Make Waves

February 10, 2023 10:14 AM

Spoutible launched fully yesterday and his been running relatively smoothly (with a few minor glitches). It's a Twitter alternative that aims to stop the spread of misinformation and hate.

Pre-launch the site sent surveys to people who preregistered and then shared the results of those surveys and plans to follow them. For instance, based on results of the survey, they decided to pre-ban "high profile problematic accounts" who had been banned from other services; require a cell phone number that can receive a verification code before allowing people to make their first post; two accounts max per cell number; accounts are attached in the sense that if one is banned the other will be as well, among other policy decisions.

posted by dobbs (34 comments total)

Thanks for this. I couldn't get the hang of Mastodon, and figured that There Has To Be A Better Way. Maybe this is it.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:12 AM on February 10, 2023

Apparently the Spoutible CEO is sketchy so I'd be very careful of jumping from the dumping fire that is twitter to this other platform.
posted by simmering octagon at 11:17 AM on February 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

Sketchy in what way, simmering octagon? Perhaps you can provide some links to sources about this?
posted by skye.dancer at 11:20 AM on February 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

Here's a twitter thread with more info, and here's the response by Bouzi. Honestly looking more into this thing, I have no idea who's right, but it just shows how jumping into a platform owned and promoted by a single rich guy is probably not the best of ideas after Musk.
posted by simmering octagon at 11:30 AM on February 10, 2023 [9 favorites]

I have decided at this point I will sign up for anything if for no other reason than to reserve my username. I'm bondcliff over there as well. So far nothing has stuck.

I'm kind of hoping Musk sells or has a 200 ton weight fall on him or whatever and everyone who left will come back to Twitter. I'm not holding my breath.
posted by bondcliff at 11:35 AM on February 10, 2023 [9 favorites]

Thanks, simmering octagon!
posted by skye.dancer at 11:36 AM on February 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Does Spoutable support ActivityPub, or does it have plans to?
posted by Jonathan Harford at 11:47 AM on February 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

These types of sites will only be successful if everyone uses it. That's its draw--its wide reach. Facebook beat out MySpace because it was so easy to use that our non-technical friends, and even grandma could use it. So everyone got accounts so they could connect to their friends who were all using it.

I did the grandma test--I went to the site to see if I could start browsing. Nope. Same with Mastadon. These might be useful in their own way but they are not Twitter replacements.

I think there are some useful use cases for Twitter, so I hope someone comes up with a workable replacement before Twitter completely melts down.
posted by eye of newt at 12:11 PM on February 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

Especially after the way Twitter has been used to target activists I think a lot of people, especially those dealing with particularly oppressive governments, will be hesitant to link accounts to phone numbers that could be traced back to them and I think that will really limit the voices you get on a service like this. It's not an easy problem, and verifiable phone numbers aren't as bad as "real name" requirements, but I think that well-meaning steps like this end up keeping out a lot of awesome and interesting people and can lead to echo chambers where you don't even realize what's being missed.
posted by an octopus IRL at 12:33 PM on February 10, 2023 [14 favorites]

I'm enjoying spoutible so far! The GUI is clean and intuitive. It's the first Twitter alternative that feels right to me on a neurochemical level. Engagement is pretty strong right now too.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 1:54 PM on February 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

It's the first Twitter alternative that feels right to me on a neurochemical level.

I might try this out.

A bit of a derail but more of a side lane...

I downloaded this game, Mob Control, and it was exactly the right combination of dopamine triggers to get me to keep playing and keep playing and keep playing... I was worried I was getting addicted (again) and thought I needed to delete it, but then a thing happened, without me buying anything, where I just had more power than I needed for any level. Yeah, I was willing to watch 30 second advertisements for a power-up, but after a few days it was just... boring.

I hadn't have that happen in a video game before. I don't know if this is because video games are more forgiving now than they were "back in my day" (which largely involved pushing quarters into slots), but becoming bored was novel.

I recently downloaded another game and it was so similar to the first in ways of power ups and leveling and ever-increasing success that after about 10 rounds I deleted it, too.

