Meet Telepath: The Friendly Social Network
Ex-Quora executives launch a “kind” social platform.
When Netflix dropped its highly anticipated docudrama ‘The Social Dilemma’ earlier this month, there was a palpable chill across social media.
The fascinating and frequently sombre documentary explored the future of social platforms through the eyes of ex-Silicon Valley executives. What started out as a fun way to communicate, they lamented, was now an ad-driven source of societal decay with no space for moral considerations. “We want to psychologically figure out how to manipulate you as fast as possible,” warned one social media executive. “If you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product,” said another, explaining how the end goal wasn’t a utopia of connection, but a treasure trove of data that could be parcelled off to third parties.
For many, though, the documentary didn’t say anything new. Social media’s transformation from Jekyll to Hyde shouldn’t really come as a shock to any of us — especially not after Mark Zuckerberg was hauled in front of Congress and grilled on Facebook’s refusal to police political advertising.
The majority have already come to terms with the dark side of social media. A utopia with a dystopia, as The Social Dilemma puts it. But what if it didn’t have to be that way?
Enter Telepath: the new social media platform centred around one principle. Kindness.
What’s Telepath?
Telepath, launched last Friday (Sept. 25) by ex-Quora employees Marc Bodnick and Richard Henry, is a neat hybrid between Reddit and Twitter. Like Reddit because users sign up to follow different conversation networks, ranging from #Education to #LoFiChillMemesToExpropriateCapitalistsTo. Like Twitter because users can scroll through updates from the networks and people they follow.
Unlike most platforms, however, the app is largely disinterested in image and video-based consent.
Telepath is a social network that focuses obsessively on the art of conversation.
Bodnick and Henry don’t want you to scroll through an endless feed of photos you’re disassociated from. They want to create an intimate “space where people can make friends who share their interests,” with a mobile interface that feels like texting.
“The early internet was a really good place to do this,” says Bodnick, “but the incumbent social networks don’t serve this purpose anymore. They promote unkindness by rewarding conflict and hostility, distribute disinformation rapidly, and algorithimically promote polarization.”
But it’s Telepath’s uncompromising community and moderation guidelines that really set it apart.
For starters, the app operates on an invite-only basis and requires its limited user-base to sign up with their real names (with certain exceptions) and real (not VoIP) mobile numbers. These measures are designed to put a dagger through the use of bot accounts, encouraging authentic conversations to flourish — a battle other platforms, like Twitter and Facebook, have lost because of their email signup systems.
Telepath also has a strict code of rules users have to follow from the get-go. The overarching one? Conversations on Telepath must “be kind.”
To facilitate this, Telepath puts its foot down at identity-based attacks, doxxing, harassment, violence and fake news. Anyone defying these rules will be kicked off the platform. Those found pointlessly edging for the last word in a debate will have their conversation locked. Telepath also requires users to stay on-topic and tone — “don’t bombard an obviously pro-x network with an anti-x agenda, or vice versa.”
Could these rules be confused with censorship? Maybe. The line between promoting kindness and muting criticism is difficult to toe. But it’s made slightly easier by Telepath’s hands-on approach to moderation.
This grab bag of rules will be scrupulously enforced by a moderation team that’s entirely in-house, says CEO Richard Henry. “We’re not going to outsource it to a contracting company, which is what every other major network does.” Bodnick and Henry are fervently taking the moral road less travelled by other Silicon Valley executives, sacrificing profit for the sake of moderation and a safe platform.
Will Telepath Work?
So far, Telepath sounds like a breath of fresh air. But is our society genteel enough for a friendly social network?
Telepath’s real name and number policy is a double-edged sword: it may create accountability and curb unkindness on its own app, but it also equips internet trolls with names they can track down and harass unfettered on other platforms. And in a world where people have created subreddits championing abuse towards women and the physical removal of leftists from America, it’s hard to be optimistic that everyone will take obediently to Telepath’s rules. Though internet offenders like this are the minority, they’re a harmful and vocal minority social media executives need to plan for.
Telepath will also have to dodge the history of once-promising social media startups that have faded into obscurity.
Ello, launched in 2014, began as an invite-only, ad-free social network that was pegged as a Facebook killer. The startup released a theatrical, sniffily manifesto promising it would never sell user data because “you are not a product.” Throwing shots at Facebook, however, wasn’t an award-winning marketing strategy; the app limped miserably in Facebook’s shadow until a new CEO took over in 2017.
“The first thing I did since taking over is keep everyone quiet and tell them to stop pitching ourselves to the media as some alternative to Facebook,” Ello’s new CEO Todd Berger said. “It always felt silly and naive to me and was an internal struggle as a co-founder.” Under the direction of Berger, Ello has found its niche as a Pinterest-adjacent network for artists and creatives. The Ello team is now comfortable with the fact their network probably won’t reach Facebook levels of grandeur.
Path was a similar private networking app known for helping pioneer sticker-style emojis and reactions (that Facebook eventually lifted). It was valued at $500 million at its apex, and Google tried to snap it up for $100 million when the platform was just a few months old. But like Ello, it was smothered by Facebook’s celebrity and ceased its service in 2018 after an eight-year run.
Conversation-based social media startups haven’t fared much better. Secret, launched in 2014, allowed people to share anonymous messages with the contact lists in their phone. Essentially, it was “Facebook as a masquerade ball and Twitter without the self-promotion.” But what started out as harmless fun violently snowballed into real-life crossover episode between Black Mirror and Gossip Girl, with users quickly leveraging the app’s cloak of anonymity to spread malicious rumours.
Although Telepath won’t suffer the same anonymity-induced Achilles heel as Secret, there’s a real possibility it will struggle to draw users away from Reddit and Quora, it’s main competitors. The network’s durability is weakened further by its own selling point: “scaling it’s moderation before user numbers mean it will have high costs upfront.” Whilst Telepath is funded by venture capitalists like First Round, Protocol rightly points out things can get tricky when VC’s start angling for returns “which typically come as a byproduct of hitting scale — not just capturing the hearts of a few thousand beta testers.”
Telepath’s founders, however, remain optimistic their slow-burn approach won’t send investors running for the hills. “A lot of people in the business, financial investor world believe in the possibility of quality and the potential of a great social product.”
To Sum It Up
Telepath is a purposeful attempt at walking away from the footsteps successful social networks have left behind. Whilst the likes of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter enthusiastically opened the floodgates to users as soon as they launched, Telepath is the broad-shouldered bouncer outside the club that carefully examines your ID and kicks you to the curb when you’re not playing by his rules.
There isn’t a Silicon Valley crystal ball we can look into to see if this approach will reach dizzying heights of success. But it doesn’t matter. Telepath doesn’t have to be as big as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit or any other platform because that was never the aim. The aim was to create a small utopia without a dystopia.
And, to an extent, that’s already been accomplished. Telepath has drawn up a new, kinder blueprint for the way we use social media and proves there are Silicon Valley alumni, like Henry and Bodnick, who are willing to put users above profit. And in a world where most of us are fatigued by platforms commoditizing our data and promoting polarization, that sounds like a win to me.
