Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook, Inc. recently revealed its plans to create a new mobile social app that allows users to interact anonymously with their friends. It will be a standalone mobile application that will connect users to their contacts but allow them to use pseudonyms to preserve their anonymity.

Facebook’s app will follow the same trend started by apps like Whisper and Secret, both of which permit users to login anonymously and then post confessions, gossip and other information that they would not want associated with their real names. Those services have received some scrutiny due to the large numbers of Internet bullies and trolls who use them to launch attacks. The actually effectiveness of their anonymity is also questionable.

Facebook has recently come under fire for its stringent identity rules. Users from the LGBT community voiced their disapproval when Facebook refused to allow them to use alternate names under its real-name policy. Since then, the social networking site has apologized and eased its restrictions. The intent of the new app in general is to open up the doors for discussion among Internet users without the fear and judgment that comes with being recognized by one’s full legal name.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg also said that the company will allow third-party developers to grant users anonymous logins through Facebook in order to better protect user’s anonymity on other sites. He also announced that Facebook was giving the development of new standalone apps top priority.