Maybe my addiction is broken in this current era of mobile games? I know it's not universal, but it's interesting that two games with mechanics I like polluted themselves with other things to the point that I didn't care.

Anyway, back to the idea that a program can be proper in respect to brain chemicals. I'm still debating if I should join this new thing or not. At least it's not a game!
posted by hippybear at 2:34 PM on February 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

I didn't jump for any of the other services, but I've made a Spoutible account. MeMail me if you'd like the handle.
posted by Pallas Athena at 3:10 PM on February 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

It's a terrible idea for everyone to jump on a single website run by a single rich person. This is not a recipe for future safety and ethical responsibility.

Have we learned nothing?
posted by mmoncur at 3:47 PM on February 10, 2023 [9 favorites]

The space for a text-first, microblogging social site is wide open; this week instagram stuck a text ticker in the messaging tab, because the people that loved using twitter used the crap out of it, and now they’re splitting up and finding different niches. I suspect social media managers are trying to hoover up those twitter-loving types as they venture out into a wider internet.

I wouldn’t sign up for this site, as it looks like mastodon already has the network effect. I think people get a little excited at a new website like this, but replicating twitter’s entire feature set seems… redundant? Maybe there’s something I don’t understand.
posted by The River Ivel at 3:56 PM on February 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

If Mastodon would just rip off the Twitter UI properly instead of 20x20 box for entering a little text on the side... I'd use it a LOT more.
posted by symbioid at 4:32 PM on February 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

replicating twitter’s entire feature set seems… redundant? Maybe there’s something I don’t understand.

None of us understand him. That's why things are so dire at twitter.
posted by hippybear at 4:53 PM on February 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Folks, Chris Bouzy (the guy that owns spoutable) is a polarizing figure, so careful about believing everything you read about him. No shade to anyone on the thread, I'm just saying seek out your own receipts.

That said, if you're looking to leave twitter for greener pastures, please support community run and not venture capital / rich guy run projects. Try Mastodon or Cohost. With Mastodon, you can find an instance that's got like-minded people on it and still follow all your other friends who might be on other instances. There IS a learning curve. Take a couple of months to learn the ropes before rejecting it. (I've seen a lot of people come into Masto and leave within a few days - for God's sake give it some time) I personally am on the leftist/anarchist instance Kolektiva and have been enjoying my account a lot.

I'm also on Cohost, which is full of delightful creative and queer folks, and also has a learning curve. Neither site will show you posts based on what a ML algorithm thinks you'll engage with, so it can be a little disconcerting at first. Stick with it!
posted by signsofrain at 5:15 PM on February 10, 2023 [6 favorites]

Yeah, even before learning a little about Bouzy I was like "oh, look, Lucy's holding another football".

I did just run into my first real concerned troll on the Fediverse, but I'm more excited to put my energies into trying something new rather than repeating the social media cycle with something that's trying to be a repeat.
posted by straw at 9:18 PM on February 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

The hardest parts of Mastodon are picking a server and adjusting to including the server name when referring to users.

This isn't to discredit people's experiences, mind you, because picking a server is a bigger deal than it seems at first. People who say it doesn't matter haven't been through the experience of being on a server that got de-federated by some folk because its owners checked out, like happened to me at mastodon.cloud.

To the Mastodon system's great credit though, you can switch servers, and take the people you follow and your followers with you, which could not have been an easy technical hurdle to overcome, seeing as how it means your new server has to work with your old server to contact all of the accounts of the people who followed you individually.
posted by JHarris at 11:09 PM on February 10, 2023

I’m 8mileshigh.
posted by bendy at 11:34 PM on February 10, 2023

I did open a spoutible account (same username) but social media to me is the social part and idk what i did but my fedi experience has been very rewarding so far. Maybe because i am actually finding non-western voices. I'll creep on spoutible at some point proper just to see what's what. Haven't followed anyone yet tho.
posted by cendawanita at 12:13 AM on February 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

"every day there’s a new social app called like blabbr that wants your passport when you sign up and then you find out it’s a scam run by a fortnite streamer and something called the kissinger institute for peace"
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 4:04 AM on February 11, 2023 [7 favorites]

"every day there's a new social app called like blabbr"

It really is interesting how often the names/terminology deprecate the quality of the content. Spoutible?? The things you spout are rants and nonsense.
posted by trig at 4:46 AM on February 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

The hardest parts of Mastodon are picking a server and adjusting to including the server name when referring to users.

