Being ‘Candid’ not always positive

Confession: I just did something I shouldn’t have done. I downloaded another social media app on my phone. I didn’t need to waste any more time on social media, but NPR did a story on this new app called Candid and I wanted to give it a try.

Candid is something like the “anonymous” apps before it (Whisper, YikYak, and more). Users’ identities are masked, which encourages them to speak freely about topics or personal experiences they might censor otherwise. The use of other anonymous social networks has led to innumerable instances of cyberbullying, threats and illegal activity. But Candid plans to avoid that outcome with cutting-edge artificial intelligence. Candid creator Bindu Reddy told NPR, “The algorithm on Candid is a learning algorithm, so as we get more data we learn more. But the idea is to kind of weed out the bad posts, as I call them.”

OK. So the pro-free speech social media app employs robot-driven censorship. I opened the app. The initial screen set ground rules. No. 11 was “Be Nice.” Uh-oh, I thought. Those robots must be working overtime.

But when I got to the home screen, I wasn’t blown away by the frankness. People were posting about the evils of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, their gripes with religion, gun control and racial tensions, and the kinds of things that make them feel sad at the end of the day. Nothing I hadn’t seen elsewhere on the Internet. Comments under posts tended toward the negative, many hurtful and dismissive. These users did seem inclined to bash one another, cloaked in their anonymity.

I realized only then that I had opened Candid in an attempt to connect with people who were vulnerable and open. Instead, I found cruelty parading around behind usernames. I have no interest in cyber-fighting with an avatar. Especially not now, at this crucial and precarious moment in our world psyche.

Here’s how I look at it: the pros of an app like Candid don’t outweigh the cons. If I have to “censor” my thoughts on social media, in face-to-face conversation and even in these columns, that’s okay with me. Because my goal is to make a real human connection and in order to do that, I have to be ready to consider my audience and what might attract or repel them. I have to employ rhetorical techniques. I have to hold my tongue so I can hold your attention. Is that really so bad? I would rather do that and open a healthy, productive, and possibly unifying dialogue than succeed in getting everything off my chest whether someone likes it or not.

What my heart wants today is to make connections with other people, to remind me that we are more together than it seems. In order to connect, I need to not only hear your voice but see you as a human being. You are not a sound byte or an emoji. You are a person with fears and hopes, just like me. Let’s start there.

This story was originally published August 6, 2016 at 3:27 PM with the headline "Being ‘Candid’ not always positive."