America Talking

This is my idea for a new social network that encourages conversation across the political divide. I release it freely to anyone who’d like to try creating it. I’ll describe it first in terms of the user experience and then in a more top-down technical way.

Conservatives believe that the crucial issue of the age is Liberté, while progressives believe it’s Égalité. What if it turns out to have really been Fraternité?

The User Experience

1. The way most users will come to America Talking is by being invited by one of their friends to join a discussion group.
2. Upon joining, they’ll be asked to identify as progressive or conservative.
3. They’ll find that the discussion group they were invited into consists of both progressives and conservatives.
4. The group will be subscribed to one or more channels, each of which represents the output of a given team of content providers.
   • Each channel will also turn out to have a progressive/conservative balance, and all their content will involve some kind of conversation between the two sides.
   • Whenever a channel the group is subscribed to posts new content, everyone in the discussion group will see it in their feeds, and they’ll be able to post comments on it that only other members of the discussion group will see.
5. The user will discover that conversation within these groups is much more civil and productive than on any other social network.
6. As the new user continues on the site, they discover other channels they’re interested in, and they can:
   • Try to persuade their existing group to subscribe to it as well.
   • Ask to join another discussion group subscribed to it.
   • Or create their own new discussion group to subscribe to it.

Design Goals

America Talking will be designed to:

• Minimize the server load.
• Minimize the moderation burden.
• Incentivize balanced content¹“Balanced” doesn’t necessarily mean “moderate.” It can also mean two equally extreme viewpoints.  and civil discourse.

Implementation Details

Content – Content providers will create and host their content elsewhere, and then simply link to that content from their channels on America Talking. This will:

• Reduce the server load for America Talking.
• Eliminate the need to deal with DMCA strikes and such, as they’ll continue to be handled by the hosting platforms.
• Make it easier for existing content creators to join the site. They can keep on producing and hosting their content where they’re currently making their money, and America Talking can serve as a side channel to attract more viewers.
• Allow content creators to continue producing unbalanced content. They can keep on doing whatever they’re doing, but whenever they produce something they think would fit America Talking’s ethos, they can add it to their channel there.

Discussion Groups – The only way a user can view content is from within a discussion group that’s subscribed to it, and their comments are only seen by fellow group members. This will:

• Eliminate the need for site-wide moderation, since only the small discussion group sees anything a member posts. Moderation will be the responsibility of the moderator(s) of each group.
• Encourage more civil discourse, because users won’t be talking to strangers but fellow group members, many of whom they might know IRL. Local-only visibility means no screaming into the aether at an abstract Enemy.
• Allow users the freedom to seek moderation policies they’re comfortable with. If you don’t like how a discussion group is run, switch to another one or create a new one of your own.

Discussion groups could also be given a separate “Social” channel where they can post off-topic personal items like they might ordinarily do to any other social network. This would further strengthen the bonds between group members, encouraging more civility.

Incentivizes for Balance

The following mechanisms will incentivize balance:

• Every discussion group will receive a rating indicating how balanced it is.
• Every content provider will receive a rating indicating how balanced its subscribers are.
• Every user will receive a rating indicating how balanced their discussion groups are.
• A recommendation system will prioritize the higher rated channels.

The Killer App

My hope is that America Talking will enable the creation of content that could not get off the ground without a network that rewards balance with eyeballs, and that one of these channels will prove to be the “killer app” that puts the site on the map. Some possibilities:

• Discussion between well-known figures of the Left and Right.
  • Rachel Maddow and Tucker Carlson?
  • Bernie Sanders and Elon Musk?
  • George Clooney and Dean Cain?
• Or between well-known organizations.
  • Heritage Foundation and ACLU?
  • Fox and MSNBC?
  • NRA and Everytown for Gun Safety?
• Dueling comedians?
• Game shows with progressive and conservative contestants testing their knowledge of history and Constitutional law?

Monetization

This is question I haven’t figured out, but:

• If there are ads, advertisers should not be allowed to target users based on political affiliation. (i.e. incentivize them to offer products and services attractive to both sides.)
• If there’s a model where users pay and content providers get shares, base the shares at least in part on balance ratings.
• It would be great if organizations who share the America Talking ideals funded it as a non-profit. Due to the design that reduces server and moderation loads, it might not be as costly as many other social networks.
  • Common Cause?
  • Braver Angels?
  • The National Institute for Civil Discourse?
  • Or maybe an existing social network like Bluesky?

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This is one of my two tech ideas for bridging the political divide. Here’s the other one.