tellonym - ask me anything

First off, I downloaded tellonym when curioiscat suddenly disappeared. It’s been an adequate replacement to let my followers send in ideas and comments and the like. The problems I have for it are 1. The app itself frequently prompts you to add personal information you may not want tied to an account online (occupation, gender, phone number). This may be fine for people who use it casually with friends attached to a personal account, but it’s not so good for online creators who stay somewhat anonymous. 2. The bot questions the app generates on its own are VERY annoying. They’re very basic question that are not fun to answer and just exist to help get tellonym’s name out there. If you delete them, another will come in a few minutes. These need to be gotten rid of to not clog up the inbox or send a notification that there’s a question when it’s just a boring question generated by the app. This is my BIGGEST complaint with tellonym. Get rid of the bot questions. If I want fake questions not sent by friends or followers that badly, I can just anon them to myself. It’s the same amount of genuine interaction with followers 😑

The short version: Tellonym is toxic. Kids should not have it. Detail: This is an app that allows anyone to post anything about other users, while remaining anonymous. It is heaven for trolls who want to post the most vile, graphically violent, racist, misogynistic and sexual messages imaginable. Some messages seem to taunt users to consider suicide. (“Why are you even alive? Nobody likes you.”) In addition, Tellonym allows plenty run-of-the-mill cyberbullying like: “You think you have friends, Sophie, but we all really hate you.” And because the company promises it will never reveal who posts this garbage, there is nothing you can do but request to delete it (which they may or may not), and then calm your devastated child who installed the app behind your back, because “Everyone has it.” Oh, and it’s the perfect haven for pedophiles to contact tweens and teens, masquerading as kids themselves and asking your child seemingly innocent questions like where they go to school, or requesting that they post a photo! Found some of those, too. This does unbelievable damage to kids’ self-esteem and mental health. There is nothing good that can come of having this app. Check your child’s phone and if it’s there, talk to them about why you need to delete it.

Last night, a student took a screenshot of an anxiety-inducing message sent anonymously to her Tellonym account. The sender of the message threatened that he would bring his guns to school, and commence a shooting during first period. This worried many students, who quickly spread it across Instagram as a warning to their friends and community members. Even the principal was alerted within an hour of the message posting, and the state police department was notified. If the developers could make this a reality, I think many situations like this could be prevented. Regulating the anonymous messages via flagged words or phrases and having a way to keep track of who sends the messages would be very much appreciated. I know it may be difficult for the developers to implement because of privacy rights, but this would be a great call. It is hard for the school administration to determine if this is a legitimate threat, and it would make it so much easier for us to solve this problem if these suggestions can be implemented. If this is possible in any ways, then please. Make it happen. We need to protect our schools and our students. I myself am a student, and I do not want to attend school with the fear that we could be next.