There\u2019s no doubt that modern social networks have let us down. Filled with hate speech and abuse, moderation and anti-abuse tools were an afterthought they\u2019re now trying to cram in. Meanwhile, personalization engines deliver us only what will keep us engaged, even if it\u2019s not the truth. Today, a number of new social networks are trying to flip the old model on its head \u2014 whether that\u2019s attempting to use audio for more personal connections, like Clubhouse, eliminate clout chasing, like Twelv, or, in the case of new social network Telepath, by designing a platform guided by rules that focus on enforcing kindness, countering abuse, and disabling the spread of fake news.
\nMany of these early efforts are already facing challenges.
\nPrivate social network Clubhouse has repeatedly demonstrated that allowing free-flowing communication in the form of audio conversations is an area that\u2019s notoriously difficult to moderate. The app, though still unavailable to the broader public, courted controversy in September when it allowed anti-Semitic content to be discussed in one of its chat rooms.\u00a0In the past, it had also allowed users to harass an NYT reporter openly.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Twelv, a sort of Instagram alternative, ditches the \u201cLike\u201d button concept and all the other features now overloading Instagram, which had once been just a photo-sharing network. But, unfortunately, this also means there\u2019s no easy way to find and follow interesting users or trends on Twelv \u2014 you have to push friends to join the app with you or know someone\u2019s username to look them up, otherwise it shows you no content. The result is a social network without the \u201csocial.\u201d
\nTelepath, meanwhile, is a more interesting development.
\nIt\u2019s pursuing an even loftier goal in social networking \u2014 creating a hate speech-free platform where fake news can\u2019t be distributed.
\nNo social network to date has been able to accomplish what Telegraph claims it will be able to do in terms of content moderation. Its ambitions are optimistic and, as the network remains in private beta, they\u2019re also untested at scale.
\nThough positioned as a different kind of social network, Telepath isn\u2019t actually focused on developing a new sharing format that could encourage participation \u2014 the way TikTok popularized the 15-second video clip, for example, or how Snapchat turned the world onto \u201cStories.\u201d
\nInstead, Telepath, at first glance, looks very much like just another feed to scroll through. (And given the amount of linked Twitter content in Telepath posts, it\u2019s almost serving as a backchannel for the rival platform.)
\nThe startup itself was founded by former Quora employees, including former Quora Business & Community head, Marc Bodnick, now Telepath Executive Chairman; and former Quora Product Lead, Richard Henry, now Telepath CEO. They\u2019re aided by former Quora Global Writer Relations Lead, Tatiana Est\u00e9vez, now Telepath Head of Community and Safety; and Ro Applewhaite, previously research staff for Pete Buttigieg for America, now Telepath Head of Outreach.
\nIt\u2019s backed by a couple million in seed funding, led by First Round Capital (Josh Kopelman). Other backers include Unusual Ventures (Andy Johns), Slow Ventures (Sam Lessin), and unnamed angels. Bodnick and his wife, Michelle Sandberg, also invested.<\/p>\n
Image Credits: Telepath<\/p>\n
When talking about Telepath, it\u2019s clear the founders are nostalgic for the early days of the web \u2014 before all the people joined, that is. In smaller, online communities in years past, people connected and made internet friends who would become real-world friends. That\u2019s a moment in time they hope to recapture.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve benefited a lot by meeting people through the internet, forming relationships and having conversations \u2014 that sort of thing,\u201d says Henry. \u201cBut the internet just isn\u2019t fun in the ways that it used to be fun.\u201d
\nHe suggests that the anonymity offered by networks like Reddit and Twitter make it more difficult for people to make real-world connections. Telepath, with its focus on conversations, aims to change that.
\n\u201cIf we facilitate a really fun, kind, and empathetic conversation environment, then lots of good things can happen. And it might be that you potentially find someone you want to work with, or you end up getting a job, or you meet new friends, or you end up meeting offline,\u201d Henry says.
