**This story has been updated to include comments from Gas app co-founder Nikita Bier.**

At Newton High School many students have started using a new popular app known as “Gas.” The app brings positive questions about other people and the app notifies users when they get a positive comment known as a “flame.” On this app, students are asked to answer multiple-choice questions about students in their school. The app asks questions such as “Who do you secretly admire?” Students are to choose which student from their school they secretly admire. 

Sophomore Natalie Cassant recently downloaded the app because she was on Snapchat one day and saw someone had posted it on their story. She became curious and downloaded it to see what it was. She quickly discovered that it was basically an app to vote people on, or hype people up. She says that you can add friends and it gives you questions such as “who would walk the red carpet one day?”  The app gives you four random friends to vote from for each question, and each time you vote for someone they earn a “flame.” She adds that your flames are public to your friends so they can see how many times you have been voted for. When you’ve been voted for, gas will send you a notification saying “A boy or girl gassed you up.” 

“When you first download the Gas app it will ask for your location, school and access to your contacts. At first, I didn’t think much of it so I allowed access to each one. Once I realized that it could be used for things like sex trafficking, I immediately turned off access to my location and contacts. I know that it bothers some people that the app has their high school details, but it’s really not that different from putting your high school in your Instagram bio,” Cassant said. 

Nikita Bier, the co-founder of Gas, says that the app is not used at all for trafficking. 

“The “trafficking” hoax has been a recurring problem for our app and it’s disappointing because the mission of Gas is to spread positivity. While this rumor has been debunked in countless publications—including Bloomberg and an upcoming story in the Washington Post—we are still seeing people sharing this misinformation on Snapchat,” Bier said. “To eliminate any doubt, we want to let our users know there has not been a single reported case of “trafficking” ever being linked to Gas. Trafficking is impossible on Gas. The app does not track location. If you open your Settings app, you’ll see that the app does not store or save location data. The app has no messaging features that would allow anyone to contact users. Gas was designed to ensure an extreme level of privacy and safety—far more so than you’d find on apps like Snapchat or Instagram.”

Cassant says that the app seems to have gained popularity from the time she had just downloaded it. She thinks it will gain more popularity like other apps, but maybe not as much.

“The Gas app has rapidly gained popularity from the time I downloaded it to today. I do think that this app has a chance of becoming something very big but I also think that it might be short-lived. I do think this app is a fun way to either joke around with friends or see how others view you.”

Sophomore Amina Sulejmani downloaded the Gas app because her best friend sent her the app so she could get a hint. According to Sulejmani, the Gas app has polls where you get asked questions and then pick the name that you associate with the topic. They give you a hint where it says the grade and gender. Then you can get two hints per week when you share the app. She says it also gives you the first letter of their name. She thinks that so far the app is safe to use.

“I believe that the gas app is safe to use. Although I have heard rumors that it can traffic students. To be fair the game is fun so I think it’s worth the risk,” Sulejmani said.

She thinks that the Gas app will gain popularity like TikTok, BeReal, Snapchat, and more. She says this because just in a few days, it has gained 100+ users just from Newton alone.

Freshman Almira Hamidovic has also downloaded the app. She loves to hear the positive things people say about her, she is curious to know. She says there are definitely pros and cons, the pros being the things said about you are positive. It asks positive questions which is nice.

“I have the Gas app because I love to hear what people think about me and it’s just a positive app,” Hamidovic said.