Austin Hill wrote what is so far the best critique I’ve seen of apps like Whisper and Secret. Here’s the general point from his essay On your permanent record:
When a participant in iterative prisoners’ dilemma has no identity or feels free from the responsibility of their actions in social interactions communities quickly degenerate into a race to the bottom. This is when trolls, abusers and the worst part of our humanity starts to become a strategic advantage in seeing your actions get more attention by continuing to push the envelope of acceptable behaviour.
And about those apps specifically:
Out of all the problems on our planet that need our skills as entrepreneurs, out of all the incredible opportunities to improve the lives of our customers or fellow human beings — we need to fund & waste engineering talent to build a better TMZ?
I do not doubt that voyeurism and rumour mongering are popular leading to profitability. It’s the reason why every grocery store check-out isle is packed with tabloid magazines and not Popular Science or The Economist. But really?
This point led me to tweet this the other day in response to a question about the VCs who fund these apps:
@flyosity Investing in the worst of human nature is easy money. Investing in meaningful work takes courage & a purpose beyond getting rich.
— Rian van der Merwe (@RianVDM) March 18, 2014
Mark Suster added his voice in another good article called How do I Really Feel About Anonymous Apps Like Secret?:
My general instinct is that most anonymity apps breed car-like behavior. Intolerance. For all the terrible things people have said over the years about me on Hacker News simply because they didn’t agree with my opinion on some topic I feel certain that if most spent an afternoon with me they would feel very differently. It’s like racism or prejudice. It’s very easy to hate a group with whom you never interact and when you live in a big city where there are many ethnicities and sexualities you realize we are all just human. Same wants. Same needs. Same goals. Even VCs.
I’ll leave the final word to Tim Fernholz in When it comes to secrets, Wall Street titans and Silicon Valley VCs see eye-to-eye:
So if you’re an ardent believer in anonymity, be careful: If you reveal something important enough to be legally protected on one of these platforms, your anonymity might not be secure. The only secrets you can safely reveal on these platforms (and even then, only as long as they’re not crimes) are your own.