America Talking: a new social network

I propose a new social network (or a new feature of some existing one) that would encourage conversation between the political parties. I wrote the first drafts of this document in early 2019, and as I update it today (December, 2024) I'm more convinced than ever about the need for long term efforts to pull combatants on the Right and Left onto some kind of common ground, even if it's just to agree that they disagree.

America Talking could be one of those venues.

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?

Note: casual readers only need to read the next 4 sections (600 words) of this long proposal.

The User Experience

  1. When users join the network, they're asked for their political leaning, Right or Left.
  2. They can also indicate the subjects they're most interested in (e.g. elections, religion, the economy, local issues, etc.) 
  3. They're then presented with lists of possible "klatches" to subscribe to.
    • A klatch is a small group of two or more content creators representing different political viewpoints, who conduct conversations that users of the network can subscribe to.
    • The construct is similar to, say, a televised panel discussion, in that spokespeople from different sides of an issue debate it in front of an audience, except with social networking dynamics and, most importantly, incentives for klatches to produce content that appeals to both sides of the political divide. (Keep reading for more about this.)
  4. The lists of suggested klatches are always ordered by how politically balanced their subscribers are, so that klatches that appeal more equally to subscribers from both sides will earn more visibility to potential new subscribers.
  5. Users' news feeds consist of posts by the klatches they subscribe to.
  6. These posts are essentially conversations the klatches have on various subjects. They can be videos, podcasts, or text-based, and be broadcasted live or posted in the form of recordings.
  7. Users can then make comments on those posts, discussing them with other subscribers to the klatch.

Klatches

  • Any group of users can form a klatch. 
  • A klatch can be completely general or devoted to some specific topic. 
  • As stated above, a klatch's visibility to potential new subscribers will depend in part on how balanced a subscriber base they currently have. (i.e. how "un-echo-y" their "chambers" are.)
  • Klatches might choose to be conciliatory or combative in their tone. Either way could work, as long as it draws a bipartisan audience. (It will be interesting to see which approaches work best.)
  • Klatches can also be either serious or not. (Klatches featuring dueling comedians might well turn out to be the platform's "killer app.")

Discussion Groups

Subscribers to a klatch can form discussion groups, so when the klatch posts a new episode, you only see the comments of your fellow discussion group members. This feature would:

  • Encourage users to invite their friends to join the network.
  • Make discussion more manageable: just a small group interacting rather than, say, a thousand Bluesky users all weighing in on a post.
  • Avoid the kind of incivility that can arise when people debate anonymous strangers on the Internet.
  • Minimize the effect of bots infiltrating the network. They can join, but will they be invited into any discussion groups?

Balance

Some possible incentives for klatches and users to be balanced:

  • Klatches with more balanced subscriber bases appear higher on lists of klatches to join.
  • Klatches with more balanced subscriber bases are more likely to be recommended via "You might also like" style suggestions.
  • A klatch's degree of balance is publicly displayed.
  • Users receive a rating based on the degree of balance and their level of engagement in klatches they follow and the discussion groups they form. 
  • Discussion groups receive a rating based on how balanced their members are.
  • Users, discussion groups, and Klatches are shown what percentile their ratings put them at. (Gamifying balance.)

Klatches are incentivized to attract a balanced mix of users, while users are incentivized to subscribe to the more balanced klatches and form more balanced discussion groups.

[The rest of this long document dives into the weeds. Casual readers can skip it. At this point, you have the general idea. Let me know what you think!]

Monetization

Could be subscription based, fee based, ad based, some combination of the three, or there could be no monetization at all.

  • Subscription based: klatches could optionally charge a subscription price for their content.
  • Fee based.
    • Klatches could be charged a fee just to list themselves on the site, and/or offered ways to pay for increased exposure.
    • Users could maybe even be charged, but with the idea that most of what they pay will be divided among the klatches they subscribe to. (A baked-in subscription model that makes the fee more bearable to the user and the payment of subscription fees to klatches more automatic.)
    • Users might be more ready to pay a fee because of the mission-oriented nature of this network, as opposed to general social networks out there. If a user is here, it will be because they believe in the value of talks across the aisle.
  • Ad based: Klatches could earn royalties from ads appearing alongside their content.
    • Advertisers could choose which klatches or categories of klatches they want their ads appearing beside.
    • They would not be allowed to target ads based on user political orientation (i.e. they'll need to be okay with any ad they produce being seen by both conservatives and progressives.)
  • No monetization.
    • Ad-free model and a strong privacy policy might be the only things that could make users feel comfortable revealing their political leanings.
    • Less incentive for klatches to fake balance (see next section) in pursuit of profit.

Potential problems

  • Users lying about their political leanings, or creating fake users, in order to create an artificial balance (and therefore visibility) for klatches that are actually partisan propaganda in disguise.
  • Propaganda bots injecting misinformation into discussions.
  • User unwillingness to disclose their political affiliations.
  • Not enough users from one side to make balanced klatches easy to attain. (So that "balance" might need to be more a matter of closeness to the actual ratio within the user base in general than an absolute 50/50 split.)

