YouTuber Quackity returns with a new translation app that critics say steals personal information: “It’s only been a day and it’s been hacked”
YouTube’s global reach has allowed people around the world to be connected through interesting and immersive content. There’s just one problem: not everyone speaks the same language.
YouTubers have tried to fix this issue in a variety of ways. For example, Mr. Beast pays to have his videos dubbed in a variety of languages and developed a company to help others do the same. This allows people from around the world who don’t speak English to still enjoy his content. Dubbed content has also been great for language learners, as it allows them to consume content in both their native and target language.
While this may be effective online, in real-world conversation, live dubbing isn’t possible. However, YouTuber Quackity recently announced that he’s trying to change that — and the reaction has been mixed.
Who is Quackity?
Quackity, who usually goes by “Alex,” is a Mexican-American YouTuber and streamer who first became popular thanks to his videos featuring “raids” of Club Penguin and Toontown. Over time, however, his content matured, and Alex soon became a prominent figure in the Minecraft community, where he became known for his comedy and personality in both English and Spanish.
Eventually, Alex became involved in the Dream SMP, later creating his own server project QSMP, which was designed to be inclusive of multiple languages by offering real-time translation.
While he used to make content on both YouTube and Twitch, for the past three years, his presence was missing from the YouTube platform. Fans began to suspect he was working on something, and back in November 2024, he gave viewers a hint as to what that project might be.
Demonstrating a software he had been working on, Alex had several conversations with creators from across the world, none of them able to speak English. Along the bottom of the screen was real-time translation of what both sides were saying, with each side able to read the conversation in their native language.
Now, it seems that this real-time translation tool has developed into its own standalone app — but viewers aren’t quite sure what to think.
What is Dababel?
Returning to YouTube on July 8th, 2025, Quackity announced that he would now be focusing his energy on his new, real-time translation app “Dababel.”
According to the Dababel website, the app allows users to “Speak Any Language Instantly,” offering near-instant translation for English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Japanese, and Korean, with more languages to come.
In Alex’s video of the announcement, he demonstrates what sets this app apart from other translation apps. In short, it makes a clone of the user’s voice — meaning that when it plays back the translation in another language, it sounds as though it actually is the user saying the words.
However, that’s not the only thing that makes this app different from other translators.
What’s the problem with Dababel?
Immediately after this video’s release, people flocked to their phones’ app stores to download the software, only to be met with some unpleasant surprises.
To start, the price of translations within the app was relatively high. As noted by TubeFilter, Dababel offers several features: “Conversation Mode” for real-time dialogue between two people, “Universal Mode” for translating both livestreams and video-on-demand content, and Play Mode, which lets users hear their own voice in different languages.
All of these functions require "credits" to use. Credits are available through subscription plans, which start at $9.99 per week for individual users and go up to $139 per week for businesses. This immediately struck some users as expensive, especially given just how many free translation apps are available on both the App Store and Google Play store.
But price wasn’t the only concern that users had. Pentester Daniel Christensen, who goes by @bobtshoplifter on X, quickly tried to get Alex’s attention after noticing a vulnerability on the app’s website. After failing to do so, Christensen opted to point out the vulnerability by hacking into the side and listing a subscription option called “BobTShoplifter on X tryna report several security issues.”
He also made another listing with the subtitle “hacked by bob,” leading to many responding to Quackity’s announcement by simply saying “hacked by bob.”
In a follow-up post to his original announcement on X, Quackity noted that the app was experiencing heavy traffic and may not be working correctly for all users.
Still, this doesn’t explain some of the other security concerns that users of the app had.
One post on r/DreamWasTaken2 broke down a variety of alleged security issues. According to poster Weird_Jellyfish_3416, the app’s terms of service say that the app is collecting “your name, age, location and card info, web searches, IP data, computer or phone data, web history, cookies and browsing data.”
However, looking into the app’s Privacy Policy, it says that the app “may” collect information like names, emails, and credit card numbers depending on what services someone uses. If a user links their profile with their social media account, the app may be able to access additional information as laid out in the Privacy Policy.
The data that is collected automatically “does not reveal your specific identity (like your name or contact information) but may include device and usage information, such as your IP address, browser and device characteristics, operating system, language preferences, referring URLs, device name, country, location, information about how and when you use our Services, and other technical information.”
Other users on Reddit expressed concern that their voice would be used to train A.I. models. While the app’s website claims that this will not be the case, the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy appear ambiguous, as Artificial Intelligence is not mentioned in either.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Dababel and Quackity via email.
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