Google vet launches app Candid for anonymous sharing that puts trolls in their place - CNET

Candid, an anonymous sharing app aiming for frank debate, launched Thursday by a vet of Google, Bindu Reddy.

Reddy, Candid's CEO and a former head of product for Google's social apps, said she embarked to create Candid after she felt unable to share unfiltered opinions on mainstream social networks.

"My social media network includes everyone in my life, from friends I haven't seen since high school to family members and work colleagues. Expressing my opinion, especially about controversial issues, inevitably upsets someone," she said in a statement. "I needed a place to express myself and engage in discussions where ideas can be debated on their own merits instead of being used to attack me as a person."

In the last week, outcry has mounted about trolling and some social networks' milquetoast efforts to control the hate-driven online attacks. Tuesday, Twitter conceded it hasn't done enough to curb abuse, after it banned high-profile troll Milo Yiannopoulos. A tech joualist who has described himself as "most fabulous supervillian on the inteet," Yiannopoulos stoked Twitter users to bombard "Ghostbusters" star Leslie Jones with racist and misogynist tweets tied to her appearance in the female-led film remake.

Joining a cohort of anonymous-sharing apps like Whisper and Yik Yak, Candid leans on artificial intelligence to moderate posts. To combat the typical occurrence of a small number of users contributing the majority of negative posts, Candid developed a "natural language processing" technology to analyze all posts. The tech is meant to remove objectionable content, flag negative posts, and redirect off-topic Idea to appropriate groups. The app also has a "sentiment analysis" model that the company says identifies hate speech, slander and threats.