Concerned about "sokoon.xyz" and similar sites marketing to teens or vulnerable people
I'm not anti-AI, in fact, I use AI constantly, in many areas of my life including personal self-reflection. Also, to be clear, I have nothing against AI therapy -- for the right person, I think it's an incredible idea, and I'm excited to see where this space will move. However, there's something that's genuinely disturbing to me, and I'll use the example in a site I recently saw on this subreddit: sokoon.xyz. Here's some concerns with it (among many):
The site appears to be marketing itself specifically to teens (SEO title for sokoon.xyz is literally sokoon — AI Therapy for Teens | Free 24/7 Mental Health Support. screenshot
meta description (for search engine manipulation) keeps making use of the word "free", though they are not free. Lies. (not free)
<meta name="keywords" content="sokoon ai, sokoon therapy, ai therapist, free online therapy, online therapy free, therapy ai, ai therapy, ai therapist chatbot, ai therapist free, mental health, online therapy, therapy app, counseling, mental health support, confidential therapy, anxiety, depression, accessible therapy, Sokoon, sokoon ai, sokoon therapy, sokoon ai therapist, sokoon ai therapy, sokoon ai therapist chatbot, sokoon ai therapist free, journal, free journal, reflective journal, ai journal" data-rh="true">
Their contact email is not professional (not an "admin@", "talk@", etc. but literally someone's first name). Serious vibecoding energy
their linkedin lists "6 employees" all in the UAE
No information anywhere on the page for pricing, just a refund policy in the footer (which clearly shows it's not "Free" despite the bs in their
metatags).faq lists that you must be 13 or older to use their site. Not 18. Come on guys...
The
.xyzdomain, parallax scrolling, disabling of right-click, and unprofessional email give serious vibe coding energy. Are any of these guys professional SWEs? Why do I feel like someone asked AI to put a website together? Though in fairness the basic site does not seem to be an html/inline css/console log disaster like some others. So perhaps not.
This website seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen. I don't like it.
What bugs me: I have seen several sites (all linked from this subreddit actually), that appear to be:
someone's pet project that they likely coded with AI (full of bugs, shitty design patterns, endless inline css -- good god, AI and its love for it...). What this tells me: likely someone who does not even have background in a healthcare space, mental health space, or even software ffs. Also more concerning -- like fuck if I would trust any info with such a site, as it's likely got security holes you could drive a fucking lorry through. Please people, do not give sites like that your credit card information, and do not trust it with personal info that you don't want hacked and exposed.
marketing as therapy, or at the very least clearly using vulnerable people as their target audience without saying it directly (though this sokoon makes no effort to hide it). My issue here specifically is the intersection of crappy vibecoded website made by unprofessionals + vulnerable people.
no information on pricing, or being deceptive about it being "free". Shame on that sokoon site.
I'm all about using AI to figure out a way to make you money. I'm all about making tools. But ffs, don't use AI to make money on vulnerable people. Or if you truly care about helping, make it a free tool. Especially if your only effort was buying a fucking $0.99/year .xyz domain name and having claude build a website for you. Or if you want to do AI therapy -- let the fucking professionals handle it? Someone who actually knows what they're doing?