Hello, I'm PJ Vote and from Gimlet Media, this is Replyall, a show about the Internet.

And this week's episode is super gross and disturbing.

I have 98 apps on my phone and this week we are talking about the only one that I'm terrified

of.

That app is called Figure One and it's built as Instagram but for doctors.

That means it's a place where if you're a doctor at work and you see something that is

really disturbing, like a particularly unusual kind of gunshot wound.

Figure One will let you take a picture of it, post it online and have other doctors comment

and favorite it.

Your first question about this app is probably how can this be legal and actually it's entirely

legal.

The app forces the doctor to actually get consent from the patient that they're photographing.

There's a built-in screen where the patient has to have the entire app explain to them and

then sign their approval with their finger.

And the app includes a bunch of rules about how the picture has to be taken in a way that

preserves the patient's anonymity.

One of those rules is that you can't show someone's face really, which means that as you

scroll through the app, which actually does remarkably like Instagram, you just get close

ups of the broken parts of people's bodies, cuts, breaks, rashes.

For most of the reporting of this story, I was relying on other people's description

of the app because body stuff is the stuff that most squicks me out.

But this week, I have finally decided to open it because, you know, journalism.

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