Telepath Social Network: Fighting Abuse & Fake News

It’s evident that contemporary social media platforms have fallen short of expectations. Plagued by harmful speech and abusive behavior, moderation and safety features were initially overlooked and are now being hastily implemented. Simultaneously, algorithms prioritize content designed to maximize user engagement, even at the expense of factual accuracy. Currently, several emerging social networks are attempting to redefine this established paradigm—some by leveraging audio for more intimate interactions, as seen with Clubhouse, others by minimizing the pursuit of popularity, like Twelv, and, in the case of the new platform Telepath, by establishing a system governed by principles that prioritize civility, combat abuse, and prevent the dissemination of misinformation.

However, many of these initial endeavors are already encountering obstacles.

The private social network Clubhouse has repeatedly illustrated the difficulties inherent in moderating open-ended audio conversations. Despite remaining inaccessible to the general public, the app faced criticism in September for hosting discussions containing anti-Semitic content within one of its chat rooms. Previously, the platform had also permitted the open harassment of a New York Times reporter.

Twelv, which functions as an alternative to Instagram, removes the concept of “Likes” and eliminates many of the features that have come to characterize Instagram, which originally served simply as a platform for sharing photographs. Unfortunately, this also creates a challenge in discovering and following interesting users or trending topics—users must invite their friends to join or know a specific username to find them, otherwise no content is displayed. The outcome is a social network lacking a genuine sense of community.

Telepath, in contrast, represents a more compelling development.

The platform is pursuing a particularly ambitious objective within the realm of social networking—the creation of a space free from hate speech and the spread of false information.

To date, no social network has successfully achieved the level of content moderation that Telepath proposes. While its goals are optimistic, they remain untested on a large scale, as the network is currently in private beta.

Despite positioning itself as a distinct type of social network, Telepath is not centered on developing a novel sharing format to stimulate user engagement—similar to how TikTok popularized short-form videos or Snapchat introduced “Stories.”

Instead, Telepath, upon initial inspection, closely resembles a conventional scrolling feed. (And considering the prevalence of linked Twitter content within Telepath posts, it arguably functions as a secondary channel for that platform.)

The startup was founded by former Quora employees, including Marc Bodnick, formerly Quora’s Business & Community head, now Telepath Executive Chairman; and Richard Henry, formerly Quora Product Lead, now Telepath CEO. They are supported by Tatiana Estévez, previously Quora’s Global Writer Relations Lead, now Telepath Head of Community and Safety; and Ro Applewhaite, formerly research staff for Pete Buttigieg for America, now Telepath Head of Outreach.

The company has secured a couple million dollars in seed funding, spearheaded by First Round Capital (Josh Kopelman). Additional investors include Unusual Ventures (Andy Johns), Slow Ventures (Sam Lessin), and several anonymous angel investors. Both Bodnick and his wife, Michelle Sandberg, also contributed to the funding.

When discussing Telepath, the founders clearly express a longing for the early days of the internet—before its widespread adoption. In the past, smaller online communities fostered connections that often extended into real-world friendships. They aspire to recreate this experience.

“I’ve personally gained a great deal from meeting people online, building relationships, and engaging in conversations,” states Henry. “However, the internet has lost much of the enjoyment it once provided.”

He suggests that the anonymity afforded by platforms like Reddit and Twitter can hinder the formation of genuine connections. Telepath, with its emphasis on conversation, seeks to address this issue.

“If we can cultivate a welcoming, kind, and empathetic conversational atmosphere, many positive outcomes can result. This could lead to finding collaborators, securing employment, making new friends, or even arranging in-person meetings,” Henry explains.

Getting Started

Joining Telepath involves providing your mobile phone number and name to access the network. You can then locate and follow other users, functioning similarly to Twitter, and participate in communities centered around your interests, much like on Reddit. Upon opening the application, you’ll be presented with a home feed showcasing discussion points from your joined communities and noteworthy responses – replies from those you follow are highlighted in orange, while Telepath-selected content appears in gray.

While browsing posts and exploring communities, you have the ability to express approval with a “Thumbs Up,” indicate disapproval with a downvote, respond to content, mute users, block accounts, and directly address individuals using @usernames.

A notable aspect of the platform’s design is that all content is automatically removed after 30 days. This prevents past posts from being revisited and used for criticism or judgment in the future.

However, the most distinctive feature of Telepath isn’t its appearance or layout, but rather the principles governing its operation, as outlined in its rules.

New users of Telepath are required to agree to “be kind,” which serves as the foundational rule. Additionally, personal attacks based on identity and harassment are prohibited. Users must utilize their real name, or preferred name for transgender individuals, and are restricted from posting violent or pornographic material. The dissemination of “fake news,” defined as the consistent spread of misinformation by publishers, is also forbidden.

