Lemon8 opens onto the ‘For You’ tab which presents posts created by other people that the user may be interested in. On this tab, users can switch between different topics of interest such as Accessories or Home skills. They can also search for specific accounts and topic hashtags (e.g. #fashion or #dating). If a person chooses to follow another user or topic, they will also see that user’s content on the ‘Following’ tab.
To create a new post, a user can choose a themed template such as ‘Fashion’ or ‘Let’s chat’ and must add at least one photo or video to it. They can add text, filters and stickers, a location, a headline and hashtags. Other users can like, share, save or comment on posts. If a user opens a post containing a video, the video automatically plays and the user can scroll down to continuously see more video posts (similar to how TikTok works).
Lemon8’s parental controls can be accessed through its parental Supervision tool, which is linked to the parent’s mobile phone number. Supervision allows parents to set their teen’s Lemon8 account to ‘private’. If a teenager turns off supervision, their parent is notified by text message.
The app includes safety and wellbeing settings, such as setting a notification when you’ve already used the app for a certain amount of time. People can prevent other users from commenting on specific posts they’ve shared. They can block and report other users, posts and comments.
A Lemon8 user can choose to have a public or private account. Private accounts can deny follower requests, and only approved followers can see that user’s posts. A user who has a public account can control whether their posts can be seen by everyone, or by only their followers, or kept completely private. They can also choose whether to share personal information such as a profile photo and bio (description), their pronoun and their username on other popular social media apps.
