It’s a Revolutionary Idea in Social Media
Clubhouse is essentially an audio based social app where communication among members happens in audio chat rooms. These rooms can be either a closed one, or open and accommodate thousands of people.
Right now you can only join it through invite, but eventually it will be made available to all. When it was launched, it was only available for iPhone users. However, from May 2021, it also became available for android users.
It’s a type of social media platform where you can jump in or jump out from an ongoing discussion at any point. In that sense, it works like a podcast. The app was originally launched for celebrities, and those who joined this platform are Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah, Kevin O’ Leary, Malcolm Gladwell, and MC Hammer.
Mark Zuckerberg is a frequent visitor to this app and has used this platform for discussing issues on Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality.
In January 2021, the app was valued at 100 million US $ which is incredible especially after considering the fact that it wasn’t even a year old at that time. However, Clubhouse has also been in the news because of abuses, slurs, and racial comments by the celebrity users.
Previously, the app claimed that the content will be regulated on the platform to ensure quality but the way people use foul language, it’s obvious users are having a free hand on this audio platform.
When the app was launched last year, the owners claimed that eventually it will be also available to commoners, but till date the joining happens strictly on invite. It’s understood that for the time being the app will maintain its status, and will gradually develop a capacity where it can handle a large user base. Till that happens, potential users can only download and reserve their IDs.
Last month, I saw a post on Connect app, an Indian social media platform, where a user claimed that personal details of around four million users were leaked by Clubhouse. That was quite surprising considering that Clubhouse is one of the most secure social apps.
Clubhouse Denies Data Leakage
I started checking every-news related to data leak. There are many reports on social media channels like Facebook, and Twitter that the data of Clubhouse users has been leaked. One of the tweets went as far as suggesting that millions of phone numbers of Clubhouse users are up for sale on the dark web.
However, the company that manages Clubhouse made a statement in July that there has been no data breach. Clubhouse emphasised on the fact that it continues to follow security practices as privacy and security aspects are of utmost importance to Clubhouse.
Different People Different Opinion
One of the spokespersons of Clubhouse said that by using artificial intelligence means a large number of phone numbers are released. Then in late July Jiten Jain, the leading cyber security expert said on Twitter that phone numbers of a large number of Clubhouse users are up for sale on the darknet. He also shared a screenshot which showed that a hacker is all set to put this data on auction in the coming September.
The data also included the number of synced contacts that users had in their phone books. Therefore, the probability is quite high that your phone number would also be included. Even if you do not have a Clubhouse app on your mobile. This is indeed scary.
However, a leading expert in cyber security admitted that news of data leak has no substance because the data in question contained just phone numbers and that too without names.
According to him, there are no names, photos or any other important details in that particular data. Anyone can easily make such a list of phone numbers and claim anything. Therefore, the purported data leak claim seems fake.
Clubhouse has recently done away with its waitlist system, and those who intend to join this app can do it without any problem. It also revealed that after the arrival of the Android version, over 10 million new users have joined Clubhouse. It was actually a ploy on the part of Clubhouse to convince other users that everything is just fine and people shouldn’t be worried about security aspects.
To ensure that their audio chat room is open to all, recently, Clubhouse also dropped their invite-only system. Clubhouse has also made a statement that no user identifiable information is returned by the API. However, the report of the leak has definitely made its millions of users jittery.
