If I Could Make A New Social Media Platform
While thinking about writing for this topic I remembered one of my favorite shows on TV, Silicon Valley. The whole premise of the show was around a bunch of techies with a startup and the goal of creating the new internet which wasn’t controlled by corporations and driven by corporate greed. So writing this I sort of felt like them. Only I wasn’t actually creating it but just writing about my idea of a new social media platform, one different from the one that exists today.
Social media platforms today have become more than just a place for just sharing things or consuming news. The platforms themselves also have their own agendas and are collecting and selling user data for ads. Over the course of the class, I have learned a lot about the workings of social media platforms today, from the way they collect and use user data to how they manipulate their users. I also learned about how social media came to be and the ideas and purpose in the early days versus now.
If I had the capabilities to create a new social media platform I would want it to be a mix of Reddit and Twitter. It would be a place where people could create and share content, share ideas and opinions, and also consume news about topics they are interested in. There will be subsections that focus on technology, sports, gaming, politics, etc. It would be feature content posted by professionals, news, and media outlets. But it would also allow users to post, share, or repost articles, posts, or content.
All content by a reputed user or a professional news outlet would be highlighted in a slightly different color to make it easily distinguishable. Each post would also have a flagging option and if enough people flag it the moderators would check the content. Each topic or section would have a few moderators or people who would check user-generated content in case it has been flagged by a certain amount of people. Content posted by professional outlets will not have a flagging option as they are trustworthy accounts and there would be no real need for that.
Any content that seems opinionated would have a certain color key or a flair system much like Reddit has so you can easily tell whether that article contains biased or unbiased facts. This would either be required by the platform for the author to add to their story or would be assigned using an automated system that would analyze the post and auto set flairs.
Though before all that I would first have clear terms and conditions/privacy policy for the users. I would try to have the privacy policy listed and presented in a way the user can actually read it rather than how it is today on most sites where it looks like an unending text document.
I will also make it clear and give options to users whether they want their data collected and only for the sole purpose of improving the platform. Only those that opt-in will have their data collected. But I will make it clear that having your data collected will only improve the overall experience for the user.
It will be a platform that will be open to all and no data will be sold for targeted ads. The subsections that I mentioned earlier could allow for ads based on what the particular section is about and users that follow the section will see those ads. But on a user’s personal page or home screen, they won’t see ads that would generally be curated to them based on data collected about them and sold for ad space.
Other than that I will try to have a strict verification process for user profiles so as to minimize the potentiality of bot profiles and those that might cause disruption of any kind. That will be difficult as the accounts could be made by a real person but then run by bots. There could be potential for a verification system to make sure it’s an actual user.
I will also try to have a fact-checker system like Twitter for example employs where all content posted by users will be checked. As I stated before users can also flag posts and if there is a certain amount of flags, a moderator could check and either keep or take down a post.
I want the platform to be one that is open to all without it being in control by big corporations but more so by the people that use them. It would be useless if the new social media platform is just like the existing one. I remember when Myspace was around, Tom Anderson, the creator didn’t really sell user data for ads, it was simply a platform for friends to stay connected. I would like my social media platform to be something like that as well where people will stay connected, share posts, get the news that they want. Users will be the one mostly managing content and what they see and share. People will have control over whether their data is collected and only for the improvement of the experience on the platform.
