Recently I was asked to appear on a radio program to provide some insight into a troubling messaging app, Sarahah, that was topping the free-download popularity charts.
Well, to be clear, it was an app that was rapidly becoming popular with teens. In all likelihood, their parents hadn’t even heard of the app.
Sarahah topped the app download charts in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Ireland for the last week of July, and has continued its presence at or near the top of those charts throughout August.
Let’s face it, teens often want to be where parents and guardians generally are not. And in the app world that may imply anonymity.
Sarahah, which according to some translations is Arabic for honesty, is just the latest incarnation in a string of anonymity apps stretching back over quite a few years.
Let’s see if you remember some of them, or even any of them. Yik Yak, Secret, Whisper, Ask.fm, Kik, and if we go back to an earlier time, on the desktop, who can forget Chatroulette? Or Formspring.me?
Any of those names ring a bell for you? Some of them are still around, perhaps in a modified form. Others have disappeared.
I’m pretty sure when most of these emerged I sent a note to my colleagues, warning about their particular implications in a school environment at the time that their popularity was beginning to increase.
In reality, we, as teachers and administrators, probably over-reacted a little, giving these apps more credibility than they deserved. Like comets, they came and went, some never to return, others lingering on or finding new life as another generation rediscovered them.
An early site that still operates is RateMyTeacher. Fundamentally it is similar to Sarahah, in the sense that it allows ratings to be posted anonymously.
Sarahah was actually created for a useful purpose in industry, for employees to be able to offer constructive and anonymous feedback to managers in a high tech environment. However, as is often the case, the intended use became a sidebar and Sarahah found life amongst teenagers when its developer released it as an app.
What could go wrong, you ask?
What could go wrong, you ask? Well, just about everything. With anonymity comes impunity.
Any anonymous messaging app can be used for cyberbullying. And that of course is happening with Sarahah, as happened with the other apps that have now mostly flamed out.
Sarahah has become particularly popular because it can integrate with Snapchat, which recently introduced a feature that allows users to include a link in their snaps.
Sarahah gives each user a unique URL or page. Snapchat users are including their Sarahah URL in Snapchat posts of screenshots of anonymous content they receive. It’s this symbiotic relationship between the two that seems to be driving Sarahah’s popularity.
Once a Sarahah user has embedded that URL in a Snapchat image, the page becomes an open book where anyone with the URL can drop an anonymous comment, positive, negative or outright nasty.
Will Sarahah last? Probably not. There’s been a lot of negative reaction from Snapchat users about their feeds being plugged with Sarahah screen grabs. Besides, Snapchat has its own problems with investors, most being unhappy about a plunge in its share price.
Sarahah has also been the victim of a hoax claiming that all user names will be published. The company has had to issue a statement refuting this. No doubt this will dampen enthusiasm for the app.
Let’s check back in say three months. Sarahah will likely have vanished from the app leader boards, perhaps replaced by another in the long, somewhat tawdry, history of anonymous messaging apps.
Parents, in the meantime, check if your children have this app on their mobile device. Talk to them about it and about anonymous messaging apps in general. If they insist on keeping it, at least ensure that they take basic security steps provided in the app: ensure that their name or profile do not appear in searches and that they activate the setting that prevents unregistered users from commenting on their accounts.
Follow me on Facebook (facebook.com/PeterVogelCA) and on Twitter (twitter.com/PeterVogel). Email me: [email protected]