What is Yubo app? Salvador Ramos told user he wanted 'Don’t F–k with Cats' fame
UVALDE, TEXAS: Texas school shooter Salvador Ramos reportedly sought fame similar to Netflix's true-crime docuseries 'Don’t F–k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer'. On social media app Yubo, the deranged 18-year-old harassed a woman who has now opened up about it.
"He would be active every day and join our lives, repeating girls' names until they paid attention to him," the teen told The Sun. She said that Ramos compared himself to the Netflix show 'Don’t F–k with Cats', which traces a manhunt launched by internet sleuths for Canadian actor Luka Magnotta in 2010.
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Magnotta gained infamy after sharing a video of himself killing two kittens. He ultimately murdered a Chinese international student, Jun Lin, in 2012. He also uploaded a video of the murder on the internet, and is now serving a life sentence at a prison in Quebec. On Yubo, the user said that Ramos said he "wanted his name out there like that."
What is Yubo?
Yubo is an app that claims to be a platform to chat and livestream with friends. It is available on iOS and Android. New users need to provide personal details such as name, date of birth, phone number and more. A website called ‘Yoti’ allows the user to verify the account. As on Tinder and other dating apps, users can swipe right to say ‘yes’ and left for ‘no’. If two people match, they can chat and follow each other on Snapchat or Instagram.
Yubo has been criticized after it became a platform for teenage sexting in Ireland. Parents, teachers and cyber civic experts across the world have expressed concerns because they believe Yubo can be a free ground for sexual predators. The original app was launched only after Tinder prohibited under-age users.
The Sun shared some screenshots that the teen shared of Ramos' profile. “The whole reason for me sharing this is because the community on Yubo saw how little information anyone had on him and we realized just how much we knew about him,” she said. “I have messages from him from early this year, he was around us all for a long time."
“There [are] sides to Yubo, different communities where everyone is familiar by name and everyone is mutual friends with each other. We all knew him," she added. We just never thought to record the things he said as they were being said. As it’s a live-streaming app, you cannot look up old lives or watch old lives. Everything is in the moment. The moment the shooting became news, there was a live made with over 200 people pulling information from everyone to pass along to police.”
Salvador Ramos issued rape threats, showed off guns on Yubo
CNN has reported that Ramos told girls on Yubo that he would rape them. He also showed off a rifle he bought. Three users said that they witnessed Ramos threaten to commit sexual violence.
The users allegedly reported his account to Yubo over the threats, but Ramos was able to maintain a presence on the platform nonetheless. In one direct message reviewed by CNN, Ramos seemed to have sent a user the $2,000 receipt for his online gun purchase from a Georgia-based firearm manufacturer. "Guns are boring," the user responded, to which Ramos said, "No".
"I just shot my grandma in her head"
Ramos reportedly shared his sick plans with a 15-year-old girl from Germany on Yubo, just days before he carried out the massacre. Ramos allegedly told the user, Cece, that he recently bought a rifle and rounds of ammunition via video call. The two spoke to each other on the morning of the shooting, just an hour before he began his evil rampage.
“Ima [sic] do something to her rn,” he wrote to Cece, claiming that he was waiting for his grandmother. Minutes later, he wrote, “I just shot my grandma in her head,” followed by, “Ima go shoot up a [sic] elementary school rn.” The girl said she was not sure whether to believe Ramos, but upon hearing the news of the shooting soon after, she contacted US authorities. “Maybe I could’ve changed the outcome,” Cece said. “I just could never guess that he’d actually do this.” The messages were exchanged via Facebook.
In a statement to The Sun, Yubo said, "We are deeply saddened by this unspeakable loss and are fully cooperating with law enforcement on their investigation. At this stage, we are not legally able to release any specific user information outside of direct requests from law enforcement, but can confirm that we are investigating an account that has since been banned from the platform."