Marketing tactics

  • Recruit well-known figures or organizations to start klatches.
    • Politicians.  (A McCain-Feingold klatch would have been great in its day.)
    • Commentators. (Maddow-Hannity!)
    • Actors or musical artists. (George Clooney-Mel Gibson?)
    • Political organizations. (RNC-DNC, Everytown-NRA, Common Cause-Heritage Foundation)
    • News services (Fox News-MSNBC!)
  • Encourage klatches with local politicians and/or news services, targeting local subscribers and discussing local issues.
  • Make it easy for users to share elements of the site (e.g. klatches, posts, discussion groups, etc.) to other social networks.
  • Pitch klatches to news services as ready-made sets of bipartisan commentators with experience discussing hot topics in fruitful ways. ("And now, to debate the upcoming vote on an assault weapons ban, the Everytown-NRA klatch from America Talking…")

The cases for implementation by an existing social network

Facebook

  • Might be the best equipped to detect efforts at fraud: users lying about their political affiliations, fake users created to pad klatch ratios and rankings, etc..
  • Existing Pages feature might be the most easily adapted to Klatches.
  • Might want to atone for its use by malicious actors to subvert American democracy.
  • Might want to counteract its reputation for being an ideological echo chamber.

Google

  • Buzz copied Twitter and G+ copied Facebook, and neither succeeded. A third attempt at a social network, only this time with its own unique structure and use cases, might be the charm.
  • Could play the more civil and politically balanced nature of klatches against the poorer reputations of Twitter and Facebook.
  • Klatches are very "Googley." 

Bluesky or other nascent FB/Twitter alternatives

  • The Twitter/Bluesky model of users following influencers and celebrities might be closest in spirit to how users of the new network might think about klatches.

Mastodon or other nascent, non-profit FB/Twitter alternatives

  • Freedom from the need to make a profit would make it easier to focus on the mission of incentivizing engagement across the political aisle.
  • The network might be very slow to grow, and might not ever get very big. But its mere existence might have a beneficial effect on U.S. politics. 
  • Also see "No monetization" above.

Other organizations that might want to create, or partner in the creation of this network

I personally think the ideal combination would be an existing social networking platform and either a centrist organization or two balancing ones. (e.g. Facebook-MSNBC-Fox, Google-USA Today, etc.) But another enticing arrangement would be a consortium of all the major social networking companies, along with an array of varied organizational partners, launching a non-profit effort to create the new network. 

Partial or informal implementations

Some fraction of these ideas could be implemented far more easily than the full concept. In fact, it may well be that a partial implementation will turn out to be the optimal one.

Hashtags within existing social networks

Users of various social networks could adopt certain conventions to create a virtual America Talking within those networks. For example, content creators could simply tag content that featured bipartisan conversation as #AmericaTalking. 

Categories within existing social networks

Existing social networks might lend official support to an #AmericaTalking hashtag convention, hardwiring exposure to that category into their UIs and perhaps even doing some moderation to enforce its accurate use.

The Clearinghouse model

The previous two ideas for partial implementation (hashtags only or hashtags plus some official support) promote content appealing to both sides but have no way to measure it. There's no identifying of users as Right or Left so that their ratios among the subscribers to a given content creator can be calculated.

In this approach, the full network is created, but minus the actual hosting of content. The site still tracks the political leanings of its users, let's them form klatches and subscribe to them, and calculates the partisan balance among the subscribers to a given klatch, but when it comes time to actually send the user to a klatch's posted content, it simply redirects them to wherever the content is hosted on some other platform. 

In other words, the klatches need to host their content elsewhere (e.g. YouTube or Twitch or Substack or Apple Podcasts or whatever) and then point to that content from within America Talking. 

There are pros and cons to this model.

  • Advantages
    • Lightens the server load.
    • Largely relieves the site of moderation responsibilities. 
    • Allows content creators to stick with familiar platforms and to also reap the benefits of an independent following on those platforms. (America Talking could be seen as just an extra form of publicity for many.)
    • Allows content creators to produce a wider range of content. Whenever they post something on their current platform that they feel meets the America Talking requirements, they can register it with the site, but they can also continue posting other kinds of content.
    • Makes the "no monetization" model more possible: content creators will continue earning money on their native platforms, with America Talking serving as a non-profit overlay that only brings them more subscribers.
  • Disadvantages
    • A less uniform user experience.
    • Discussion groups and their promise of crosstalk among bipartisan users would not be possible unless onsite commenting was supported, which would cut into the hosting and moderation advantages listed above.

Conclusion

We've seen the power of "the algorithm" to shape a social network experience and even an entire nation. What might we accomplish with an algorithm that promotes bipartisan engagement?

This is one of my suggestions for bridging the Blue-Red divide.