By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--August 11, 2017
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Sarahah is the latest popular anonymous messaging app. Its creator, Zain al-Abidin Tawfiq, told Mashable that he originally intended it as a way for employees to give their bosses constructive feedback to help encourage honesty in the workplace. He later decided to make it available for anyone to send messages. Tawfiq said that he wants to create a more positive environment than other anonymous apps. Why is everyone talking about it? The app has exploded in popularity since it was made available in the app store in June. The app store said last week it's currently the top app in 30 countries. Sarahah began in Saudi Arabia, where Tawfiq is from, and spread to other Arab countries, eventually getting an English version. The app received a bump in popularity, according to Mashable, when SnapChat released an update which allowed users to share a link in a snap. This means you can share a link to your sarahah account in SnapChat. How does it work?
Creating an account generates a link to an individual's comment page. Users share links to that page on their SnapChats accounts, Facebook pages and elsewhere so their friends know where they can leave comments. Once comments are left, they appear without attribution when you open the app. Do I have to create an account to use it? You have to create an account in order to receive messages but not necessarily to leave them. If someone's account is public, anyone can leave a comment. However users can turn this option off by making the account private so that only users they have added can leave messages.This is really just another way for the Beltway leak culture to express itself, isn't it? American society has decided that people who hide behind anonymity are more trustworthy than people who will put their names with the things they say. So our news no longer comes from attributable sources we recognize. They come from "a person familiar with the situation who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter." But we believe Mr. Not Authorized To Speak because he's eschewing the party line, even though we have no way of knowing if he's honest or not (except that we do know he disobeys the policies he's told his bosses he would respect).
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