Why tbh is better than Sarahah

By: Sarah Banholzer

Recently, a rush of new anonymous messaging apps have been launched, aimed
directly towards teenagers. These new apps seem to fulfill teenager’s urge to freely
express their feeling towards one another while remaining completely anonymous.
Two of the most popular apps in this category have been tbh and Sarahah. Although
these two apps are similar in their purpose of allowing teenagers to talk to their peers in
an anonymous way, they differ completely in their method of going about it.
The app Sarahah was created this summer by Zain al-Abidin Tawfiq, a Saudi Arabian
developer. Sarahah was intended to be a website for employees to give feedback about
their employers.
After becoming popular in Arabic- speaking countries, this website was translated into
English and evolved into an app in the US.
Sarahah experienced extreme popularity with teenagers because of its ability to send
friends an anonymous message, similar to AskFm.com. The recipient of the message is
only able to “favorite” the message, but not respond.
“I like Sarahah better because it is more specific. In tbh you just select which person
you choose, but in Sarahah you actually type out the person’s name,” said Jackson
Luck (21’).
Sarahah was met with many concerns over the app’s potential of being a platform for
cyberbullying and other online abuse.
“I think it’s because most bullies are cowards, and they can do this behind the
protection of whatever their media source is rather than looking at that person and
realizing that they are a human too,” says Winter Jones, an AVHS counselor.
Another app called tbh was launched by a small California company, Midnight Labs,
in early summer. Tbh, which is short for “to be honest”, allows users to answer
questions about their friends through polls, which reward the recipient with points in the
form of gems.
The polls on tbh are never hurtful, but instead allow teenagers to answer positive
questions about which of their friends “makes you laugh the hardest” or which one “you
can count on for anything”.
 “I think on Sarahah people can be honest, but sometimes they do it in a way which
can harmfully affect people. Whereas tbh is nicer and consists of more fun ideas,” says
Bella Foster (20’).
Even though both apps, tbh and Sarahah, are very similar for being anonymous
messaging apps, it seems that tbh has created a safe and positive platform for
teenagers to express their feelings