The online marketplace is the ideal platform for an individual to make their opinions heard. There are quite literally millions of websites that will allow one to comment or debate or review any genre of subject matter from music and film to politics and healthcare. There has been a lot of assessment as to why the Internet, particularly the successful growth of social media, has been such a powerful tool for discussion. One particular weapon in the social media arsenal that everyone seems to agree on is the importance of anonymity. However, the latest platform to pass through private beta testing may have taken the significance of being anonymous one step too far.
The site, named Unvarnished has been created for one purpose, to rate professionals in the workplace – for better or for worse. The founders have an impressive CV of social networking sites, notably LinkedIn and eBay, and yet Unvarnished may be the most controversial to date. One co-founder, Peter Kazanjy is quoted as saying that they are “trying to take how professional opinion works in the offline world and port that online”. Essentially, this is how it works: One can log into Unvarnished through Facebook and either create a profile about your coworker, or if one already exists, add comments, ratings and a description of your issue. The individual ‘reviewing’ will have their name kept completely secret, ultimately meaning that no matter what you say about a colleague, they will never know it is you.
The website will allow an individual to rate your doctor, your IT guy or your boss without ever revealing your identity. When asked about the risks of anonymity to this extent, Kazanjy answered that without it; people couldn’t be “candid or nuanced in their reviews”. However, it certainly opens up the situation to potential abuse and misuse. The situation could quite easily arise where an individual feels put out, overworked or mistreated by their boss, and now they can take it out anonymously on his or her Unvarnished page with little to no chance that they’ll ever be caught. However, there is potentially a very real and very destructive chance it could ruin your boss’s professional reputation.
Kazanjy says Unvarnished has controls in the system to prevent “trashing” and all users must “authenticate” their profile through Facebook, meaning the company will have actual names and personal details in case of potential ‘spammers’. To use the system, individuals must be 21 and over, and there is a ‘report’ button to allow abusive comments to be reported and removed if needed. There is a sort of ‘rewards system’ on offer as well, where the individual user can gain ‘authority’ based on the perceived helpfulness of their comments. Although an individual user cannot remove a comment on their profile themselves there is a ‘respond’ button that allows you to give your side of the story.
There is however a great deal of apprehension towards this new system. Whether this hesitancy is because many of us fear the website will be misused is debatable. It seems more likely that individuals are apprehensive of Unvarnished because they don’t want to be criticized for what they do. However, Kazanjy himself certainly makes a good point when he says “If someone has an axe to grind, they can already make a smear campaign behind your back, it already happens in the online world every day”.
Social networking is still growing and seems not to be slowing down. People keep tumbling, flickering and tweeting more and more and it seems Unvarnished may be the next significant addition to the marketplace. Where anonymity may be key to its success, there is certainly an argument against Unvarnished’s potential overuse of it. Reviewing your colleagues is certainly an exciting prospect and at the moment we’ll have to wait and see whether it really takes off. One thing is for sure however, nobody likes a bad review, so you better get back to work!
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