I really overthought choosing a server, and while it is possible to pick badly, you can't go too wrong with one of the larger sites.

It's a bit like choosing your email host back way back when. Do you want to be so-and-so@hotmail, @aol, @msn, or someplace niche? https://instances.social lists servers with membership counts and reliability/uptime ratings.

Take a look at what other folks on the instance are posting in the "Explore" view - Mastodon has no algorithmic feed, but if want more to read after finishing the posts of those you're following, it's easy to see what else is being tooted on your server.
posted by cheshyre at 5:48 AM on February 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

The fewer vowels the name of a social-media site has, the more I love it.
posted by bendy at 6:39 AM on February 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

From last week:

Spoutible made its users' emails and IP addresses available through Public API.
The owner, Bouzy blocked and doxxed the person (Marco) who told him about it.
We went public to warn the site's users that this information was compromised.

Also , Spoutible's Data Protection Officer is seriously questionable.
posted by cheshyre at 9:03 AM on February 11, 2023 [4 favorites]

I was listening to a podcast a few weeks ago and heard about an app that was in beta called Artifact being launched by two of Instagrams co-founders. I can't figure out which podcast I was listening to, but I did find an article about it, here's a blurb from the article :

The Instagram co-founders, who departed Facebook in 2018 amid tensions with their parent company, have formed a new venture to explore ideas for next-generation social apps. Their first product is Artifact, a personalized news feed that uses machine learning to understand your interests and will soon let you discuss those articles with friends.

I signed up for the waitlist (and got the invite to join via text this morning and am now active on the app) because in the podcast he seemed like an intelligent well reasoned person and the concept seemed viable to me, someone who knows virtually nothing about tech. One point he made was that successful social media app giants all started as something more niche and then converted to the social media model, which is what he's doing with Artifact. He mentioned how difficult it was to get the critical mass necessary for a social media platform to succeed, that everyone you you wanted to interact with needed to be on it or it was mostly useless, so starting out as a news filter (you choose the filters) makes more sense.

Not sure what will come of it, but might be something to look into, and if I can figure out what podcast it was I'll come back and link it.
posted by newpotato at 9:15 AM on February 11, 2023

Found it! It's the podcast Hard Fork, February 3rd episode, towards the end of the episode it's entitled Kevin Systroms comeback.
posted by newpotato at 9:23 AM on February 11, 2023

symbioid if the default Mastodon web app isn't doing it for you, have you tried elk? It's bit more Twitter-like.
posted by sarble at 9:49 AM on February 11, 2023

One point he made was that successful social media app giants all started as something more niche

Seriously, just start your social media empire as a scrappy little app for sharing cat pictures.
posted by trig at 10:17 AM on February 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

Courtney Milan pointed out red flags in the Spoutible TOS and offered to work with them to revise it. She's a lawyer & award-winning writer who used to clerk for a Supreme Court justice, and volunteered to improve their legal standing!

Bouzy rejected her, doubled down on the current policy, and is now banning people on the platform who criticize it (or him). He's also banning people for things they say on other sites.

Twitter thread
posted by cheshyre at 7:47 AM on February 20, 2023 [3 favorites]

One of the replies to the twitter thread above said it best:

oh, ok. see. when considering twitter alternatives, i do not intend to replace one emotional babyman with another

posted by mmoncur at 6:20 AM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]

I enjoyed Bouzy's election coverage until I started getting Nate Silver flashbacks. The stuff that's been coming up about him has not decreased those.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 8:13 AM on February 21, 2023 [2 favorites]

And a week or two in, and so far Spoutible seems like a decent place. It's filling up well, and so far everyone is playing nice.

We'll see how long that lasts, of course, but my first impressions are good.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:09 AM on February 23, 2023