\nGetting Started
\nTo get started on Telepath, you join the network with your mobile phone number and name, find and follow other users, similar to Twitter, then join interest-based communities as you would on Reddit. When you launch the app, you\u2019re meant to browse a home feed where conversation topics from your communities and interesting replies are highlighted \u2014 orange for those replies from people you follow and gray for those that Telepath has determined are worth being elevated to the home screen.
\nAs you read through the posts and visit the communities, you can \u201cThumbs Up\u201d content you like, downvote what you don\u2019t, reply, mute, block, and use @usernames to flag someone.<\/p>\n
Image Credits: Telepath, screenshot via TechCrunch<\/p>\n
Another interesting design choice: everything on Telepath disappears after 30 days. No one will get to dig through your misinformed posts from a decade ago to shame you in the present, it seems.
\nWhat\u2019s most different about Telepath, however, is not the design or format. It\u2019s what\u2019s taking place behind the scenes, as detailed by Telepath\u2019s rules.
\nUsers who join Telepath must agree to \u201cbe kind,\u201d which is rule number one. They must also not attack one another based on identity or harass others. They must use a real name (or their preferred name, if transgender), and not post violent content or porn. \u201cFake news\u201d is banned, as determined by a publisher\u2019s attempts at disseminating misinformation on a regular basis.
\nTelepath has even tried to formalize rules around how polite conversations should function online with rules like \u201cdon\u2019t circle the drain\u201d \u2014 meaning don\u2019t keep trying to have the last word in a contentious debate or circumvent a locked thread; and \u201cstay on topic,\u201d which means don\u2019t bombard a pro-x network with an anti-x agenda (and vice versa.)<\/p>\n
Image Credits: Telepath<\/p>\n
To enforce its rules, Telepath begins by requiring users to sign up with a mobile phone number, which is verified as a \u201creal\u201d number associated with a SIM card, and not a virtual one \u2014 like the kind you could grab through a \u201cburner\u201d app.
\nIn order to the create its \u201ckind environment,\u201d Telepath says it will sacrifice growth and hire moderators who work in-house as long-term, trusted employees.
\n\u201cAll the major social networks essentially grew in an unbounded way,\u201d explains Henry. \u201cThey had 100 million-plus active users, then were like, \u2018okay, now how do we moderate this enormous thing?\u2019,\u201d he continues. \u201cWe\u2019re in a lucky position because we get to moderate from day one. We get to set the norms.\u201d
\nModeration
\n\u201cDay one\u201d was a long time in the making, however. The team rebuilt the product four times over a couple of years. Now, they say they\u2019ve developed internal tools that provide moderators with visibility into the system.
\nAccording to moderator head Est\u00e9vez, these include a reporting system, real-time content streams organized in to buckets (e.g. a bucket for \u201conly new users\u201d), as well as various searchable ways to get context around a report or a particular problematic user.
\n\u201cReally good tools \u2014 including real-time streams of content, classifiers for problematic behavior, searchable context, and making it hard for banned users to return \u2014 mean that each moderator we hire will be quite scalable. We think that there are network effects around positive behavior,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Image Credits: Telepath<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s our intention to scale up fast and high accuracy moderation decision-making, which means that we\u2019re going to be investing a lot of engineering effort in getting these tools right,\u201d she adds.
\nThe founders have decided not to use any third-party systems to aid in moderation at this time, they told TechCrunch.
\n\u201cWe looked at a bunch of off-the-shelf [moderation systems], and we\u2019re basically building everything that we need from scratch,\u201d says Henry. \u201cWe just need more control over being able to tweak how these systems work in order to get the outcome that we want.\u201d
\nThe investment in human moderation over automation will also require additional capital to scale. And Telepath\u2019s decision to not run ads means it will eventually need to consider alternative business models to sustain itself. The company, for now, is interested in subscriptions, but hasn\u2019t made decisions on this front yet.
\nBanning the trolls
\nThough Telepath has only 4,000-plus users in its private beta, the two-person moderation team is already tasked with moderating posts from across the thousands of pieces of content shared on a daily basis. (The company doesn\u2019t disclose how many violations it takes action against per day, on average.)
