Apple removes Vybe Together app promoting pandemic parties
Many of the exclusive parties promoted on the app would be prohibited under coronavirus restrictions
"Miss playing beer pong, flirting with strangers, and generally just having a blast with the crew?" the Vybe Together digital platform asked. "Vybe is here for you."
Or, at least, it was.
The exclusive private party iOS app that promised "no randoms" would attend a jam session or beer pong tournament for "you and your crew" has been removed from Apple's App Store and banned from TikTok.
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Vybe Together has also completely erased its website and most of its social media accounts.
A message from FOX Business seeking comment from Vybe Together wasn't immediately returned.
The New York Times' reporter and Twitter star Taylor Lorenz, however, tweeted Tuesday blasting the "terrible people" who built the app for "finding and promoting COVID-unsafe large, indoor house parties."
"Even if this app was meant to find and promote small indoor parties (as they claim, despite the posts on TikTok), that’s still incredibly dangerous and illegal in many places under current US pandemic restrictions," she wrote. "I hope everyone out there can stay safe and healthy and take care."
As cases spike across the United States, more state governments are reinstating lockdown and stay-at-home regulations. California is in especially dire straits, as hospitals extend Intensive Care Units to gift shops and administrative offices due to the influx of patients.
Although it remains a mystery whether proposed partying on the app -- co-founded by New York University student and Swedish native Alexander Dimcevs -- spread the deadly virus, the platform advertised "gatherings every weekend."
Many would have been prohibited under current coronavirus restrictions.
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A spokesperson told The Verge on Wednesday, however, that Vybe Together had been designed to "help other people organize small get-togethers in parks or apartments during COVID."
"We never hosted any large parties, and we made one over-the-top marketing video that left a wrong impression about our intentions, which has since been taken down," the platform said. "We do not condone large unsafe parties during a pandemic.”