What is Sarahah – what you NEED to know

The world of social media moves pretty fast, and even as a fairly tech savvy blogger, I sometimes struggle to keep up. In the last few years, my social media existence has gone from just the odd poke on Facebook to daily use of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Instagram Stories, Facebook Live and Snapchat. But now there is a new social network in town, and not every one is happy about it.

Here’s my guide to Sarahah, what it is, and why as a parent you might want to know about it!

What is Sarahah??

Sarahah (loosely meaning Honesty in Arabic) is a free social media app that was launched in June this year. Sarahah lets you receive comments from friends, family, colleagues and even strangers anonymously. It was originally designed as a 360 feedback tool to allow colleagues to share feedback on employees they have worked with in a truly honest fashion. By being anonymous, people could rely upon the information given to be more accurate and reflective of real life experiences.

The app itself described itself as “helping you discover your strengths and areas for improvement by receiving honest feedback from your employees and friends in a private manner”

More recently however, teens have begun using Sarahah (not its original target market), connecting to the app via Snapchat, and as a result Sarahah now has millions of users and is fast becoming one of the top downloaded apps across the globe.

How does it work?

Users create an online profile to start receiving messages. They can share their profile with friends or link it on other social media accounts so that people can start to send them anonymous messages. When Snapchat did their update on the 5th July, it enabled Sarahah to be linked to directly. If you know your friends username you can also look them up directly.

A new message feed allows you to see all messages received and a recent addition to the software enables you to block senders if you receive a message which is offensive or inappropriate. However, you cannot reply to the sender, and you cannot see who sent the message.

Why are Parents worried?

With the rise of social media, there has been a massive increase in recent years of what has been deemed cyber bullying, with many instances of bullying being targeted to individuals online. The anonymous element of Sarahah is definitely open to abuse – it is far easier to troll someone or send them abuse behind the veil of anonymity. Once your profile name has been discovered or shared, users are free to message whatever they like.

As well as this, as a parent, you have no idea what kind of content your child is being sent. Whilst the app states it is recommended for users 17+ there is nothing that would essentially stop them from signing up, particularly as it is now so easy to promote via Snapchat. As you can’t see who the messages are coming from, there is no filter as such to determine whether the messages being sent are not of a sexual, racist, aggressive or inflammatory nature. You only have to look at some of the feedback on the app to see that many of the current users are not using it in the manner for which is was created.

One thing to be aware of is that if your child is using the app, they should opt opt of having their name and profile picture appear in the search listings. This is not done automatically, but doing this makes it much safer to use. They can also opt out of receiving messages from unregistered users and consider only sharing their link with specific people who they know and trust. The developers are currently considering adding reply to functionality.

As a HR Advisor, whilst I admire the original intentions of the developer, I do personally have some great concerns about this app being misused. Whilst my daughter is clearly too young for this, if I had a teenager, I would be having a chat with them to ensure that if she was using it, she was doing so as cautiously as possible.

Do your children use Sarahah? What are your thoughts on the app?