Facebook developing anonymity app

Facebook is working on a stand-alone mobile application that allows users to interact inside of it without having to use their real names, according to two people briefed on Facebook’s plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the project.

The app, which is expected to be released in the coming weeks, reveals a different, experimental take on Facebook’s long-established approach to identity. Facebook has pushed its main site as a way to establish your online identity, and to map out the connections you have to other friends and family, both on and offline.

“It’s part of what made Facebook special in the first place,” Chris Cox, Facebook’s chief product officer, said in a recent post that discussed issues of identity on the social network. “By differentiating the service from the rest of the internet where pseudonymity, anonymity, or often random names were the social norm.”

This is still the case on Facebook’s main site, which has more than a billion accounts. But the new app is proof that the company is willing to explore alternatives.

The project is being led by Josh Miller, a product manager at Facebook who joined the company when it acquired Branch, his start-up which focused on products that fostered small, online discussion groups. Mr. Miller and the rest of his team have been working on the product in its different forms for the last year, said the people briefed on the plans.

The point, according to these people, is to allow Facebook users to use multiple pseudonyms to openly discuss the different things they talk about on the Internet; topics of discussion which they may not be comfortable connecting to their real names.

–nytimes.com