Secret is a popular social sharing network app that works by keeping the user's identity anonymous. It relies on the crowd's anonymity in order to camouflage the identities of the users.
Upon installing the app, the user will have to allow the app to access his list of mobile contacts. Once it gains access, the app checks all the phone numbers and email addresses of the current Secret users in the list. After detection, the user can start following his co-Secret users.
As a way to promote a more friendly experience, Secret will have Flickr integrated into the app to provide it with a more robust lineup of background images. However, this update will also prohibit users from accessing the photos from their device's photo library. The app will still encourage personalized backgrounds. Users would still be able to upload photos that are taken in real-time using the in-app camera. Secret is disabling the option to upload older images for the purpose of cutting down on personally-damaging photos.
A spokesperson from Secret said that this partnership with Flickr has been under discussion since February. "We're really excited to see how the beautiful images from their library will bring more expressiveness to the stream," said the spokesperson.
Apart from removing some uploading options, Secret is also removing the ability to create "secret" posts that contain a person's name. This aims to discourage posts that contain personally-damaging info. In other words, Secret is tightening its community guidelines to discourage cyberbullying in the app. Any posts that are found out to contain a person's name would be automatically blocked.
"We've learned that the vast majority of great secrets don't have names in them, and the few that do usually aren't productive and can even be harmful. We've changed our position on the use of real names and, in addition to discouraging their use, we're actively blocking posts containing names of private individuals whenever possible. We will invest heavily here to make sure the system improves over time," said the team behind Secret.
The next feature of the update deals with allowing users to create short, two-option polls. Users who seek for an advice or feedback can use these polls and collect responses from both friends and strangers. Poll results can be displayed in two different options. One is by showing feedback from the poll author's friends. The other is by showing feedback to everyone who participated in answering the poll questions.
CEO David Byttow of Secret announced that his team had successfully fixed 42 unique vulnerability issues of the app. These would include the horror of someone unmasking the user and linking the post of a user to his name.
"As hackers disclose these kinds of vulnerabilities through our HackerOne bounty, we just make more and more advancements," said Byttow.