\nWhen a user breaks the rules, moderators may first warn them about the violation and may require them to take down or edit a specific post. No one is punished for making a mistake or being unaware of the rules \u2014 they\u2019re first given a chance to fix it.
\nBut if a user breaks the rules repeatedly or in a way that seems intentional, such as engaging in a harassment campaign around another user, they are banned entirely. Because of the phone number verification system, they also can\u2019t easily return \u2014 unless they go out and purchase a new phone, that is.
\nThese moderation actions don\u2019t necessarily have to follow strict guidelines, like a \u201cthree strikes rule,\u201d for example. Instead, the way the rules may be enforced are determined on a case-by-case basis. Where Telepath leans towards stricter enforcement is around intentional and flagrant violations, or those where there\u2019s a pattern of bad behavior. (As with Reply Guys and sealioning behavior.)
\nIn addition, unlike on Facebook and Twitter \u2014 platforms that sometimes seem to be caught off guard by viral trends in need of moderation \u2014 Telepath intends for nothing to go viral on its platform without having been seen by a human moderator, the company says.
\nFake News
\nTelepath is also working to develop a reputation score for users and trust scores for publishers.
\nIn the case of the former, the goal is help the company determine how likely the user is to break Telepath\u2019s rules. This isn\u2019t developed yet, but would be something used behind the scenes, not put on display for all to see.
\nFor publishers, the trust score will be how factually correct they are what percentage of the time.<\/p>\n
Image Credits: Thomas Faull (opens in a new window) \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, if the most popular article in terms of views from the publisher is just completely factually incorrect or intentionally misleading\u2026that should have a bigger penalty on the trust score,\u201d explains Henry. \u201cThe problem is that the incumbent platforms have rules against disinformation, but the problem is that they don\u2019t enforce them out of this desire to appear balanced.\u201d
\nBodnick adds this challenge is not as insurmountable as it seems.
\n\u201cOur view is that, actually, a handful of outlets are responsible for most of the disinformation\u2026I don\u2019t think our intent is to build out some modern-day truth system that will figure out if The Washington Post is slightly more accurate than The New York Times. I think the main goal will be to identify repeat disinformation publishers \u2014 determine that they are perpetual publishers of disinformation, and then crush their distribution,\u201d says Bodnick.
\nThis plan, however, involves setting rules on Telepath that fly in the face of what many today consider \u201cfree speech.\u201d In fact, Telepath\u2019s position is that free speech-favoring social networks are a failed system.
\n\u201cThe problem, in our view, is that when you take this free-speech centered approach that sort of says: \u2018I don\u2019t care how many disinformation posts Breitbart has published in the last \u2014 three years, three months, three weeks \u2014 we\u2019re going to treat every new post as if it could be equally likely to be truthful as any other post in the system,’\u201d says Bodnick. \u201cThat is inefficient.\u201d
\n\u201cThat\u2019s how we will scale this disinformation rule \u2014 by determining which relatively small group of publishers \u2014 I\u2019m guessing it\u2019s hundreds, low hundreds \u2014 are responsible for publishing lots of disinformation. And then take their distribution down,\u201d he says.
\nThis opinion on free speech is shared by the team.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re trying to build a community, which means that we have to make certain tradeoffs,\u201d adds Est\u00e9vez. \u201cIn the rules we refer to Karl Popper\u2019s paradox of tolerance \u2014 to maintain a tolerant society, you have to be intolerant of intolerance. We have no interest in giving a platform to certain kinds of speech,\u201d she notes.
\nThis is the exact opposite approach that conservative social media sites are taking, like Parler and Gab. There, the companies believe in free speech to the point that they\u2019ve left up content posted by an alleged Russian disinformation campaign, saying that no one filed a report about the threat, and law enforcement hadn\u2019t reached out. These MAGA-friendly social networks are also filled with conspiracies, un-fact checked reports, and, frankly, a lot of vitriol.
