The response seemingly comes after a TMZ article slammed the app for one particular push notification that read: “Don’t be afraid to find ways to safely see the people you love.” The source claimed this was a problematic statement given social distancing guidelines.
Co-Star’s response explained the app’s staff is experiencing the same amount of struggle as everyone else. It ended with a note on the importance of standing together, six feet apart. The full text read:
Each day, Co-star users receive a push notification with a piece of advice on how to seize the day. Lately, though, some Twitter users have been suggesting the app may not be taking Covid-19 into consideration in the messages they’re sending.
Each of us is dealing with different levels of risk, but we are all responsible for keeping each other safe. Because of this, we’ve been willing to sacrifice normal living conditions, work, religion, politics, even friendship and romance.
We keep asking ourselves whether this quarantine is the new normal. We wake up at 8, eat our oats, we work, we scroll, we eat dinner, we sleep. We call our friends and feel helpless when we can only try to comfort them through the screen, because our embraces are possible sources of contagion.
The human condition is an unending ethical exercise in deciding how precisely to live, individually and collectively. Fear will not deliver us from this crisis, just like it couldn’t deliver us from the ones that came before. It has always been more effective to think critically.
We are unwilling to think about our relationships only in terms of how likely we are to infect each other. We have to invent new ways to be intimate, to hold each other from a distance, and to make each other feel human. We know it’s crucial to maintain six feet of distance between our bodies. We have to do everything we can to help each others stay healthy: individually, collectively, physically and emotionally. We need each other to survive."
The app has long been known for suggesting blunt and sometimes hilarious suggestions for its users. Co-Star alerts surface daily on Twitter, typically with a personal comment on how the information given by the app hits closely to home.
The online banter appears to be shifting during coronavirus, though.
A handful of tweets and screenshots seem to question how appropriate select messages are given the crisis. Others, though, still found laughing matter in the app’s references to social distancing. One even said they took the content as an encouragement to continue social isolation.
None of the app-generated messages are actually written by humans. Co-Star is curated by artificial intelligence, according to the app website. “Our powerful natural language engine uses NASA data, coupled with the methods of professional astrologers, to algorithmically generate insights about your personality and your future,” the website reads.
Co-Star is free to use. Each user uploads a few personal details about themselves, mainly the time, date and location of their birth, to secure their official natal chart. This becomes the fuel for their future horoscopes.
Every day, the app gives a two or three-paragraph update as to the obstacles and wins the user may face, in accordance with NASA’s information. It also acts as a social media network that can connect friends and loved ones, and even show how they’re expected to interact based on their charts.
