Ask HN: What are some promising “healthy social media” projects? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are some promising “healthy social media” projects?

#21

Post by djz2k » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:09 AM UTC

JCharante wrote: post #5

Unironically WeChat's moments are probably what you're looking for. - They don't embed ads in moments. - It's a chronological feed. And you only see posts from your friends (who you allow to view moments). - You can set the expiration time of your moments (so no one can see anything older than 1 month, 2 weeks, 1 day (I think?), And keep them visible forever if you want. - You can only view comments from your friends…

wrt WeChat, no longer entirely true. - Moments does embed ads, but far less than western social networks - It's no longer pure chronological, you only see posts from people who allow you to view their moments. - You can't set expiration time for individual moments posts, you set expiration time on your moments feed. It goes as low as 3 days (not 1). - The comments visibility can be odd as you often only see one side of a conversation.

They have a ton of powerful privacy features, but the issue w/ them and most, is that they're all off (i.e. public) by default.

Re: Ask HN: What are some promising “healthy social media” projects?

#22

Post by djz2k » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:15 AM UTC

cvwright wrote: post #11

Well, since you asked... :-) I've been working on something in this space for a little while. It's called Circles. Originally, I just wanted a safer and easier way to share baby photos with my extended family. Safer than posting pictures of my kid publicly on Facebook. Easier / more convenient than pinging the crap out of everyone's phone on Signal. It's kind of like a bare-bones version of Facebook. Only you can hav…

The problem w/ circles, lists and tags, is that they require the user themselves to create and maintain them. Unless your tech can read minds and prompt for new affinities discovered or changes in relationship automatically, its too much cognitive load.

You should read - http://blog.intercom.io/what-we-can-learn-from-google-plus/ Curious how you solve for that.

I don't think its natural for humans to say "today Bob went from acquaintance to friend" or "i'll make a circle for dirty jokes" proactively.

Re: Ask HN: What are some promising “healthy social media” projects?

#23

Post by djz2k » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:20 AM UTC

I recommend SELECT, as its built on digital wellness principles. - They make a distinction between high signal and noisy activity. For example: - Doesn't send you notifications or activity to your inbox UNLESS its was sent to you personally, or there's activity on a post you've interacted with. - Notifications are batched to max 1/hour or 2/day - If you've consumed all your high signal activity, and you're still in the app a minute later, it will prompt you to lock your phone. - No public popularity scores - Everything is private by default, so no privacy settings but instead - opt-in exposure settings - Based on your 3 criteria, - Reach of Posts is limited to specific selected individuals or a single group. - even in the group context, - No Feed. No infinite scroll. No algorithmic recommendations. - No Ads or other conflicts of interest.

It's early, but promising. It's community oriented & only works by invitation, so here's one if you're keen to try - https://scholer.select.id/jdlj

Re: Ask HN: What are some promising “healthy social media” projects?

#24

Post by claudiulodro » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 7:18 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #16

claudiulodro wrote: post #3

Have you tried calling, texting, or e-mailing them? That's been working great as a "social media replacement" for many people I know after they ditched the online social media companies.

Do you just send out a mass email blast updating all your friends that you took the family to disney world? How does that work?

No, your family does not want to subscribe to your personal newsletter. :)

Just text a pic of you at Disney World to your mom -- I bet she'll love it.