Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Spoutible: The Safe Space That’s Anything But (Part 1 — In the beginning)

Ever since Elon Musk became the CEO of Twitter the platform has drastically changed and according to many users from marginalised groups, that change has been for the worst. One indication of this was the 500% increase in uses of the word n***er soon after Musk was announced as the new leader. In response to the increased hostility, several new social networks have been launched with the intent to provide a safer alternative to the popular bird app.

Spoutible is one such platform that officially launched on the 1st February 2023. Touted by The Atlanta Daily World as one of the Best Things to happen to Black People in 2023 (so far,) Spoutible was created by Bot Sentinel founder Christopher Bouzy and there are a few similarities and equivalents between to two platforms:

• Twitter has “Tweets,” Spoutible has “Spouts”
• Twitter has “Retweets,” Spoutible has “Echoes”
• Twitter has subjects “Trending,” Spoutible has them “Making Waves”

Bot Sentinel is an analytical tool that was launched in 2018, to help fight disinformation and targeted harassment. As Spoutible runs on Bot Sentinel technology, it gives all accounts a rating based on the user’s activity. The higher the rating, the more problematic the activity. This gives other users forewarning before choosing to either engage with or block that account.

Recently, I discovered something about Spoutible that really bothered me. On the surface it seems like any other social network site with its own set of rules and customs. But a series of incidents let me to realise there was much more to it and not in a good way. A series of unfortunate conversations led me to tune into a Twitter Spaces meeting that Bouzy hosted on the 21st February 2023. It was a Q&A regarding the policies on Spoutible.

Please note that any quote that I present from the Spaces meeting have been edited to remove any pauses, stutters or repetition.

If you wish to listen to the full, unedited meeting, you can do so here:
https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1vOxwMYPZEoGB?s=20

He started off the meeting by explaining a “clumsy spout” that he sent and then deleted.

So yesterday, before we get into all this other craziness, I spouted something regarding a novelist, and it was clumsy spout. I did apologise and I did explain what I was trying to illustrate with my spout. But, you know, I was clumsy, and I should have taken more time to get it out there. Some women and some guys sent me messages like, “Hey, I didn’t understand this” and “It may be offensive to someone.” I said, “Yeah, you know what? I thought that it was self-explanatory by the images that I used, but my wording was not great.”

Remember this because it becomes very important later.

Bouzy then went on to explain that not all the TOS and policies were visible to users from the very beginning. I’m unable to establish exactly when they did become available, but I suspect it may have been around the 19th of February 2023, which matches the date of three messages that Bouzy seemingly spouted out of nowhere.

Here are the spouts.

Not being allowed to spout adult content doesn’t mean you are being discriminated against. You are free to spout as much as you like, as long as you are not violating our policies.

We don’t allow adult content and that policy will not change. Creating an account here to complain about a policy that was available before you created your account isn’t cool.

You can find out more here: https://help.spoutible.com...

It’s not going to be revisited, nor will the policy change.

Here is what he said in the Space.

So, a few days ago we had just updated the policy in terms of we made it live for everyone but this policy has been in effect from day one, it just was not visible to everyone. We wanted to make it easier for folks to find it. A young woman, a sex worker joined the platform and she said, within five minutes of being on this platform, “I don’t feel welcomed or safe” or something along those lines. I replied to her because I knew it was regarding the policy. I replied with the link to the policy and explained respectfully, why this decision was made, (how) it was voted on by the community and when everyone was preregistering and leaving their feedback, that wasn’t one of the top 10 In terms of things people either wanted to see or didn’t want to see. They did not want sexually explicit material on the platform.

After a thorough search on Bouzy’s Spoutible feed, I was unable to find any evidence of this conversation. There are many possible explanations for this. Either the conversation is:

• Only available to people with Spoutible accounts, which I don’t have.
• Only accessible via the sex workers account, which I can’t track down without a username.
• Marked as private by the user and has limited visibility, even to other account holders.
• No longer there because it was deleted, or the account has since been suspended.
• Not available because the conversation never happened.

Either way, the only public reference I could find to this conversation is a vague allusion in response to one of Bouzy’s spouts and in the Twitter Space. There is no obvious mention of who the sex worker is or was and nobody has mentioned her since. Until such evidence is presented, this claim remains unsubstantiated.

EDIT: I have since managed to track down the mystery sex worker. I won’t reveal her name at this time but finding out who she was actually answers a few questions I planned to raise later on in the series.

