Now Facebook lets you post anonymously using a new app

Facebook has unveiled a new service which marks a drastic change for the company - for the first time, users can post without using their real names.

The standalone Rooms app, for iOS, allows users to join discussions on topics ranging from live music to animated GIFs (something not supported on the Facebook app), with invitations coming in the form of QR codes, the black-and-white codes often used in poster advertising.

Taking a screenshot of an invitation allows you into new Rooms.

Users can post entirely anonymously, and create their own rooms, with early ‘Rooms’ based around everything from cooking to parkour.

Facebook product manager Josh Miller says, "There is a good reason in a lot of situations why you don't want people to know who you are and it's not because of something sketchy. We want to give people flexibility because that's what they want."

The app does not require a Facebook log-in - instead, users enter their emaail, then a code sent out by Facebook.

Posts in Rooms can thus be entirely anonymous if posters choose.

                                   [Queen sends her first Tweet]

It marks a significant turnaround for the company, which recently changed its policy on users having to use the same name as on their passport or credit cards, in the wake of outcry from drag performers and LGBT activists.

The result was a flood of new users to a trendy new social network Ello.

The small, anti-advert social network was what was described as a ‘mass exodus’ late last month..

‘There does seem to be a bit of an avalanche,’ said site co-creator Paul Budnitz.