The Social Reckoning

What to do about Social Media?

A new movie trailer dropped this week: The Social Reckoning, a story “inspired by true events and the whistleblower who started the social media reckoning we’re seeing play out today.”

It’s one thing to bring down an empire; it’s another thing to build something to replace it. As we look around at our society, it’s easy to see that our relationships are broken. The institutions that promised to bring us together and protect us have betrayed the people who support them. Resulting in broken families, fractured institutions, and a world at war with itself. When institutions fail, when they serve only a select few, people struggle to organize and communicate.

People build institutions to shape society’s behavior, creating an environment where everyone is welcome and empowered, building the future they want their children to grow up in. Strong societies are built on strong relationships with institutions like family, religion, and public squares. These institutions thrive on open and transparent communication. People need a place to address concerns, seek information, and share ideas.

Social media is an institution that has brought the world closer together and, at times, is tearing it apart. Popular social media sites reward attention over authenticity; influence and power can tip the scales, while people’s voices get lost in a sea of yelling and ads. Users are fed information and exploited for profit.

We must rethink our relationship with social media, and we must build a new public square, one where our children are not afraid to share their beliefs. So, I asked some people what they wanted to see from a social media site. The most common things I heard were control over their identity and data, a place to stay up to date with important local and national events, and a way to maintain a connection to their neighbors.

So here’s an idea: Sphere Social Media.

Sphere Social Network creates online public spheres for all types of people in all types of communities to communicate, connecting the digital world and the communities that support it. Sphere Social gives the people greater control over their identity, data, algorithms, and advertising.

Your voice, in the Sphere you want.

Instead of putting everyone into one enormous global feed, Sphere organizes conversation into layered geographic Spheres: Local, State, National, and Global. Users will choose which Sphere they want to enter. They are free to move from Sphere to Sphere when it suits them. Ideas and conversations that resonate within smaller spheres will make their way into larger ones, and sometimes, issues in the global Sphere will make their way to the kitchen table. This gives everyone a place to speak and listen.

It’s your identity; you decide.

Sphere puts your identity in your hands. Users can verify that they are real people, establish their identity or residency, or they can remain anonymous. Verification increases authenticity without requiring everyone to publicly reveal who they are.

Users can choose different levels of verification. A Standard Account allows users to use a username or pseudonym without verification. A Community Verified Account allows other verified users to verify new users. A Sphere Verified Account uses an independent verification process to confirm the account represents a person while keeping the person’s public identity private. A Sphere Public Account uses their real identity. A Verified Resident Account establishes that the user actually belongs to a particular geographic Sphere. These methods can work together. Someone could have an anonymous Sphere Account while still being a Verified Virginia Resident.

As my grandaddy used to say, “Life’s not fair.” Sphere Social won’t treat every engagement the same. Likes, replies, reposts, and discussion still matter, but the platform will consider authenticity, community, and relevance.

The idea is to let the people in the Sphere drive the conversation. A thousand accounts claiming to represent Virginians should not carry the same weight in Virginia’s Sphere as a thousand Verified Virginia residents. Anonymous users and pseudonymous accounts remain free to participate, while users willing to establish authenticity have greater weight in the conversation.

Your Algorithm. Your Choice.

Sphere lets users control what influences their feed. Users can select “Don’t Learn From This” when viewing something they don’t want incorporated into their algorithm. You tell Sphere what you want, not the other way around.

Like most social media sites, advertising will be Sphere’s primary revenue source, but Sphere does not buy or sell personal data. Instead, users voluntarily select the products, businesses, and hobbies they want to hear about. Instead of advertisers buying people’s data, they pay to communicate with audiences who have asked to hear from businesses like them. Sphere’s geographic structure opens digital advertising to businesses of every size. From a local print shop and neighborhood restaurant to a national chain or global corporation.

Let’s say a husband buys his wife one piece of sexy underwear once a year, but visiting those sites floods his algorithm with stuff he does not want to see. This happens on social media; maybe you comment on a story you won’t normally comment on, and now you are getting ads that don’t fit you. A Sphere user, when visiting a post or internal site, would have the option to keep it out of the algorithm. The goal is for users to get only the ads they want.

Sphere will become a premier place to advertise because users choose to see ads from selected businesses. Sphere will position ads as a way for companies to educate customers on what’s next, keeping users engaged, informed, and up to date on their favorite hobbies. Businesses are no longer investing in a shotgun approach, wondering whether those who need their product can see their ad. And because Sphere Social has different geographic spheres, it means smaller local businesses can have a place of their own to compete.

Sphere Sovereignty

Each Sphere develops its own leadership and moderation structure. Community leaders and moderators handle local issues within Sphere principles, with transparent decisions and an appeals process. Moderation focuses on how something is said as well as what is said. The idea is that Sphere provides a public square, but it doesn’t own the people standing in it.

What do you think?

So there it is, an idea for a new Social media site. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about this a lot. More than I should for an idea I have no interest in building. I have pages of more detail, but who really wants to read all that, am I right?

I shared it with my wife, and she said she liked the idea, but asked why it wouldn’t just become as corrupted as everything else. I said, if everything is already corrupted, the answer is to build something new; you can’t worry if that will be corrupted as well. We must build something with purpose and principle, and believe that things can be different and better than they are. And if it’s corrupted in the future, then we build again. But we never give up.

Anyway, what do you think? Is this the type of social media environment you want to belong to? What would you change? How would you build it?

Peace, Love, and Representation,

Jeff Mayhugh