ReThink is an innovative and patented technology, available for all android and apple devices, that was designed and created to detect and stop cyberbullying online. The application’s algorithm detects, identifies, and provides instant prompts to users to rethink or reconsider posting or sending hateful or offensive content/messages online. It is an innovative way to help children, tweens, and teens make positive decisions online. It works on all social media and is also compatible with texting apps. What’s even better is that it works in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, Hindi, Dutch, German, Italian, Greek, and French.
Teachers and parents are employing it to help children and students be more digitally responsible. Any objectionable content detected by the app receives a prompt, and ReThink states they have a success rate of over 93%.
ReThink’s creator and founder, Trisha Prabhu, was business-minded and an anti-bullying entrepreneur from a young age. She has also received multiple awards and accolades from various institutions and foundations over her life. Trisha got the idea for the ReThink app after learning about an 11-year-old cyber-bullying victim’s suicide in a news article. She wanted an anti-cyber-bullying solution that stops bullying at the source before it is ever sent out. After already being an avid coder, she created and developed the app in 2014. When detecting offensive or hateful posts, her app prompted the author to rethink the message. Studies showed that children who received this prompt reconsidered their message over 90% of the time.
Trisha Prabhu appeared on Season 8, Episode 1 of Shark Tank. She was looking for a $100,000 investment, offering a 20% stake in her business. She demonstrated her app with a video and then a demo of the app. She also told her story of how she got the idea and how much she believes in putting an end to cyber-bullying.
Robert is the first Shark with questions. He asks if he could still send the hateful message after the app prompt. Trisha says he could. Trisha also states her app is targeted toward parents, students, and schools with anti-bullying modules. She mentions her app has already been downloaded almost 130,000 times and has over 80,000 daily users.
Barbara is the first Shark to walk away from the deal as she thinks the app doesn’t exactly work as a business. Robert believes her app isn’t anything revolutionary or innovative and is out too. Trisha then states there are multiple wireless carriers interested in her app; the Sharks get a little more interested.
Daymond is willing to offer $100,000 in return for a 30% stake. Lori follows up, stating she’d accept the initial $100,000 for 20% deal if Mark Cuban partnered with her. Mark agreed, and the deal with Trisha was done.
Our Review of ReThink
After the Shark Tank episode aired, Trisha’s deal with Lori and Mark never closed. However, Trisha received a $300,000 investment to continue her app development from the Elevate Prize Foundation. Trisha continued on with her studies and is now a Harvard computer and political science graduate. As of now, ReThink is also hugely popular, with over 5 million active users of the app. The app is free on both Apple and Android devices, and they also provide free ReThink chapters and a Rethink Program for schools.
The app itself monitors the users’ keyboard and typing, and if it detects a message or text that contains hateful or offensive content, profanity, abuse, or anything that can be hurtful, it displays a prompt that urges the user to stop and rethink what they are saying. The pop-up messages are not always the same and try to communicate their users to reconsider.
While the app works as advertised, it is an anti-bullying tool that only works if the user opts into it. It urges the users to rethink or reword their message, but if they really want to send the particular message, they can continue to do so. While this sounds counterintuitive to what an anti-cyberbullying app should do, the option to continue provides an anti-bullying solution that isn’t complete censorship but one that allows users to actually think and make non-hateful decisions for themselves.
The prompts might feel intrusive to some users, but that’s the whole point. Users get an option to ‘clear’ their message, which deletes the offensive or hateful text. And they get an ‘Ok’ option, they can choose to continue with their message. The app, unlike most other anti-cyberbullying apps, works to stop the problem at the source, and while it might not work 100% of the time, it does have a high success rate.
Pros of ReThink
Great Concept: the idea and concept are great. Trying to stop bullying at the source and giving children, tweens, and teens a chance to think about their impulsive and offensive comments.
Cons of ReThink
Opt-In: the app really only works when and if the user actually wants to work on themselves and reconsider their hateful or offensive words.
Who is ReThink for?
ReThink is for parents, teachers, students, and children looking to work on helping them reduce their impulsive offences. It also works well with adults who might be looking to control their online habits.
Are There Any Alternatives?
At this time, we aren’t able to find any direct alternatives. StopIt!, GoSpeakUp, and BullyBox are a few anti-bullying applications online but work very differently from ReThink.
Our Final Thoughts
To conclude, ReThink is an overall great app for parents and teachers looking to teach their children to curb their online bullying tendencies. It allows children and students to rethink, reconsider, and reword what they post or send online. Any and all hateful, hurtful, abusive, and offensive content, in general, is detected and prompted against. The app makes children and teens think about what they write and post, which is the best way to stop the bullying problem at its source.