Bouzy then went on to mention the involvement of romance novel writers.

So, after I replied…Romance novelists who also had issue with the policy… inserted themselves into the discussion that was specifically about sex workers and we made it clear that sex workers are not banned on Spoutible. There are sex workers who are on Spoutible right now, talking about their issues, talking about their work as well. They’re just not sharing sexually explicit content and we made that clear from before…quite a few folks (i.e. Spoutible users) chimed in and explained to them that this was the process. They were there during the process, we all voted on it. This was explained to them numerous times. At some point, one of the novelists said, “Well, hey, you know, I think your policy is too vague a I want to rewrite it for you.”

I have three issues with this statement.

1. As stated before, there is no way of knowing exactly what the sex worker’s concerns were because there is no point of reference other than what Bouzy said. This means there is also no way of knowing whether the concerns of the romance novelists were the same or about something entirely different.
2. The Romance novelists didn’t “insert” themselves anywhere. One novelist posted a series of separate spouts about issues she discovered within the Adult Content Policy. A policy that Bouzy admits wasn’t available to view until a few days before the online meeting. This indicates that she may have discovered new information about Spoutible that would affect her ability to use the site and needed help deciding whether to remain or go elsewhere.
3. Bouzy misquoted what the author said and misrepresented her stated intentions.

The author in question is Courtney Milan and she sent several spouts explaining her concerns about the TOS and specifically the Adult Content Policy.

Just to be clear: I’m pretty sure that posting links to romance novels that contain sex scenes violates this policy.

Y’all please don’t tell people who are wondering whether this site is going to pull a Tumblr and make it impossible to talk about the thing they do for a living that they’re “just getting mad” because we “want to make controversy.”

No. We’re trying to figure out if we want to invest time here.

I don’t think the people who wrote the policy thought about the ways people talk about sex. Are we are going to argue whether HBO’s GOT is more rapey than the book series? Are we gonna discuss if that one sex scene in Bridgerton is a rape? Can I screenshot a court case about harassment?

And like, this: “Exceptions may be made for medical, health, educational or artistic content.”

Is not good language. The proper language starts with “nothing in this policy prevents discussion of ___” and the list has to be longer.

Whatever you think of adult content on this site directly, this is not good language, it’s not good policy, and it is extremely fixable. @cbouzy I am happy to help try to come up with a policy that provides clear guidance, meets general aims of external bodies, while preserving necessary discussion.

Long story short, Milan saw a potential problem that would affect many Spoutible users, not just her. After explaining the details of that problem, she then offered to help him solve it. She certainly didn’t take it upon herself to rewrite the policy as Bouzy claimed.

Although a good number of users were in favour of Milan’s suggestions, the reaction was largely negative. In fact, some users were outright hostile. Many repeatedly pointed out that porn was not allowed, despite Milan repeatedly explaining how porn was not the issue but banning “sexually suggestive” material very well could be. Some suggested that Milan should just post what she wanted and see what, if any material gets flagged. However, Milan explained that since violation of the rules could result in a ban, following such advice would put her access to the platform at risk specifically because the rules were unclear. Some suggested that Milan was making a fuss over something that hadn’t happened yet and probably never will. As for the more hostile responses, many accused Milan of being a “Karen” imposing so called help that wasn’t needed or asked for. Some accused her of trying to hobble the site in its infancy.

This last accusation is not entirely unwarranted. There is a group of people who are very eager to see Bouzy’s project fail, purely because of Bot Sentinel’s involvement with The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Amber Heard. I wish to point out this has no bearing on why I chose to write these articles and here are the reasons why:

· I believe the British press has been incredibly hostile towards the Duchess of Sussex. However, I know nothing about Bouzy’s involvement and have no interest in finding out.

· I believe the relationship between Amber Heard and Johnny Depp was incredibly unhealthy for a myriad of reasons. The defamation case between them was brought to court to prove that Amber Heard’s claims of Johnny Depp’s abuse towards her were false, defamotary and part of a campaign to hide abuse that Heard inflicted on Depp. While it was clear that Heard was verbally, emotionally and physically violent towards JD, there was also evidence to verify at least some of Heard’s initial claims. This is an aspect of the defamation case that wasn’t reported anywhere near as vigorously. So, while I am far from an Amber Heard fan, I am not pro Johnny Depp either.

In part two, I will go into more detail about the Adult Content Policy itself and more responses from Spoutible users about the issues Milan raised.