From Podium

On 29 January 2021, the Facebook Oversight Board invited public comments to the case relating to the former President Donald Trump’s Facebook account, and whether Facebook was right to remove his access to the platform indefinitely. This was our response.

Podium is a social network, in development, designed to be free of the toxicity allowed to proliferate on traditional social media. While we consider Facebook a future competitor, we support any action to make the internet a safer, more inclusive place.

That said, we cannot approach this request with any attitude besides skepticism. The recent first tranche of…

The topic of anonymity — and banning it — bubbles to the top of Twitter once every few months, with varying degrees of prominence.

Advocates want a requirement that everyone on social media must use the service under their real identities — reasoning that the prospect of real-world consequences will stop toxic people engaging in abuse and harassment, while also eliminating the tide of bots and sockpuppet accounts.

As we approach Inauguration Day, social media companies have hurriedly attempted to sanction Donald Trump in the wake of the attack on the US Capitol. Twitter insisted that three tweets be removed from Trump’s account, locked it for 12 hours, and eventually suspended him; while Facebook and Instagram removed his video thanking his supporters, and took the step of banning him indefinitely (and at least for two weeks). Other platforms such as Twitch and Reddit followed suit in the aftermath of the events.

However, this action is too little, too late. Banning Trump does not solve the longer-term issues, and…

March 2020

We understand that our readers and followers may be finding the news stressful at present — as are we. It is a hard time for everyone, so this month — instead of reporting how the press have covered social media — we’re bringing you a selection of positive and amusing news stories instead.

The BBC has a special “Uplifting stories” section, where they are collating videos and articles about events that are bringing people joy and hope. …

Welcome to the first proper edition of the Podium development diary. For those who missed Diary #0, detailing the previous 8 months work, you can find it here.

The Plan

We started the month with four objectives:

• Rich Posting
  Users will be able to post text, mentions, gifs, images, links, and video.
• Promoting Posts (stage one)
  Users will be able to spend POD to promote posts and have them appear in their followers’ News Feed. …

Each month we’ll be discussing one of the issues we consider core to the Podium mission of restoring trust and accountability to the internet. And there is no more relevant issue right now (March, 2020) than Misinformation.

First, a clarification. Disinformation consists of falsehoods intentionally shared to deceive people. Misinformation consists of bad or misleading information shared unintentionally, by those who believe it to be true.

Any instance of the former almost always leads to the latter — making the latter far more prevalent — but both are hugely damaging and neither can be properly addressed by traditional social media.

Volume

…

Each month we’ll be discussing one of the issues we consider core to the Podium mission of restoring trust and accountability to the internet. And we’re starting with the biggest.

Freedom of Speech is one of the most vital protections in the modern world. And it is being rapidly diluted and corroded by those who distort its meaning for their own ends.

Freedom

Let’s start with the basics. Freedom of Speech — in its pure legal sense — is defined as follows:

The power or right to express one’s opinions without censorship, restraint, or legal penalty.

Every month we’ll be sharing an interview with someone from our team or wider community, about why they care about the cause of saving social media. First up, Podium’s Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, Jennifer Manson.

From a broad career background beginning with technical software design, Jennifer founded her first business in 2003. She’s an author and experienced leader with a passion for bringing out the best in talented teams.

Which one issue do you care about most?

“Fulfilling potential is where I devote my energy and time. …