PostSecret Update: Frank Warren Discusses the iPhone App’s Closure
The PostSecret team was unable to protect the app’s users from a deluge of negative content.
By
Sophie Gilbert
One of the hundreds of anonymous postcards that appear weekly on the PostSecret blog. Image courtesy of PostSecret.com.
Frank Warren might have been forced to shut down the PostSecret app this week after less than four months, but despite everything, he’s still an Internet romantic at heart. “I will be till the end,” he says. “I have this idealized vision of how the Web is not just about cynicism and negativity, but also about hope and support, and, in many ways, empathy.”
It was that kind of thinking that inspired PostSecret, which launched seven years ago as an art project that handed out postcards and asked people to anonymously write down a secret on them and mail them back. Since then, PostSecret has spawned five books and now gets millions of hits a week at PostSecret.com; the iPhone app alone generated more than 2 million shared secrets during its short lifetime.
Although 99 percent of the secrets posted to the app were in keeping with Warren’s ideal, there were some he described in a blog post as “not just pornographic, but also gruesome, and sometimes threatening.” After receiving threats through the app, some users contacted the FBI. “What really forced us to take action were the threats against users, moderators, and even me,” Warren says. “In the end it was comments and messages that were in violation of US law.”
Warren says when the app initially launched, its creators were aware that people might upload unsavory content, but they were unprepared for the scale of secrets that would be posted. “At one point we were pre-screening 40,000 secrets a day, which is about one every two or three seconds,” he says. “We tried several strategies to save the community, but they just proved to be untenable in the end.”
The app’s closure is a blow for its quarter of a million users, many of whom had found within it an empowering and positive community. “I truly believe this app is a prime example that we cannot govern ourselves,” read one of the app’s secrets, which Warren posted at PostSecret.com. “Occupy PostSecret,” said another. “Overall, we were very pleased with the app,” says Warren. “But it’s very difficult sometimes to protect a large community from a small, determined group who might want to harm it.”
If he could do it all over again, Warren says he’d try to find ways to empower users to identify bad content themselves, and give them more power over the community. Unfortunately, despite a team of people on two continents moderating secrets 24 hours a day, they couldn’t find a way to make it work this time around. “Even though it cost us in many ways, we felt it was right to shut down the app rather than continue to let it devolve into something we didn’t want to see,” Warren says.
Still, he was ultimately inspired by the community he saw grow during the app’s lifetime, and the way in which he saw people communicate with each other. Shortly after the app was shut down, he received the following e-mail, which to him encapsulates PostSecret’s success:
“Dear Frank: I just want to say thank you. What you’ve done is nothing short of amazing. It’s sad that you had to close the app, but before you did I was able to meet someone—a beautiful woman from Australia. I’m currently at the airport in Dublin, Ireland, waiting for my flight to Australia. Because of you, I’ve found love on the other side of the world. I hope you find a way to reopen the app, because it really does reach and touch people all over the world. Thank you, Frank—you’ve made my life better.
Sincerely, No Longer Lonely in Ireland.”
View a trailer for the PostSecret app here:
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Comments
I didn’t know the app shit down and tried to share tonight. I’m sad that it’s come to this. I had stopped using the app cuz the nudity and judgement got out of control. I really wish there could have been a better way. I love postsecret.
Posted by: Shina, Jan 23, 2012 07:25:36 AM
Let’s see 250,000 users at $2 each for the App?
That is $500,000 for a flawed four month experiment! Not a bad ROI for a guy who began this as an art project.
I wonder if Frank has set up a method to return that half a million dollars to his customers, especially to those who purchased the app and paid their $2 right before the app was axed?
Posted by: Chris, Jan 15, 2012 02:27:46 AM
unfortunately, being an android user, I never had the opportunity to use the app. I looked forward to the announcement that it had been released on android with a lot of enthusiasm, to see that it’s development has now been shut down is a severe disappointment.
This is truly unfortunate that there are people out there who would take something so helpful and kind and turn it into something malicious and violent, and so doing ruin it for the people who were using it properly. A most unfortunate turn of events indeed.
Posted by: ffcsquall24, Jan 12, 2012 08:05:17 AM
I loved the app! It changed my life completely!! I met friends, saved lives, learned about strangers and their struggles, and also told my stories. The app shutting down really upsets me. I hope they find a solution to the problem (maybe make it an acceptance only club like pinterest.com) because I know that this app changed lives. There are a lot more lives needing to be changed and some of the app users might result back to their suicide attempts.
Posted by: Hanna, Jan 09, 2012 09:18:50 PM
The app was flawed from the onset, and he knew it. I’m actually surprised it lasted as long as it did, the way it was. Instead of going back to the drawing board and retooling the entire thing, he kept using a paper cup to try and bail out the sinking ship. There simply is no excuse for that, and ultimately, it was the 1% (by his admission) that "made" him shut it down. Ridiculous.
Pre-screening 40,000 posts a day?? Are you kidding me? That’s just a nonsensical, fruitless effort. There was something horribly wrong with the initial framework, but I guess he just didn’t want to admit that "his baby" needed an overhaul.
The fix was so simple. All they needed to do was require account sign-ups with usernames and logins. The app could have worked the exact same way on the surface, with usernames being hidden from the community. Mods could then BAN an offender. What is/was so bleeping difficult about that?
We liked this app. It gave alot of people an outlet for expression, and in many cases gave people hope. We witnessed countless instances of this occuring right before our eyes. The app was powerful. The effort put behind keeping the machine running was not.