Telepath has also established guidelines for constructive online interactions, such as “don’t circle the drain” – discouraging persistent attempts to have the final say in a disagreement or circumventing thread locks – and “stay on topic,” which advises against introducing opposing viewpoints into communities dedicated to a specific perspective.

To uphold its standards, Telepath mandates user registration with a verified mobile phone number linked to an active SIM card, preventing the use of virtual or temporary numbers obtained through “burner” apps.

In its effort to cultivate a positive environment, Telepath states it will prioritize moderation over rapid expansion, employing dedicated, long-term moderators as full-time staff.

“The majority of large social networks experienced unrestricted growth,” explains Henry. “They reached a substantial user base, exceeding 100 million active users, and then faced the challenge of moderating that extensive platform,” he elaborates. “We are fortunate to be able to implement moderation from the outset, establishing the platform’s norms from day one.”

Moderation

The launch of the platform was the culmination of extensive effort, involving four complete product rebuilds over a period of several years. The team now reports having created internal resources that give moderators comprehensive insight into the platform’s operations.

As explained by the head of moderation, Estévez, these resources encompass a reporting mechanism, live content feeds categorized for specific purposes—such as a feed dedicated to content from new users—and a range of search functionalities to provide background information on reports or users exhibiting concerning activity.

“Effective resources—including live content monitoring, systems for identifying problematic conduct, searchable contextual data, and measures to prevent banned users from re-establishing accounts—will allow each moderator we employ to handle a significant workload. We anticipate that encouraging positive interactions will create beneficial network effects,” she stated.

“Our goal is to rapidly expand while maintaining a high level of accuracy in moderation decisions, and that necessitates substantial engineering investment in refining these tools,” she continued.

The company’s founders have chosen to develop moderation solutions internally rather than utilize external services, as they shared with TechCrunch.

“We evaluated numerous pre-built [moderation solutions], but we are constructing all necessary components independently,” explained Henry. “This approach provides us with the necessary flexibility to fine-tune these systems and achieve our desired results.”

Prioritizing human moderation over automated systems will require further funding to support growth. Furthermore, given Telepath’s decision not to rely on advertising revenue, the company will eventually need to explore alternative revenue streams to ensure its long-term viability. Currently, subscriptions are being considered, though no final decisions have been made.

Banning the trolls

Even with a user base exceeding 4,000 during its private beta phase, Telepath’s two-person moderation team is already responsible for reviewing content from the numerous posts contributed each day. (The company does not reveal the typical number of daily rule breaches that require intervention.)

When a user contravenes the established guidelines, moderators will often initially issue a warning regarding the infraction and may ask the user to remove or revise the problematic post. Individuals are not penalized for unintentional errors or unfamiliarity with the rules—they are initially provided an opportunity to correct their actions.

However, persistent rule-breaking or deliberate misconduct, such as orchestrating harassment against another user, results in a complete ban. The phone number verification process also makes it difficult for banned users to rejoin the platform—requiring the acquisition of a new phone number to do so.

These moderation responses aren't governed by rigid policies, like a “three strikes” system, for instance. Instead, enforcement is assessed individually for each situation. Telepath prioritizes firmer action against intentional, blatant violations, or instances demonstrating a recurring pattern of negative conduct. (This includes behaviors such as “Reply Guys” and “sealioning.”)

Furthermore, in contrast to platforms like Facebook and Twitter—which can be reactive to emerging viral trends requiring moderation—Telepath aims to ensure that no content gains widespread attention without prior review by a human moderator, according to the company.

Fake News

Telepath is also in the process of creating a user reputation system and reliability ratings for content sources.

Regarding users, the intention is to assess the probability of an individual violating Telepath’s established guidelines. This feature is still under development and will function internally, without being visible to the public.

For publishers, the trust score will reflect the accuracy of their reporting, expressed as a percentage.

“For instance, if a publisher’s most viewed article contains demonstrably false or deliberately misleading information, that should significantly lower their trust score,” explains Henry. “The current issue with existing platforms is that they have policies against false information, but they often avoid strict enforcement to maintain an appearance of impartiality.”

Bodnick points out that overcoming this obstacle is achievable.

“Our perspective is that a limited number of sources are responsible for the majority of disinformation. We aren’t aiming to create a complex system to determine minor differences in accuracy between established news organizations like The Washington Post and The New York Times. Instead, our primary focus will be on identifying publishers that consistently spread false information, and then limiting the reach of their content,” states Bodnick.

This approach, however, necessitates rules on Telepath that challenge conventional understandings of “free speech.” In reality, Telepath believes that social networks prioritizing free speech have proven ineffective.

