Introduction

In general, I’m someone that has always been interested in, and thinks a lot about systems, and what they incentivise based on their structure. Whether that’s in terms of governments, sports, urban design, websites, or any other system that revolves around human interaction. Lately, that focus, as you may have seen has been on social networks.

As of late, I’ve heavily researched alternative ideas for social networks. This is mostly inspired by my interest in privacy and trying to understand how these social networks affect society at large. Although I’m not an incredibly active participant on social media, I can see how nuance is removed from concepts and ideas and then spread around quickly, informing us with a twisted, misrepresented version of reality. Additionally, I think its had a measurable negative impact on attention-spans.

Given that these platforms have so much consolidated control over our data and interactions, and there seems to be less and less benefits for the average user, I’ve been considering alternatives, as well as just seeking to understand what I want from a network, and what others want.

From my perspective, these platforms incentivise superficiality. This manifests as a lack of nuance and as an increasingly manicured presence online. I believe this adds distance between us, as we interact with the simplified identities of each other. It also seems to be the antithesis of what social media is for. Given the concerns I have and the idea that social networks often live up to their names poorly, I thought I would try a thought exercise to see what I am looking for and how that might be designed.

A New Social Network

As I’ve stated, I’m probably not the typical user for these platforms, so all of these opinions should be sequestered from the needs of the general population. I will be talking about my use patterns, wants, and needs, and although it may happen to align with others’, I am under no illusion that this is the path for all. Simply a brainstorm.

The Networks I Use

The networks I use most are Reddit, TikTok, and, Instagram. Of these three, Reddit is the only platform I find useful — I genuinely use Reddit everyday to search for answers. However, I don’t generally engage with the website to interact with any communities. I think part of this is I don’t really feel there is an opportunity for close connections. Because subreddits are divided based on a specific topic, it limits amount of user to user back and forth interactions through this design.

I’ve actually deleted TikTok¹, but, especially in my early TikTok days, I quite liked using the app. I found a lot of interesting content, and I had an algorithm that was visually pleasing and filled with aesthetic videos, which I like. However, my two biggest issues with TikTok are that it’s intentionally addicting and that it’s filled with perspectives that suck the nuance out of various topics dry. Both of these issues arose because of it’s design. Short form videos that let you scroll forever, along with an algorithm optimized to keep you on the app mean that TikTok is using you, more than you are using it. Additionally, because these videos have to be short, there is no time for proper context, especially when people can scroll a way once a video is boring.

Lastly, Instagram I feel the most antagonistic towards. This is because it can feel like a social obligation (which, yes, is on me), rather than an app I particularly want to use. I do actually appreciate posts and stories, because I can actually keep up with people that I care at least a little bit about, but both Reels, suggested content, and the ads on the app drag down the usability of the site significantly. In the past, I’ve watched Reels and the explore page in the same way I have with TikTok, except the content is often even more vapid, but has been A/B tested² to the point that it’s the perfect attention-leeching algorithm.

The main differentiator that I can identify between these platforms is what they do for me. It sounds harsh, but realistically, TikTok and Instagram provide almost no value. TikTok sometimes brings up interesting content, but seldom is it useful. Instagram has the trappings of genuinely useful social features, but smears ads and useless content over them. Reddit on the other hand provides real value — actual answers to questions I’m asking about how to do something or how to fix something, but almost zero community connection.

Who’s Using Who?

This is an unoriginal idea, however, I think it’s important to consider the value I receive from using any social network, since it ultimately is a tool. Instagram was really good tool for posting and sharing pictures to a select group of people at one point, but now it’s primarily focused on its TikTok clone, undermining its best features and therefore losing its value as tool. TikTok never intrinsically had much value for consumers, but even for producers, TikTok fails to properly incentivise those creators on the app. I would be hard-pressed to say TikTok is a tool I use for anything. Quite the contrary, TikTok benefits much more from the arrangement.

Reddit, again, stands out because of the value it provides me. Instead of intentionally draining my attention, it helps solve a lot of minor issues, keeps me up to date on projects, and generally provides me with information on the topics I’ve specifically requested. Part of its use as a tool is that there is not algorithmic generation guiding my time on the service, it’s mostly democratic user curation³. Given the correlation, I’m suspicious of algorithm-driven content because these algorithms are optimized to work against the user (attention-seeking, often through short, simple, or provocative content) rather than with the user (producing news articles, interesting reads, informative videos, et cetera). This idea will be important to keep in mind.

For all of these platforms, it’s important to consider how value is being extracted from me. First, all of these sites gather income primarily from ads. Both ads that I view and information sold about me that is given to advertisers. Information-wise, all of these services are likely selling copious amounts of private data. As far as the ads I see, Instagram is by far the worst, with ads that are often annoying or just odd? TikTok has ads that are easily identified and skipped through, and Reddit on desktop I can remove all ads, and on mobile, I use alternative apps to remove all ads. Both Instagram and TikTok are trying to keep me on the app as long as possible, Reddit on the other hand feels much more voluntary.

To summarize, I find Reddit the most useful. Instagram used to be useful, before the attention algorithm pervaded every corner of the app, and TikTok was never particularly useful, but at least had more interesting, creative content than Instagram ever has.

The Primary Elements

I want to discuss and condense broader ideas into specific categories to better define the edges of this hypothetical social network. I’m going to brainstorm and distill what I like from other networks to provide a stronger framework of which to build upon.

Media Formats

One of the most important considerations of a social network is understanding the media format it is focused on. Generally, all social media has text, video, and image content, but I believe it always tends towards one or two types of content, primarily because they all are navigated in slightly different ways. As an example, both Twitter and Reddit accommodate photos and videos, but the primary method of engagement is through text replies and threads, respectively, with GIFs and other media being secondary.

I believe that each content type inherently lends itself better to and incentivises certain types of interactions, shaping the platform itself. I suspect this may lead me to leaning towards one type of content over another given that it incentives more positive behaviors over that of its “peers”.

One major question I have, is whether there can be a form of social media that is only

Content Type: Text

Content Type: Images

Content Type: Video

Short-form

Long-form

Content Type: Audio

Method of Interaction

Interaction

When I think of online communities, I don’t just think of a place that hosts online content, but a place that’s interactive and incentivises discussion rather than being limited to comments on a piece of media. I’m picturing two-way conversations between producers and consumers, and an less of a dichotomy between the two. Anyone in this hypothetical system should be both to encourage participation. TikTok and YouTube are two networks where I feel the divide between producers and consumers is largest. The barrier to creating content is higher than most other networks. I think all media is useful, but creating a network that prioritizes text and images minimizes the barrier to creation.

To provide some clarity, I think the network should not be video-centric, and I think forum-like threads (i.e. Reddit), should be avoided because visually it doesn’t allow for long conversations. The thread gets squished to the right the more responses there are. Twitter-like threads might be better, but perhaps even a group chat-like setup might be interesting. However, replies allow ideas to be condensed, so a group chat might be functionally worse. One idea is and upvote-downvote system in conjunction with replies and the ability to sort replies in various ways (i.e. Reddit, again).

Moderation

How this topic is handled will likely make or break the rest of this essay.

What do we want to moderate? Moderated content can seemingly be divided into two buckets: Objective violations and subjective violations. Objective violations include all illegal content, whereas subjective violations would be violations that breach terms of service, i.e. hate speech, pornography, threats, etc. ⁴ Even so, I will likely refine this dichotomy because moderation is not black and white at all. I think this is the most difficult subject when in comes to these platforms and needs to be approached from the back end, i.e. effto remove offending content

Objective Violations

Business Models