Every few years, it seems that new anonymous messaging platforms are entering the market. Rapidly gain fan base, investment and media attention. Then it crashes and burns. Usually the cause is a combination of free bullying, harassment, or misinformation that blooms within the platform.
Still, apps are appearing one after another. One of the latest products is NGL. It invites users to ask anonymous questions and comments from their followers on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or elsewhere. NGL, The app website explains“It means not to lie.”
According to app analytics firm Sensor Tower, NGL was downloaded about 3.2 million times in the United States from June to the first half of July. According to Sensor Tower, this was the 10th most downloaded app on the Apple and Google Play stores in June.
“Anonymity has always been a secret source,” he said. Shelly Turkle, Professor MIT, who studies the relationship between technology and people. She said her thirst for anonymous self-expression was nothing new, pointing out some church confession booths as an example.
But she added that the desire for anonymity was not about anonymity itself. After all, the promise of anonymity is often wrong or at best qualified. Priests often know who the confessor is, and apps that collect and distribute secrets also collect user’s personal data. In fact, launched in November, NGL goes a step further, offering users tips on respondents for $ 9.99 per week.
“Anonymity is a way to open the door to the sense of space and permission, which opens the door to the boundary space between the territories, where you can express the truth or the truth that you cannot do in the rest of your life. I can speak, “says Professor Turkle. Author of “The Empathy Diaries: AMemoir”.
Harold David, 34, manager of a fitness company in New York, recently tried NGL. “It’s fun to see what people say when they’re anonymous,” he said. “Who doesn’t want to know someone’s secret idea?”
He said he saw a few friends using the app and was hoping for “more sneaky or more lewd” comments. But he said, “In fact, it was a really nice surprise because of the warm reaction to people’s experiences with me.”
The experience of Harras Shirley, 26, a school resource officer in India Police, was not very positive. Shirley received about 12 responses after posting a link to NGL on Facebook and Instagram.
“I thought I would have more questions about my transition, and I could give some insight on how to properly ask those questions,” he said. Instead, he said most of the questions asking what his favorite color was, or what was the last thing he ate, were shallow.
He understands the appeal of the app. “These apps give you the idea that people are interested in who you are and want to know more about you,” he said. But it’s not for him. “This is really aimed at middle school and high school kids,” he said.
As soon as the app came out, it was criticized.
Anonymous messaging platforms such as Askfm, Yik Yak, Yolo, and LMK have long struggled to contain the threat of bullying, harassment, and violence. With a message about Yik Yak, some schools evacuated students in response to the threat of bombs and shootings. Anonymous messaging apps Yolo and LMK have been sued by a teenage mother who committed suicide (the app was integrated into Snapchat, and its parent company, Snap, was initially a defendant in the proceedings, but is no longer the case). ..
Secret, yet another anonymous messaging app, was shut down in 2015, despite investments from major Silicon Valley players.and Medium post Announced the closure of the company and one of its founders, David Byttow, wrote that anonymity is the “ultimate double-edged sword.”
Mitch Prinstein, director of the American Psychological Association, said people on the Internet believe that a small number of opinions make up the majority of the population.
“Anonymity makes this even worse,” he said. As a result, for example, if someone leaves an anonymous comment that your haircut is ugly, you start to think that everyone thinks your haircut is ugly.
The NGL website states that community guidelines are “coming soon” and that the app uses “world-class AI content moderation.” It directs users to the website of Hive Moderation, a company that uses software that filters text, images, and audio based on categories such as bullying and violence. NGL did not respond to the comment request sent by email.
“You don’t have to use the trigger word to be unfriendly,” said Pamela Latledge, director of the Center for Media Psychology Research.
“If someone starts using racist slurs or anything that can get through the AI, you can block them,” Dr. Rutledge said. “But it’s hard to draw a line around a comment that undermines the way you think about yourself.”
When Los Angeles musician Reggie Barril, 28, posted an NGL link on Instagram with 12,000 followers, he was hoping for questions about his career. “I was very wrong,” he said. Of the 130 answers he got, “I hated more than not.”
He read some comments aloud during the telephone interview. “You may be very successful, but your attitude is terrible, you won’t get it done,” he said. “I don’t know if the 2015 Reggie wants the 2022 Reggie.” Another called him a “social mountaineer.”
He was surprised at the acidity. “I’m not a bit of a confrontational person,” he said. “I love to make jokes, stupid and stupid.” He decided not to take comments personally. “I read a lot of anxiety in the subtext,” he said.
In an online review, NGL users state that the app provides fake questions and comments. This is a phenomenon that technology-focused publications do. Including TechCrunch They say they duplicated it in their own tests. It’s not clear if these responses were generated by the app or the bot.
New York-based playwright Johnny G. Lloyd, 32, downloaded NGL as a way to increase engagement on Instagram prior to the premiere of the new play. During the three times he used it, he noticed some strange submissions.
“I had one question,’Which girl did you send the text to recently?'” He said. “This isn’t a problem in my life at all. It’s barking the wrong tree.” Another message was more mysterious. “It said,’I know what you did,'” Lloyd said. “It was obviously for a young audience.”
When Los Angeles editorial assistant Clayton Wong, 29, tried NGL, he received an unexpected “confession” and was instructed to search for a particular love song online. Mr. Wong immediately doubted. “I didn’t think this song was very good,” he said. “If this person knew me, they would know that this wasn’t what I was crazy about.”
After he scrolls comment In a YouTube song, he noticed that dozens of people received an anonymous “confession” of the emotions that led them to the same video.
Johan Lenox, a friend of Baril’s musician, expected a “chaotic” NGL experience, but vice versa. He was surprised that people wanted to protect their identity when asking questions such as what he would do after the performance and what it would be like to be a musician. It left him questioning about the points of the app.
“If you want to talk to someone, how are you going to achieve this by sending anonymous notes?” He said. He believes NGL will encounter the fate of other apps that disappeared as soon as they appeared. “No one will talk about it again within a month,” he said.
Alain Delaqué rière Contributed to the research.