“We believe the problem lies in treating each new post equally, regardless of a publisher’s history of spreading disinformation. For example, disregarding the fact that Breitbart may have published numerous false posts over the past few years and evaluating each new post as equally likely to be truthful is simply inefficient,” says Bodnick.

“We plan to address the issue of disinformation by identifying a relatively small number of publishers – likely in the low hundreds – responsible for a significant amount of false information, and then reducing their content distribution,” he says.

This view on free speech is consistent throughout the team.

“We are focused on building a community, which requires making certain compromises,” adds Estévez. “Our rules are guided by Karl Popper’s paradox of tolerance – to maintain a tolerant society, intolerance must be countered. We have no intention of providing a platform for certain types of harmful speech,” she notes.

This stands in stark contrast to the approach taken by conservative social media platforms like Parler and Gab. These companies champion free speech to such an extent that they have allowed content from alleged Russian disinformation campaigns to remain online, citing a lack of reports and requests from law enforcement. These networks also frequently contain conspiracy theories, unverified claims, and generally hostile content.

These platforms operate under the assumption that users are responsible for muting or blocking content they dislike. However, the nature of these platforms tends to attract users with similar viewpoints.

Twitter, conversely, attempts to find a middle ground. This approach has resulted in dissatisfaction among some users who feel it does not adequately address abuse. Users often report harassment and threats, only to wait days for a review and be informed that the offending content does not violate Twitter’s policies.

Telepath adopts a different strategy, actively moderating content, blocking and banning users when necessary, and penalizing publications that fail to fact-check or disseminate misinformation.

“Kindness” Exceptions

Even with these extensive safeguards, Telepath doesn’t consistently host only considerate and respectful exchanges.

This is due to a specific allowance within its kindness guidelines that permits criticism of individuals in the public eye, and a seeming lack of intervention regarding potentially problematic, or even rule-breaking, discussions.

A user’s experience within these ambiguous areas can differ depending on the specific community they are in.

Currently, Telepath’s communities are centered around hobbies and shared interests, encompassing a wide range of topics from harmless subjects like Books, Branding, Netflix, or Cooking, to more sensitive areas such as Race in America. Within the latter, discussions have occurred regarding the capitalization of the word “Black,” with some suggesting it may not be a beneficial practice. In another instance, expressions of sympathy were shared for an individual who was falsely claiming membership in a particular racial group.

Regarding a discussion on affordable housing, one participant questioned whether a woman’s stated preference to avoid living near lower-income individuals indicated prejudiced views. A subsequent comment suggested that the presence of gang activity could negatively impact property values.

A community dedicated to QAnon engages in discussions about the movement and its adherents from a detached perspective—an activity that is allowed—although actively supporting the movement is not.

There are also approximately 20 groups focused on subjects that are disliked, such as GOPSucks, CNNSucks, or QuibiSucks.

Content critical of Donald Trump is available on a network named “DumbHitler.”

While online sources known for spreading inaccurate information are prohibited on Telepath, YouTube is not. Therefore, sharing a link to a video featuring Rudy Giuliani’s accusations against Biden is permissible, provided it is not presented as factual.

Furthermore, users are able to express negative opinions about certain individuals, describing them in unfavorable terms, due to the exception made for public figures.

Individuals accused of infidelity or failing to meet parental obligations can be labeled as a “disgusting human being.” Commenters have referred to Vice President Pence as “SmugFace mcWhitey” and Ronny Jackson as “such a piece of sh**.”

Estévez clarifies that the intention of Telepath’s “be kind” rule is not to shield public figures from critique.

“It’s crucial to understand that online toxicity surrounding politics isn’t caused by the use of strong language, but by the employment of disingenuous arguments, the dissemination of misinformation, and the manipulation of marginalized groups regarding their lived experiences. These are the core issues we are addressing,” she explains.

She also points out that calls for online “civility” are frequently used to suppress the voices of individuals from marginalized communities.

“We don’t want our emphasis on kindness to be exploited to silence those who criticize people in positions of power,” she adds.

Currently, Telepath functions as a private, closed network where users can freely criticize Trump, his supporters, and right-wing politicians without interference from Twitter trolls. It is also a platform where a majority of users share these viewpoints.

It has, in effect, created the type of Twitter environment desired by many on the left, mirroring how conservative social media platforms like Gab and Parler catered to the preferences of the right. However, it remains uncertain whether this approach provides a solution to the broader problems of modern social media or simply offers an alternative space. It also remains to be determined if a wider audience will join the platform.

Telepath is currently in a closed beta with no defined end date. Access requires an invitation.