor, will be available on iTunes starting Friday. Its Manhattan-based creators, Allison McGuire and Daniel Herrington, hope that users will rate the "relative sketchiness" of a given area on a five-point scale. The app will also use publicly available data to help complete its sketchiness rankings.

How are we supposed to define "sketchiness"? According to the Team SketchFactor blog, "it means an event that's uncomfortable and out of the ordinary."

Read the rest at The Huffington Pos

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