A shame, literally.
Posted by: yeah, Jan 08, 2012 08:28:26 AM
I’m French and was using the app. It helps tru difficult times. I feel lost without it. I like it when the app crashes it gave me a way out.
Posted by: Ms Helene, Jan 07, 2012 05:12:14 PM
the app isn’t gone. you just can’t post "new" secrets. i read it every day. i figure there are enough secrets to keep me busy until a new app is released.
Posted by: Shhhhh...., Jan 07, 2012 03:20:46 PM
I was so sad when the post secret app was shut down. I know it sounds sad but it feels like a huge hole in my life. My friends are pleased as they said I was always on there!
It gave me a chance not only to get out some of the things I couldn’t tell anyone else in my life but also to reach out and support others. To make people feel less alone and also to see how many others were struggling with the same things as me.
I still can’t delete it from my phone and I still hope that maybe one day it might be workable again.
Posted by: Laura, Jan 07, 2012 04:16:01 AM
There are some truly sick people on this world, so miserable and hateful that they ruined something that had the potential to bring people together and bring hope.
I read the Sunday secrets faithfully. I have an android phone so I never even got to experience this app at all.
When they took down the app, I was disappointed in humanity. Not just the people who abused it, but the people who decided to take it down.
After all, when you take something away from 99%, when only 1% misuse it, you’ve let the terrorists win.
Posted by: Danara, Jan 07, 2012 01:39:43 AM
I miss this app so much. It got me through some not-so-great times. It was the place I could say the things I wanted, without Facebook or twitter knowing. I got support on there when I was having a rough night, then paid it forward when someone else was. It’s like when you lose your best friend, you don’t know who to talk to or turn to. I find myself checking Facebook and twitter, then getting an empty feeling when I can’t check PostSecret. I can’t delete it from my phone. I’m still tempted to post secrets when I need to say something. Maybe I still will?
Posted by: Jaime, Jan 07, 2012 01:07:49 AM
I just have to say that I wholeheartedly disagree with the user who says “I truly believe this app is a prime example that we cannot govern ourselves." In the real world people have to associate with others face-to-face and are held accountable for their wrongdoings, especially if they hurt others. On the PostSecret app, anonymity allowed people to get away with their malicious behavior with no consequences. Even the community’s constant shunning could be easily ignored by the offenders. The two situations are very different and I for one still believe in the people living in the "real world" (where it matters).
On another note, I loved this application and felt lost for a few days when it was deleted. Like the user above mentioned (much more eloquently than I will), it was a place for instantaneous comfort, entertainment, advice, etc. It’s been deleted for a while now, but I can’t bring myself to delete it from my phone...
I truly hope someone with experience making apps makes a similar version of this because it truly was special, despite all the craziness that went along with it.
Posted by: Erin, Jan 06, 2012 08:29:09 PM
I just have to say that I wholeheartedly disagree with the user who says “I truly believe this app is a prime example that we cannot govern ourselves." In the real world people have to associate with others face-to-face and are held accountable for their wrongdoings, especially if they hurt others. On the PostSecret app, anonymity allowed people to get away with their malicious behavior with no consequences. Even the community’s constant shunning could be easily ignored by the offenders. The two situations are very different and I for one still believe in the people living in the "real world" (where it matters).
On another note, I loved this application and felt lost for a few days when it was deleted. Like the user above mentioned (much more eloquently than I will), it was a place for instantaneous comfort, entertainment, advice, etc. It’s been deleted for a while now, but I can’t bring myself to delete it from my phone...
I truly hope someone with experience making apps makes a similar version of this because it truly was special, despite all the craziness that went along with it.
Posted by: Erin, Jan 06, 2012 07:43:28 PM
http://cyberexploder.tumblr.com/post/15206238245/i-miss-the-postsecret-app
I posted my thoughts about the post secret app on my Tumblr.
I MISS THE POSTSECRET APP
Frank Warren shut down the postsecret app for iphone/itouch/ipad this week. I went on the app every time I was bored at work, every time I needed a break from the computer screen at college and every time I was smoking a cigarette on my own.
I liked to read the top hearted and to feel the overwhelming emotion that 140 characters can deliver. To see that there are still decent and real human beings in the world who just, like myself, want to make this world a better place for our children to live in.
I liked the utter crap that people posted in means to get attention or to fuck over the serious users of the app. This utter crap that I speak of (penis pictures, Tiger Text posts, threatening replies etc.) eventually led to the closure of the app.
Most of all I liked the photography, especially when people linked the picture to their secret. The app showed me the world, and I grew attached to the piece of software that I paid Apple £1.49 for.
The app allowed me to post my innermost feelings and deepest secrets. Ones I could never share with another human being, face to face. It was like a little safety blanket for me, to know that I was not alone, provided I had wifi connection.
I felt like I was part of a kind community who supported others and never judged, however it was a strange feeling as I did not know anyone else in the community, by name or by face.
I want to thank the complete strangers that posted me beautiful and supportive replies and to say sorry to everyone in the postsecret community for not replying or hearting your secret when I had the chance to.
I would also like to say a huge Fuck You to the people who destroyed the app with your malicious replies and x-rated photos. Your cold hearts prove how fucked up we as a race really are, and you ruined it for all of us.
If you were not a user of the postsecret app you may think that this post is an overreaction, after all it was just an iphone app.
For some people out there, this app was all that they had.
Posted by: Harley , Jan 06, 2012 02:43:38 PM
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