Published on 12, July, 2020
I thought I should share with you my experience using the Hiki app. I joined a day ago. Immediately I was harassed by a male called David even though I said I wanted to connect with women. Said male would prove difficult later. I tried to be polite. I posted images of my art. Which got some interactions. The first of which elicited a long thread I was not aware of instigated by an anti feminist rant by someone named Tom spewing anti feminist hate. Today I encountered a strange account called ‘Uni’ that would later troll me along with afore mentioned David. I asked a David to calm down his messages to me as I am trying to deal with my daughter’s birthday who passed away, he said he didn’t realise I had a daughter that died and proceeded to troll me along with ‘Uni’ about the death of my daughter. I am now left feeling throughly traumatised and somewhat suicidal. I spoke with Hiki for a lengthy period and they paused my account and stopped replying to me. I have never been treated like this in my life. This is the worst timing ever. I’m planning grave flowers this weekend for my beautiful Theodora.
I'm so sorry for your loss and I hope you're feeling better than you were as a result of these scumbags. They don't get to hide behind autism, their behaviour is sickening and I'm glad you reported them. I'm frankly outraged on your behalf that you had to go through this, especially on an app for autistic people. I don't know how these things work but would it be possible to have them removed from the app store? It sounds like they have absolutely no business running such an app and the less people who are able to access it the better, from what I can gather.
Get over it this is the internet it happens i don't believe in safe spaces.
I am glad you deleted the App it sounds horrible !
Sorry you had this experience, never heard of the app, and I won't look any further into it. I thank you for telling us about it so we are warned. Certainly doesn't seem an experience I would like myself.
I reported this to the police and deleted the app. I blocked people but the conversations carry on around you. I was ganged up on by a group of men who used inflammatory Chinese whispers. The members who weren't yet blocked lied to the blocked members, tagging me and telling them I said things I had not. I've never felt so put at risk and at such a terrible time. To put things into perspective -
This was an act of male aggression towards a bereaved autistic woman. I was attacked by a male mob based on gender, disability, and child loss. Without proper protection in place for women and vulnerable people, this app is structured for abuse; especially when these are men that don't follow social rules and cues and are prone to aggressive outbursts. Men are diagnosed 3/1 over women; I am shocked I was not able to protect myself from these types of individuals, and later ignored by the app. I already suffer from PTSD for abuse I received as a child and the death of my daughter - I found myself in an environment that was unsafe and caused further harm to my mental wellbeing. I could not filter out the men I was continually approached by when I made clear I wanted female friendship. It felt dangerous from the start, but I am socially anxious anyway so I thought I was being paranoid - as it turns out not only was I correct about the danger I was in based on my gender and trauma vulnerabilities, my worst fears happened and I was targeted.
I hadn't heard of this app, but after checking their website, it looks like you can block and report people. So seems like you should just do that?
That’s very kind of you - thank you. There’s no protection there; it’s important people know how dangerous it is, especially if you are vulnerable. I really appreciate your supportive words.
Im so sorry for your loss of your daughter. And the experience of using that app and being harrased and further truamatised. I hope that some more experienced people reply to you im very new . Noticed nobdody had replied at all and wanted to send good wishes to you at this time