Apps that make whispering a secret easy in the networked world are all the rage right now

It’s almost a given that most, if not all, of our lives are being lived out in public. All that sharing, posting, liking, selfie-ing, (re)tweeting, pinterest-ing, instagram-ing commenting, all in full view of your ‘social’ circleand via a unique authentic online identity tied to each individual—a digital footprint that Facebook and LinkedIn have worked hard to reinforce over the years. It would seem foolish to bet against these social media behemoths of today. Or would it? In what is a sign that more than a few of us are feeling a bit overexposed online, a handful of new apps are surging in popularity that are exactly the opposite of Facebook—faceless, nameless anonymous social media where you get to share the secret stuff you’d never want linked to your name: the shameful confessions, deeply rooted private fears, suppressed desires and malicious gossip. No login, no profile, no trace. Think of these as ‘temporary’ social media, a natural progression of bathroom graffiti and anonymous blog comments, the kind that lets folks express themselves honestly without fear of consequence or public judgment.

At its most basic, there are two types of anonymous apps out there. We’ve all heard of Snapchat—the ephemeral messaging app – and now, a lot more apps that toe its model. Apps like Backchat, Wut and Wickr offer features including “self-destructing” messages and enough encryption to satisfy your need for Edward Snowden levels of secrecy. The other ones, of which Whisper and Secret are the most prominent examples, function as social networks where users publicly sharing whatever they feel like secretly talking about. Oh, and it’s all the rage…people are just loving the freedom of it all. Whisper’s raised millions of dollars in funding, and Secret’s become the must-have app for techies everywhere, and both apps are seeing billions of page views. So, what makes each of these apps click? I’ve been on these apps to see for myself for the past month, and here’s what I found.

Whisper a Secret? While both Whisper and Secret are meant to share secrets, the approach both take is rather different. Whisper feels like a public graffiti board—all secrets are public, and anyone and everyone with the app can see what you publish and even message you about them. Available for both iOS and Android, the app is completely anonymous and makes no connection to your phone contacts. To further protect your privacy, Whisper requires a four-digit pin number every single time you access your history, or “Activity” like viewing or deleting your whispers, whisper engagements and direct messages—the direct messages are a key differentiator from Secret, which has no way of privately communicating with another user. The messages themselves are called “whispers,” and they look similar to an Internet meme or an Instagram overlay - images with superimposed text. Since Whisper doesn’t store its users’ personal data, you can’tsearch for users, view others’ profiles or see who like your whispers. You can choose, if you want, to share your location when you’re posting - your options range from specific store locations to your city or state – or turn off location information altogether. Secret, on the other hand, starts off with your secrets visible only to other Secret users from your phone’s addressbook (without disclosing who is who), and you can connect it with your Twitter and Facebook accounts. If your friends click the "love" button on your post, it'll be shared with their friends, and if those friends "love' the post, it'll be shared with their friends, and so on. Your name is never tagged on the post, and the app only shows the level of degree you are from the other person using it—either a friend, or a friend of a friend. So if your friends are viewing your secret, it'll tell you that the secret is from your circle of friends. After the secret travels beyond two degrees of friend groups, locations will be added.

In both cases, the whispers and secrets I saw ranged from the mundane, to secrets about professional and personal lives and confessions about past sins. What became immediately obvious was that folks were sharing stuff that wouldn’t ever make it to Facebook (not without retribution, at least) and even everyone was a faceless entity in this milieu, engagement levels were high, with commenters being surprisingly honest, sometimes brutally so. Sarcasm, humor, honesty and vitriol flowed in equal measure. Checking the app became a borderline voyeuristic addiction in the first couple of days, but after that wore off, I started noticing some red flags, cautionary signs that one must keep in mind when using these ‘anonymous’ apps.

Open Questions Right off the bat, how much of these secret networks are really secret? On Facebook and Twitter, you go in with the full knowledge that stuff you post can be reposted endlessly, so you adjust your levels of sharing…and honesty accordingly. What one must equally realise is that while Secret and Whisper are anonymous, they’re not exactly secret. Folks can reuse and share your secrets, so unless you’re extremely careful about not divulging anything that can trace its way back to you, someone may be able to figure it out. Second, despite the atmosphere of honesty, what can you trust here? What if you read lies about individuals or companies? Who faces the consequences of defamation, if the secrets are just concocted lies? What prevents these networks from degenerating into hotbeds for bullying, with malicious rumors and gossips being spread about real individuals?

Behind the veil of anonymity, users on Whisper and Secret could easily destroy lives of people with a single anonymous rumor that may or may not be true. Sure, there are controls within the apps to report content, but they’re weak and fledgling at best. And we’re not even treading on the matter of how these free apps monetize themselves… and how, if at all, your information will be used or shared in the future towards that end.Big questions with no real answer. Without a doubt, these apps are supernova-levels of hot in the social space right now, but until some sense pervades in how they can be used (and not abused), they’re not going to become a standard for social sharing anytime soon. With Cyber laws still evolving in India, for netizens it always makes sense to adopt new apps with caution.