My experience with Bark App

VPN
21

hi! i am a teenager who has recently gotten Bark on their phone, and i just wanted to share some experiences i’ve had (for your information, i’ve had bark twice)

i noticed that both times i’ve had it, sending images in iMessages is difficult- for me, it’ll say “Not Delivered” but for the other person, it just goes through like a “Text Message” (i use IOS, so naturally it shouldn’t say this) i assume it could just be bark blocking the images i send? but i believe none of the images i’ve sent are inappropriate, and it’s not just certain images- it’s /every/ image i send. even from just a screenshot of a message to me showing my friend how to spell something in ASL, to a photo of… my cat.

now, i’ve never seen what content my mom actually has blocked. but the first week or two of me having bark, everything was fine and all the inappropriate content was rightfully blocked. but after a couple of days after the two weeks, i noticed some things that shouldn’t have been blocked was starting to get blocked. like Discord for example, which my mom has agreed to letting me have so that shouldn’t have been blocked, and Pinterest too, which i only use to get ideas for drawing or to get photos of my favorite characters. i don’t use Pinterest to contact anyone whatsoever, and for Discord i only use it to talk to friends i already have. i was raised with internet access from a very young age, so i know a lot about internet safety and the do’s and dont’s. i know how to identify a pedophile when one tries to contact me, etc etc.

another thing i noticed, is that Bark uses Ai, and it’s very sensitive. i knew someone who used to have Bark, and they found it ridiculously funny because 1. Bark would flag certain memes that were completely harmless, as “harmful”. and 2. it was always notifying their guardians at such a random time. one time, their guardian was notified at 2:30am in the morning for flagging a image. the image in question? a photo of gru, which was flagged for “violence”. i think bark is super careful and that’s a good thing, but sometimes i feel like it’s /too/ careful. also, Ai isn’t always perfect so i figured it would occasionally notify guardians about random stuff.

im not saying that you shouldn’t get bark, but i’m just sharing my experience! any questions, feel free to ask! but i’m not super active on Reddit, so expect late answers aha.

22

I bought this phone for my daughter in January. It’s only been one month and I’m already having issues with the location twice. It cliches or just doesn’t show location in real time. It’s a waste of money because my daughters safety is the entire reason I bought the phone.

23

I cam here looking to lean bark review particularly for IOS and disappointed to see all these review particularly not knowing which apps are installed and block apps and websites. I was interested in bark because it can work on macbooks also. Does it use VPN or MDM?

Also, has anyone tried ourpact? I am reasonably satisfied for my needs. Only using it for 4-5 days but my number one need was to enforce timelimit and block app and website and it seems good for that. I wish it had selecting app time limit and ability to also shutdown allowed apps in night. It seems bark can do those but if bark cannot effectively block apps and stop my child to stop installing app and uninstall app then it is not going to work for me.

Any more insight of Bark being effective in blocking app and website and not let install app then pl share. Also not let child bypass using VPN.

BTW i am not interested in their phone and want an app solution that works on iphone and macbook. Also, I am not that much interested in monitoring communication but more try to not have my kid spend unlimited time and avoid some apps and sites that we agree on.

24

Bark phone was a disappointment- could not get the downtime settings to work. To make things worse, I returned it in fine condition and they said it scratched and chopped- and charged me $199. Hard pass. We cancelled.