Facebook May Soon Launch an Anonymity App, But Is It Already Too Late?

Mark Zuckerberg. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/WIRED

Facebook is working on a standalone app that would allow users to communicate anonymously, similar to existing apps like Whisper and Secret, according to a new report. Such a product would be a drastic reversal in Facebook’s longstanding opposition to anonymity. But more than that, the app would also serve as yet another sign that Facebook has changed. Once a scrappy startup, it’s now quite a large company, constantly reacting to trends, instead of setting them.

According to The New York Times , people briefed on the new project say it has been underway for about a year and will be released in the coming weeks. Details on how exactly it will work, however, are still unclear, and a Facebook spokesman declined to comment the story.

The timing of rumor—which echoes a report from this past spring—is interesting. It comes fresh on the heels of a recent controversy around Facebook’s so-called “real names policy,” which has always required people to use their legal names on the site. Recently, that policy came under fire, after dozens of drag queens were locked out of the site for using pseudonyms, spurring a virtual revolt among members of the LGBT community, who said the policy violated their way of life and left them open to harassment. After weeks of controversy, Facebook not only apologized to the LGBT community, but also dialed back its stance on real names.

Now, it seems, the company is ready to tread even farther into the depths of the anonymous web. It’s a natural move for Facebook. Startups like Whisper, Secret, and Yik Yak have experienced explosive growth over the last year, meaning many of the conversations people are having online are happening off of the world’s largest social network. For Facebook, it makes sense to try to leverage its substantial scale to win that audience back.

But as with so many other giant tech companies, the question du jour for Facebook is: can scale ever really trump good timing?

Facebook seems to believe it can. Why else would it even think about launching another anonymity app now, when the space is already so crowded with successful competitors? It’s likely for the same reason Facebook created its own Snapchat lookalike years after the ephemeral messaging site launched. It’s because Facebook believes that with its unmatched existing user base, it can easily overtake the competition.

But the company would be wise to remember its own history. Facebook came along just as other social networks like Friendster and MySpace had fallen out of favor. Sure it had a few genius engineers on board, but more important, it had the right product—a network for college kids who didn’t feel they belonged on other crowded sites—at the right time. Nothing MySpace or Friendster could do could ever convince consumers they were anything but the lame and noisy networks they had always been. People flocked to Facebook in part because it wasn’t one of these older social networks masquerading as the new kid on the block. It was something entirely new.

It may also be tough for Facebook—a company that makes its billions selling user data—to convince users that their private conversations on the app are ever truly anonymous. Unlike its upstart competitors, Facebook’s reputation precedes it, and in this space, that can be both a blessing and a curse.