The "Truth Box"- The Trendy Way to Bully & Harass

The Trendy Way to Bully

"I can't believe someone thinks that I'm hooking up with her boyfriend!" Crying and sputtering out her words, my client frantically said over the phone. "Why are people so mean?"

After doing my best to comfort and calm her down, we decided to meet in person and talk about what had happened.

In short, this young woman had placed a new application on her MySpace profile called the "Truth Box" which allows others to anonymously post comments. There is a similar add-on called the "Honesty Box" for FaceBook, with dozens of other "Truth" type applications available for various social networking sites.

My client had placed the application on her profile to get feedback and "just for fun," as she put it. Although she received many great comments and compliments, she (as I expected) focused on two negative comments that were hurtful.

If you aren't prepared for the answers, don't ask the question.

In wanting the positive comments and feedback from her friends she was looking for approval and she did indeed get some, but she was unprepared for the negative consequences.

After some discussion, she decided to remove the "Truth Box" from her profile and we spoke about her "need" (I used "strong desire") to know what others really thought about her. Although she said her main concern was to improve herself and feel better, she admitted that she was still hung up on finding out who had posted the mean comments. Even weeks later she was still trying to figure out who had said what and was asking friends to ask their friends.

The Hack or Track Test

I posted a similar application on my profile for two days as a test. With one of the programs, I was able to see the profiles of those who made comments. Here is what I used:

1. Go to the truth you want to reveal

2. Click "Block" (either 1 week or forever, it doesn't matter)

3. Go to Account Settings from your home page

4. Go to "Privacy"

5. Look for "Block Users"

6. Click "[View List]"

7. the person you blocked is in that list!

This only worked for one of the "Truth" applications (out of four) that I used, but my point was to let others know that these applications can be hacked or tracked.