Granting anonymity to the users, the service has already gathered over 2.5 million users in Egypt, 1.7 million in Tunisia, 1.2 million in Saudi Arabia, and is rapidly expanding in Syria and Kuwait. Sarahah means ‘honesty’ in Arabic.
What is Sarahah?
Sarahah is basically a ‘secret messaging’ application. The service allows you to send an opinion, feedback, confession, or have full fledged communication with people without disclosing your identity. This can be healthy in situations where one-on-one discussions or conversations are not the best resort.
How does it work?
First, you have to download the Sarahah Messenger from Play Store or App Store. It is a free app for both Android and iOS. After downloading you need to make a Sarahah account. After creating your Sarahah account, you can anonymously send or receive messages in the app itself. Your identity is hidden by default and you can have an ID tag if you don’t want to hide your identity. Received messages are stored in an inbox where you can read, reply, add messages to favorite, delete them or even flag or report the messages. Flagging and reporting features are much necessary for an app where the sender’s identity is not disclosed.
The idea behind Sarahah
Zain al-Abidin Tawfiq, the developer of Sarahah told Al Jazeera, “There are several obstacles [to open discussion] such as differences in age or rank, so in some cases anonymity makes presenting criticism more comfortable.” So we can safely say that Sarahah messenger is a platform built for healthy criticism, but the immense popularity of the app has certainly unveiled innovative uses by people. The service is being used to reveal crushes, make confessions, and even post hate comments.
Conclusion
There have been similar apps to Sarahah in the past too, but these did not grant total anonymity and personal experience like Sarahah messenger. Due to its anonymous nature, bullying and derogatory comments should also be expected. Nevertheless, everything has its positives and negatives and the case is same with Sarahah. While there’s a possibility of you being bullied or sent inappropriate remarks, you can flag the messages and request action against the sender, which is a good option.
