A new wave of apps are gaining popularity among young people. Facebook has lost its caché as ones parents, and horror of horrors, even grandparents, are active members with posts appearing in young people's news feeds. Twitter had became the anti-Facebook, with its short, 140 character tweets a way for young people to express themselves in short streams of consciousness. Instead of personal profiles of likes, photos of life's milestone, relationships, high school and colleges, religion, hometown, residency etc., Tweeter allows one to just communicate brief ideas. However, the youth of the world finds even Twitter to be too constraining. It forces you to identify yourself. This leads to a whole host of concerns, including the need to watch what you say, and how you say it (including grammar and spelling) or suffer the scrutiny of your friends, "real" and virtual (online) ones. Often young people feel that they cannot be themselves and have to conform to an image that others expect to see.
Secret or anonymous apps such as Whisper , Secret and Backchat allow users to post messages completely anonymously. Sounds innocent enough, right? Well, maybe not so fast. Truly anonymous messages could lead to defamation claims with no recourse against the defamer. True, if the alleged defamer does not identify himself or herself, it is less likely that others will believe the anonymous defamer. However, prior anonymous sources have been scrutinized when what is said is deemed to have caused harm. For example, the Virginia Court of Appeals recently ruled that Yelp was recently required to turn over the name of a writer who posted a negative review of a carpet cleaner.
Here comes technology to the rescue. Secret enforces its terms of use and policy of maintaining civility, by removing "defamatory, offensive or mean-spirited messages against its 'community standards'." Secret has built-in "intelligence" which identifies potentially defaming messages and warns users before the message is sent.
Other legal issues of truly anonymous messages include possible copyright and trademark infringement and divulging trade secrets. Anonymous posts could include copyrighted content, trademark material and trade secrets in which the owners of their intellectual property may have no recourse against the infringer.
Finally, a word of caution to the "would be" "secret" messanger, the "terms and conditions" of these “anonymous” apps may state that the app provider will turn over records and personal information if ordered by a court or other governing body.
Finally, a word of caution to the "would be" "secret" messanger, the "terms and conditions" of these “anonymous” apps may state that the app provider will turn over records and personal information if ordered by a court or other governing body.
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