A great app
Lets me get all my feelings out anonymously to people who know what its like. Genuinely one of the best vent platforms ive seen. everyone is so supportive and sweet :)
Lost its luster
I have been using this app for years. It’s undergone a lot of restructuring over the recent years. One thing I have found that makes me start to hate this app that I once loved and used to help me more than anything in my life is the censorship. We are not allowed to post anything within the realm of nsfw content. I think that this takes away from the original purpose of vent as a whole. This app was meant to be a place to vent all the awful and ugly and horrifying feelings that people feel. But now I can’t make a post that goes in depth with all the awful ugly scary things I feel or have experienced in my life. It has made me not want to use the app anymore sometimes bc I can’t truly VENT anymore. There shouldn’t ever be censorship of venting. People deserve a space to be real, to express the horrible things they feel and have been through, and censoring those things is just plain idiotic.
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Not What It Used To Be
App is under new management and what was once an app for those struggling with mental health is now unusable for most with mental health issues. Does not listen with much compassion to its user-base. Hoping it changes for the better and user-base’s voices are heard.
It’s gone through an unfortunate change
A while ago vent switched owners and to keep the app running they changed a lot about it to match their existing apps. That’s all fine and dandy, but lately the #1 issue is moderation, with communication being a close second. The owner has recently released a new set of guidelines, meant to supposedly be more specific and clear up the communication issues between users and moderators, but it’s done probably the exact opposite. Now, non triggering posts are getting automatically tagged with a warning, presumably without giving any notice to the poster. Not to mention, these moderators have a clear misunderstanding of how mental health issues present themselves and what classifies as an actual crisis, leading to a lot of users feeling as if they can’t even ‘vent’ anymore.
The unfortunate thing is that these are problems that can be fixed, however the owner likes to brush of a lot of the community’s concerns and acting like him running the app poorly is somehow better than nothing just because he ‘doesn’t make money off of this app’ and it’s supposedly a passion project. There would be less issues if they were properly specific about their guidelines and actually have their moderators do their jobs consistently. I’d happily give a better review if they would just stop acting like us mentally ill folks don’t know how to keep ourselves safe or understand our own experiences better than the folks running the app.
The unfortunate thing is that these are problems that can be fixed, however the owner likes to brush of a lot of the community’s concerns and acting like him running the app poorly is somehow better than nothing just because he ‘doesn’t make money off of this app’ and it’s supposedly a passion project. There would be less issues if they were properly specific about their guidelines and actually have their moderators do their jobs consistently. I’d happily give a better review if they would just stop acting like us mentally ill folks don’t know how to keep ourselves safe or understand our own experiences better than the folks running the app.
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Unmoderated, Run by flag-happy bots
Used to be a safe space where I found meaningful friends and community. I’ve been on this app for more than 8 years and for the first time I’m feeling genuinely unhappy with the state it’s in. The app owner makes calls that don’t make sense and then doesn’t explain himself to a rightfully upset userbase. Major updates to community guidelines enforce censorship to an extreme degree. Topics such as suicide, self harm, and eating disorders are all but banned on an app said to focus on open communication around mental health issues. Would not recommend if you’re looking for a place to truly vent about what you’re feeling. Highly restricted and unfriendly to the topics it claims to prioritize. Sad to see my favorite app for almost a decade in this current state and can’t help but feel that truly absorbing community feedback could fix some of these issues. While you’re reading this, I would recommend against Talklife too. Owned by the same individual and is even more restrictive, from personal experience.
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