Yeah that’s exactly the concern.

Once people start chasing karma or likes the confession stops being honest and starts becoming performance.

Part of the idea is to remove identity and incentives so the only thing left is the thought itself.

Alt accounts still carry reputation though.

The idea here is removing the profile entirely so the confession stands on its own.

That’s kind of the hope.

Not therapy exactly, but a place where people can say something honestly and see how others react to it.

Right now it’s closer to a message in a bottle.

People can react or comment in the room, but it’s not meant to become private back-and-forth conversations between users.

Good question.

The sessions are temporary but not instantly disposable. A host can still block a session from a room, and rooms can require approval to enter.

So the anonymity is mostly between users. Hosts still have basic control over who can participate in their space.

True. Anything public can be copied.

The idea isn’t perfect secrecy. It’s more about removing identity and permanence so people feel safer saying something once and letting it fade.

Yeah that seems to happen with a lot of confession pages.

One thing I’m curious about is whether the format changes it. Short one-line posts tend to leave less room for soapboxing compared to long stories.

Yeah, PostSecret was actually one of the things that made me think about this.

The difference I’m curious about is what happens when it becomes continuous instead of a curated project.

Simplex is interesting.

The difference here would be that it’s not private messaging. The idea is short public confessions that appear in rooms and disappear again after a few days.

More like anonymous graffiti than a chat group.

Good point.

The idea would be that rooms are moderated by hosts, and posts expire after a few days. That removes a lot of the long-term incentives for spam accounts.

It probably wouldn’t eliminate abuse entirely, but the structure makes it less rewarding.

That’s a fair point.

The idea isn’t that anonymity magically solves trolling. It’s more that rooms create friction. If a host bans someone or locks access, that person doesn’t automatically get the same reach everywhere else.

In big anonymous feeds the trolls and normal users share the exact same space. Rooms try to break that dynamic a bit.

It probably won’t eliminate toxicity, but the hope is it localizes it.

That’s fair skepticism.

My thinking was simply that most bot incentives come from visibility, links, followers, or accounts that can accumulate value over time.

A one-line format with no profiles, no links, and posts expiring after a few days removes a lot of those incentives. But you’re right that anonymity alone doesn’t magically solve spam.

Moderation and room structure would still have to do most of the work.

Good points honestly.

Network effects are probably the hardest part of anything like this.

That’s partly why I’m trying the “room” approach instead of one huge anonymous feed. Smaller spaces are easier to moderate and hopefully harder to spam.

But yeah. If the confessions aren’t real or interesting the whole idea dies anyway.

Yeah, I know it. It’s a nice concept.

The difference here would be that everything is anonymous and public by default. No profiles, just short confessions appearing and disappearing.

That’s actually the interesting part.

Most places where people “vent” are basically voids.

The idea behind Backroom was the opposite. Short anonymous confessions that people actually read and react to.

That’s fair.

Some people probably feel exactly that way.

Others carry thoughts they would never attach to their name anywhere.

Yeah that’s probably the honest answer.

Some people just need the thought to exist somewhere outside their head.

Whether that helps or not probably depends on the person.

Yeah that seems to happen a lot with anonymous spaces.

Some people use them for shock value. Others actually say things they would never say anywhere else.

The interesting part is what happens when identity disappears.

That’s a fair concern.

The idea is that there are no profiles and no identity attached, so the confession exists on its own without linking back to a person.

It’s less about who reads it and more about removing the connection between the thought and the individual.