How do you define success? This little website seems to be a great example of having clear guidelines and enforcing them.
Ask HN: How do I build a new social network?
21–30 of 37 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do I build a new social network?
#22> The internet that I grew up with wasnt this political or bombareded with political news and such, I feel like this is really bad for peoples mental health and would like to help them. maybe we had different internet (I grew up in the USA), but I remember a lot of shock porn/sites. I remember 4chan posting truly horrific content. I remember "prank" videos. I remember revenge porn. I'm kinda glad the internet has cle…
Me and my friends still make goatse jokes today. But the shock stuff is nowhere near as bad as the politics today IMHO.
I grew up on IRC back when 9/11 happened. We'd talk about how radicalized the mujahideen were. And it was puberty, we went from Nickelodeon to C&C Generals. That was the politics, plenty of caricatures, but the caricatures were a safety barrier.
These days it's completely common for one party to be radicalized against another party. Words like genocide and dictator are thrown about regularly. People cheer when a CEO is murdered. This is akin to people cheering for the suicide bombers back then. I mean, the Internet I'm in is already cheering for Hamas, even on the videos of Hamas blowing up ambulances.
The old internet was a spectator violence internet, but the new internet is about violent participation. If it keeps up, we'll likely see more things like the Capitol Attack, all these things that make for great television.
Re: Ask HN: How do I build a new social network?
#23> dont like how political platforms like reddit has become
> I want it to be limited to North America only
I obviously don't know your reasoning but IMO you're already going political
Re: Ask HN: How do I build a new social network?
#24Am I the only one that gets an icky feeling when I see things like “I am so tired of all this political stuff, I want to filter it out”?
All the political news you don’t like is a symptom of the toxic society we’ve built. Maybe we should be making new social networks that bring people together fix the root problem, not ignore it because it’s harshing the vibe.
Re: Ask HN: How do I build a new social network?
#25You can't. Your best bet is to joint the fediverse so you can interoperate with existing networks, like Mastodon. > too much moderation > rampant bot abuse You can't solve the bot problem without thorough, labor-intensive moderation. These two of your goals are at odds with each other. I will also say that almost 100% of the value of reddit is the moderation. After Musk eviscerated Twitter's moderation, it became mor…
> You can't solve the bot problem without thorough, labor-intensive moderation. I want to see a social network that solves the bot problem by requiring a fee to post.
> I want to see a social network that solves the bot problem by requiring a fee to post.
Why would people pay to post? Why do people post in the first place?
Re: Ask HN: How do I build a new social network?
#26You can't. Your best bet is to joint the fediverse so you can interoperate with existing networks, like Mastodon. > too much moderation > rampant bot abuse You can't solve the bot problem without thorough, labor-intensive moderation. These two of your goals are at odds with each other. I will also say that almost 100% of the value of reddit is the moderation. After Musk eviscerated Twitter's moderation, it became mor…
for CSAM part i'm sure AI solution could work
It's incredibly expensive to do that with flagship models, and many countries have laws that require human intervention for CSAM reports anyway
Re: Ask HN: How do I build a new social network?
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
for CSAM part i'm sure AI solution could work
It's incredibly expensive to do that with flagship models, and many countries have laws that require human intervention for CSAM reports anyway
Perhaps a naive take but money, resources and even legislative friction are non issues to try to solve such a disturbing humanity-level problem on a global scale. Which platform or entity wouldn't want to invest or otherwise back it up? Meta alone should shower such initiative with money and proccessing capacity.
So then OP could just integrate simple API into their new social network.
Re: Ask HN: How do I build a new social network?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's incredibly expensive to do that with flagship models, and many countries have laws that require human intervention for CSAM reports anyway
Perhaps a naive take but money, resources and even legislative friction are non issues to try to solve such a disturbing humanity-level problem on a global scale. Which platform or entity wouldn't want to invest or otherwise back it up? Meta alone should shower such initiative with money and proccessing capacity. So then OP could just integrate simple API into their new social network.
... So wait, you're suggesting that they simply use a non-existent Facebook product which Facebook will, for reasons unclear, provide to their competitors for free?
Re: Ask HN: How do I build a new social network?
#29I have the same urges.
You need to carefully consider what you truly want and the realities surrounding those desires. How large do you envision this social network becoming? Do you aspire to be the next Reddit, Hacker News, or Lobsters?
Large social networks need to grow to survive, and growth requires funding.
Are you pursuing a commercial venture or a non-profit one?
If it's commercial, you will likely need to seek external investors. They will expect a return on their investment and will exert influence -- often in the form of ad revenue or otherwise increasing costs to your end users. It almost always ends this way, unless you stay a small bootstrapper.
If it's non-profit, you will still need to secure funding through various fundraisers and donations.
It would help to brainstorm (to yourself, at least) what you want to accomplish in lucid detail. This post is not it.
Re: Ask HN: How do I build a new social network?
#30You can't. Your best bet is to joint the fediverse so you can interoperate with existing networks, like Mastodon. > too much moderation > rampant bot abuse You can't solve the bot problem without thorough, labor-intensive moderation. These two of your goals are at odds with each other. I will also say that almost 100% of the value of reddit is the moderation. After Musk eviscerated Twitter's moderation, it became mor…
> You can't solve the bot problem without thorough, labor-intensive moderation. I want to see a social network that solves the bot problem by requiring a fee to post.
Requiring the fee to post will suppress poor people, not spammers. Bad actors will happily pay to spread/promote spam/misinformation.