Sarahah and the Power of Anonymity

Travis Lionel
Jul 27, 2017 · 2 min read

The following is an opinion article.

Sarahah is a relatively new site that allows people to send anonymous “feedback” to employees and friends. In other words, it’s the revival of ask.fm and curious.me. Ideally, this would be an excellent way to tell employees where they need to improve without causing a scene or creating backlash, telling friends where they goofed off, and giving critical advise to artists and other creative types. Ideally. In reality, anonymity is an overwhelmingly powerful tool.

Because one cannot properly backlash against someone they don’t know, and thus the anon cannot be held accountable for their actions, this leads to them saying things they would normally keep to themselves. Formerly considered the cesspool of the internet, 4chan’s popularity was in part due to anonymity. No one needed to make an account, no one knew who the other was, everyone could speak their true mind. This seems like honesty on the surface, but it’s not, for lack of a better phrase, honest honesty.

How to turn off anonymous messages

True honesty would be to stand by one’s own beliefs and ideas. If one knows they’re saying something harmful, rude, or would otherwise not say if others knew who they were, they’d not post it. Sarahah does allow for the receiver to disable anonymous posts, but this leaves the poster in a position once again where they no longer have the ability to say what’s on their mind without potential backlash. So, without anonymity, one will only receive comments that they would normally receive from those around them. With it, they will receive comments and never be able to dictate which member of their social group is a snake. Sleep tight.

The Blanket Fort

A place where everyone can pretend to stop being an adult, but with the freedom being an adult gives you. The Blanket Fort seeks to talk about animation, gaming, and general geek culture while at times tying together with politics and western society as a whole.

Travis Lionel

Written by

A writer and journalist with a passion for nerd/geek culture and photography. Politically driven, he seeks to walk the line between politics and pop culture.

The Blanket Fort

A place where everyone can pretend to stop being an adult, but with the freedom being an adult gives you. The Blanket Fort seeks to talk about animation, gaming, and general geek culture while at times tying together with politics and western society as a whole.

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