\nThe expectation is that if you go on their platforms, you\u2019re in charge of muting and blocking trolls or the content you don\u2019t like. But by their nature, those who join these platforms will generally find themselves among like-minded users.
\nTwitter, meanwhile, tries to straddle the middle ground. And in doing so, has alienated a number of users who think it doesn\u2019t go far enough in counteracting abuse. Users report harassment and threats, then wait for days for their report to be reviewed only to be told the tweet in question didn\u2019t break Twitter\u2019s terms.
\nTelepath sits on the other end of the spectrum, aggressively moderating content, blocking and banning users if needed, and punishing publications that don\u2019t fact check or those that peddle misinformation.
\n\u201cKindness\u201d carve-outs
\nAnd yet, despite all this extra effort, Telepath doesn\u2019t always feature only thoughtful and kind-hearted conversations.
\nThat\u2019s because it has carved out an exception in its kindness rule that allows users to criticize public figures, and because it doesn\u2019t appear to be taking action on what could be problematic, if not violating, conversations.<\/p>\n
Image Credits: Telepath<\/p>\n
A user\u2019s experience in these \u201cgray\u201d areas may vary by community.
\nTelepath\u2019s communities today focus on hobbies and interests, and can range from the innocuous \u2014 like Books or Branding or Netflix or Cooking, for example \u2014 to the potentially fraught, like Race in America. In the latter, there have been discussions about the capitalization of \u201cBlack\u201d where it was suggested that maybe this wasn\u2019t a useful idea. In another, sympathy is expressed for a person who was falsely pretending to be a person of color.
\nIn a post about affordable housing, someone openly wondered if a woman who said she didn\u2019t want to live near poor people was actually racist. Another commenter then noted that gang members can bring down property values.
\nA QAnon community, meanwhile, discusses the movement and its ridiculous followers from afar \u2014 which is apparently permitted \u2014 though supporting it in earnest would not be.
\nThere are also nearly 20 groups about things that \u201csuck,\u201d as in GOPSucks or CNNSucks or QuibiSucks.
\nAnti-Trump content, meanwhile, can be found on a network called \u201cDumbHitler.\u201d
\nMeanwhile, online publishers who routinely post discredited information are banned from Telepath, but YouTube is not. So if feel you need to share a link to a video of Rudy Giuliani accusing Biden of dementia, you can do so \u2014 so long as you don\u2019t call it the truth.
\nAnd you can post opinions about some terrible people in which you describe them as terrible, thanks to the public figure carve-out.
\nCheater and deadbeat dad? Go ahead and call them a \u201cdisgusting human being.\u201d VP Pence was referred to by a commenter as \u201cSmugFace mcWhitey\u201d and Ronny Jackson is described as \u201csuch a piece of sh**.\u201d
\nExplains Est\u00e9vez, that\u2019s because Telepath\u2019s \u201cbe kind\u201d rule is not intended to protect public figures from criticism.
\n\u201cIt is important to note that toxicity on the internet around politics isn\u2019t because people are using bad words, but because people are using bad faith arguments. They are spreading misinformation. They are gaslighting marginalised groups about their experiences. These are the real issues we\u2019re addressing,\u201d she says.
\nShe also notes that online \u201ccivility\u201d is often used to silence people from marginalized groups.
\n\u201cWe don\u2019t want Telepath\u2019s focus on kindness to be turned against those who criticize powerful people,\u201d she adds.
\nIn practice, the way this plays out on Telepath today is that it\u2019s become a private, closed door network where users can bash Trump, his supporters and right-wing politicians in peace from Twitter trolls. And it\u2019s a place where a majority agrees with those opinions, too.
\nIt has, then, seemingly built the Twitter that many on the left have wanted, the way that conservative social media, like Gab and Parler, built what the right had wanted. But in the end, it\u2019s not clear if this is the solution for the problems of modern social media or merely an escape. It also remains to be seen whether a mainstream user base will follow.
\nTelepath remains in a closed beta of indefinite length. You need an invite to join.<\/p>\n