In an era where social networks try to interconnect more and more people, a new service seeks to do the opposite: to help its users avoid their «friends».
Cloak uses location data from social networks such as Foursquare and Instagram (other networks will follow) to determine the location of people the user may know (contacts on social networks). It then notifies them when there are suspicions that someone may be nearby. The user can check the map for areas where people they might want to avoid may be located and flag them, so they are informed if they are about to pass nearby.
Cloak describes itself as a method for avoiding exes, former coworkers, chatty acquaintances, and generally anyone the user would prefer not to encounter. It was created by programmer Brian Moor and former Buzzfeed staffer Chris Becker.
According to a publication by the Washington Post, Becker appears to specialize in applications with slightly «inhuman» tendencies, as he has created the browser extension «unbaby.me», which hides baby photo posts from friends in the Facebook feed, as well as the startup «Rather», which frees the user «from things they hate on Facebook and Twitter». Also, the «Hate With Friends» helps the user determine whether there is animosity between the user and a «friend» on Facebook – for accuracy, it notifies them when it «perceives» that a contact on Facebook dislikes them a lot.
«Personally, I think we have seen the peak of the large social network» he wrote in his email. «Things like Twitter and Facebook are crowded elevators, where we are all squeezed together… I think these “anti-social” applications are on the rise. You will see more and more projects of this kind».
Source: naftemporiki.gr
