Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch, has a reputation for being a tough interviewer, to say the least. So when Whisper CEO Michael Heyward appeared on stage for an interview with the skeptical Arrington at TechCrunch Disrupt on Wednesday, the "Fireside Chat" turned into more of a trial by fire.

"So your mission ISN'T to create the perfect bullying app?" said Arrington to Heyward only minutes into the conversation, signaling the interview in front of an audience of tech industry insiders and reporters (including our very own Mike Oleaga) wouldn't be one of the friendliest of the day.

Heyward had opened by explaining that Whisper -- a confessional-style social media service and iOS and Android app that allows users to send messages anonymously and receive anonymous replies -- was created with the idea of creating more empathy in the world. "It's about creating a place where we're not carrying around this 800-pound gorilla with us, that we call our identity," said Heyward.

Heyward said he thought normal social media channels were creating less happiness, since users see the best moments of friends' lives and feel they their lives don't stack up. He also cited a university study that showed that web-savvy college kids were statistically 40 percent less empathetic than the previous generation as an example of the impetus for Whisper, where people can expose their deepest, darkest secrets safely and ostensibly receive feedback from other users who can sympathize.

Arrington wasn't too interested in that conversation; He brought up the Whisper message that outed Gwyneth Paltrow's affair, which ultimately led to her split with her husband, as a counterfactual to Heyward's "empathy" claims. Arrington asked why it was okay for Whisper -- which has an editor-in-chief (former Gawker writer Neetzan Zimmerman) to review messages on the network -- to allow the targeting of Gwyneth Paltrow.

Heyward was ready for Arrington's example, which he identified and began defending Whisper against, without even having to look at the screen:

"Gwyneth Paltrow is a public figure ... when people have information that is about public figures that are in the public domain -- by the way, it's very important to recognize that this is something that we have very clearly, narrowly defined editorial guidelines for what we consider to be public domain... like, 'Mike Arrington' is not a public figure -- this is something of absolute global relevancy for the world."

Immediately, Arrington responded, "So you have a list of people that you're allowed to trash on the service?" Arrington did give Whisper credit for the "very positive experience" that you generally see on the app, but asked, "Why is this crap part of your business model?"

Heyward and Arrington got into a fruitful back-and-forth about public figures, public information, and the difference between safety, anonymity for users, and censorship -- stopping public figures' secrets from being discussed on the app. But by then, Arrington's style had definitely affected Heyward, who mostly held his own through the contentious session with relatively good cheer.

Talking about the difference between their editorial policy on "public figures" and users naming non-public figures on the service, Heyward came up with an interesting hypothetical: "We allow zero proper names on the service, so I cannot go on there and say... [interruption from Arrington] Let me speak. I cannot go on there and say that Mike Arrington is an *sshole."

Things cooled down a little from there, and Arrington eventually turned his attention to Roelof Botha of Sequoia Capital, which invested in Whisper last year, who was also in on the session. But Botha wasn't part of much of the conversation, and probably happy for it.

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