If you work in technology, there’s no doubt you’ve heard of (and have probably used) an app called Secret. As the NYT’s Jenna Wortham explains, Secret “is testing the limits of just how much sharing Silicon Valley thinks is a good thing. That’s because the sharing is done anonymously. And, as it turns out, much of the chatter is about Silicon Valley itself — offering a rare, unvarnished look at the ambitions, disappointments, rivalries, jealousies and obsessions of the engineers and entrepreneurs who live and work there.” (Because apparently, the tech industry’s navel-gazing isn’t already unvarnished enough…) Even when people put their names to posts and Tweets, the Internet can be used as a tool to spread lowbrow, false, and often malicious information. Will anonymity make things worse?

+ Either way, it’s worth noting that many of today’s hottest apps enable private or anonymous messaging. Private is the new public. And if an app called Cloak is any indication, antisocial is the new social. Cloak uses check-ins and geolocation to help you avoid the people you’d rather not see.