PostSecret Shuts Down iPhone App

Posted on January 2, 2012

PostSecret was one of the early successful blogs. It dominated the Bloggies in 2006. The blog also found success through books and exhibits. The blog remains popular today and continues to post postcards submitted by users. However, the blog has had to shut down its iPhone app because of abusive posts by a small number of obnoxious users.

PostSecret's Frank Warren writes that the number of abusive and profane posts overwhelmed the volunteer moderators.

99% of the secrets created were in the spirit of PostSecret. Unfortunately, the scale of secrets was so large that even 1% of bad content was overwhelming for our dedicated team of volunteer moderators who worked 24 hours a day 7 days a week removing content that was not just pornographic but also gruesome and at times threatening.

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. (Two specific threats were made that I am unable to talk about). As much as we tried, we were unable to maintain a bully-free environment. Weeks ago I had to remove the App from my daughter's phone.