humanobserver
@humanobserver@lemmy.world
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 51 minutes ago:
That’s fair.
Some people probably feel exactly that way.
Others carry thoughts they would never attach to their name anywhere.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 1 hour ago:
Yeah that’s probably the honest answer.
Some people just need the thought to exist somewhere outside their head.
Whether that helps or not probably depends on the person.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 1 hour ago:
Yeah that seems to happen a lot with anonymous spaces.
Some people use them for shock value. Others actually say things they would never say anywhere else.
The interesting part is what happens when identity disappears.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 1 hour ago:
That’s a fair concern.
The idea is that there are no profiles and no identity attached, so the confession exists on its own without linking back to a person.
It’s less about who reads it and more about removing the connection between the thought and the individual.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 1 hour ago:
That’s fair. Apps like Whisper existed before and most slowly turned back into regular social feeds where identity and likes started to matter again.
The experiment here is to remove as much of that as possible and see what people actually say when identity disappears.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 1 hour ago:
Yes, a lot of them existed before.
Most of them failed because identity, feeds, and social dynamics slowly took over.
The idea here is to strip everything down so the confession stays the only thing that exists.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 2 hours ago:
IP addresses are only handled at the infrastructure level for basic abuse protection.
They are not connected to posts or identities and nothing is stored that could link a confession back to a person.
The whole design tries to separate the secret from the individual as much as possible.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 2 hours ago:
Sometimes people just want to say something once without it becoming part of their identity.
That’s different from attention.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 2 hours ago:
That’s the tradeoff.
Therapists contextualize. Anonymous spaces reveal what people won’t contextualize anywhere else.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 4 hours ago:
That’s true to some extent.
The idea isn’t zero moderation, it’s shifting it away from identity. Rooms can set rules and remove posts, but the system itself doesn’t track who people are.
So the control happens at the room level rather than through accounts or personal identity.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 4 hours ago:
That’s actually the most interesting part.
People are curious about what others really think but never say out loud. Confessions, secrets, uncomfortable truths.
It’s the same reason anonymous confession pages and posts tend to spread so easily.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 4 hours ago:
That’s a fair concern.
The intention isn’t to create a space for advice or coordination. Posts are limited to very short one-line confessions and rooms can set strict rules about what’s allowed.
More like people admitting something they’ve never said out loud than discussing how to do things.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 4 hours ago:
Those are really good points.
The legal side is something I’ve been thinking about as well. The idea is to store as little as possible and avoid accounts entirely.
But you’re right that anonymity online always has limits.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 4 hours ago:
True. Some people will always seek those spaces.
The idea isn’t to eliminate that behavior.
It’s more about creating rooms where the default incentive is sharing something personal rather than provoking reactions.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 4 hours ago:
That’s a really good point.
Any anonymous input system will attract bots sooner or later.
The experiment is partly about seeing how much structure (rooms, hosts, limited formats) changes that dynamic compared to open anonymous boards.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 4 hours ago:
That’s a fair concern.
Absolute anonymity probably doesn’t exist anywhere online.
The idea is more about minimizing identity: no profiles, no history, and posts not tied to accounts. If something leaks, it can’t expose a whole identity because there isn’t one attached.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 4 hours ago:
That’s true in theory.
But most anonymous spaces today are still built around profiles, threads, or reputation.
What I’m curious about is whether people behave differently when the post is literally the only thing that exists. No profile. No history. Just the confession itself.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 4 hours ago:
That hesitation is exactly the interesting part.
Most people have something they would never say publicly. The question is whether anonymity actually changes that.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 4 hours ago:
Fair concern.
4chan is anonymous but completely unstructured.
Backroom is built around hosts running rooms with their own rules. If a room becomes toxic, people simply stop entering it.
So moderation happens at the room level, not through identity.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 4 hours ago:
Good question.
The idea is basically to remove identity completely. No accounts required to read. Posting is session based and nothing links back to a person. Even chats auto-delete after 24h.
The goal is that the secret is the only thing that exists. Not the person behind it.
Funding later would probably come from hosts running rooms people pay a small amount to enter. But right now it’s just an experiment to see if people actually want a place like this.
- Comment on Is it actually healthy for people to have a place to confess things anonymously? 4 hours ago:
That’s actually a really good point.
Confession probably worked for centuries because people needed a place to say things they couldn’t say anywhere else.
Backroom is basically trying to recreate that idea, just anonymously and without religion.
- Submitted 5 hours ago to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world | 53 comments
- Comment on "I hate this place even more than I did before" 6 hours ago:
Maybe that’s the real trap.
You get a glimpse of a life that most people will never reach. Then you go back to pretending the system is fine.
- Comment on "I hate this place even more than I did before" 8 hours ago:
Vacation just reminds you what life could feel like
- Comment on How I want to be flirted with 8 hours ago:
That line would work on way more people than it should