PostSecret, the popular tell-all-your-secrets web site, shut down their iPhone app that allowed people to post their secrets 100% anonymously via electronic means (prior to that it was by mail-in postcard only and has gone back to operating that way).

Cited reasons for the closure of the app were, "…absolute anonymity made it very challenging to permanently remove determined users with malicious intent", and "Bad content caused users to complain to me, Apple and the FBI. I was contacted by law enforcement about bad content on the App. Threats were made against users, moderators and my family."

The problem here wasn’t the trolls but rather the app administration itself. Even though the submissions were moderated, the sheer number of them made it basically impossible for the volunteer moderators to weed out all the "bad" content.

What this basically proves is that the mobile market at this point isn’t ready for anonymous posters, and I don’t think it ever will be.

On the "regular" non-mobile internet, anonymous and real-name posting systems can coexist, and there are community-driven automated moderation tools like Akismet to assist with that. On mobile however it’s a different story. Apps specifically designed for mobile platforms don’t have the same moderation options as traditional web site message systems do.

"If it’s all the internet, it’s all the same, right?"

No, it’s not. Dealing with content systems where content is published through mobile means is still largely a very new thing at present; app developers across the globe are fighting with this on a daily basis.

Maybe one day we’ll have proper moderation systems on mobile, but at present? Not a chance.

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