Anonymous messaging application Secret closes doors

Secret, a social network designed to share messages anonymously, will cease to exist. In the coming weeks, the pending cases will be settled, after which the app will no longer be available.

In

a blog post on Medium, founder David Byttow explains why Secret is shutting down. According to him, Secret no longer represents the vision he initially had in mind with the software. It is not clear what he means by that. According to Byttow, there is still enough money in cash, so that there is in any case no question of bankruptcy. The remaining money is returned to investors as much as possible.

Shortly before Byttow announced the news, rumors were already circulating about a possible closure. Secret would not have been further developed in recent times and the employees would have only kept the software running. The company is said to have fired a large number of employees in recent times or transferred them to another job. Byttow says he will continue to work on that in the coming weeks.

Secret previously came under fire after an update to the user interface. It would have been copied from another application. It also turned out that the security of the application was not in order: in some cases it turned out that the author of a post on Secret could be traced.

With Secret it is possible to post anonymously on the social network. It is possible to link a telephone number or Facebook account: this makes it clear how many friends also use Secret and whether a post was made by a friend. In all cases, it is not specified who exactly is involved. According to Byttow, Secret has been used by about 15 million people, but the number of active users was not stated.