This is the blog part: Why Twitter 3.0 is going to be the greatest

Thursday December 29, 2022; 8:24 PM EST

Why Twitter 3.0 is going to be the greatest#

(9 min read)#
#
We have finally figured out how to build and run a social network that maximizes freedom, safety and also profitability. We are building Twitter 3.0, on a handful of tested principles, to be the final social network.#
First, tie every account to a person. No fake people, this is important because fake people are really the worst. Bots are fine, because they belong to someone real and set a flag saying so. #
Fake people are just garbage data, trying to infect humanity with something terrible, which is generally stupidity so we will all fall easier for someone or other's scheme. So no fake people. #
You can make up whatever name you like, of course. You can have sock puppets for your various moods, but they’re aliases tied to the same main account. This allows for legit bots, pseudonymity, role-playing, masking for safety, avoiding being dead-named, and all the other perfectly reasonable reasons people have for not wanting to use their full legal name just to have an opinion, or create things and share things.#
Then you list the bad words you can’t say. This is a pretty short list, like just a few thousand things. The key is, the list needs to be comprehensive and vague so it can apply where it’s needed. I am kidding of course, that is how you build something that exists only to deny responsibility and just get through the end of another day. #
What you really do is have a sensible set of guidelines, like no fake people, and apply them where they're needed. #
But how do you know where it’s needed? This is the huge thing, right here. This is what makes or breaks your social network. And we've finally figured it out.#
#
There is one key lesson you can take away from every single successful site that deals with making user content available to other users. This is a lesson learned at interest-specific forums, Reddit, Metafilter, and many other online communities. You have to use humans. #
At scales such as Facebook, it is done with subcontractors in cheap places. Smaller communities, such as Reddit, are watched over by volunteers within the community. But you have to use humans.#
I can’t stress this enough, algorithms are only going to get you so far. There is no substitute. Humans are very good at figuring out how to navigate around the edges of algorithms. We use puns and misspellings and cultural references, and we mutate it all faster than software can adapt. #
In Twitter 3.0, automatic anti-fake measures, combined with a properly implemented flagging system, along with straightforward, easily applied moderator tools, ensure an approach that has a well-documented history of working well in practice, to ensure quality discussion with minimum drama. All at scales that might surprise you.#
Now, what differentiates a small community such as Reddit, or Metafilter, from a real social network like Twitter, is that there is only one conversation at a time. Everybody is participating in the same thread, so there’s a consensus reality going on. #
You can count on people flagging things that are outside the norm of a given space, ie, this-person-is-out-of-line, is something that is outside whatever norms usually hold for a particular space. Even in a social network you have myriad simultaneous conversations, you don't need a huge number of types of reasons for flagging. The number of reasons should match the number of rules you have. #
Flagging just denotes, I saw this and think this should be looked at by someone. It works no matter what kind of community you have. What it doesn’t handle is the little toxic cesspools of conversation, where everyone is in on the shitty behavior and they love it because they are getting away with it. The problem is, the little cesspools are private—and they should be. #
#
But we all have an interest in maintaining the safety and freedom of this new social network. So you handle this in two ways. #
First, you give people who aren’t members of the group the ability to flag content posted in private groups. This can involve a slight piercing of the veil of privacy, in that the content of the messages may be occasionally displayed to other safety-minded volunteers on the network. But the identity of the problematic participants can be obscured until really necessary, and after discussion with actual humans about when this is really necessary. And of course to ensure protection against retaliation, flagging naturally remains completely anonymous, as do appeal and final review. #
The other way you handle these private conversations is that you provide people an incentive to flag content in their own private conversations they otherwise might not. You grant privileges, or even daily cash back, and people will really want to step up and do the right thing.#
I don't have to tell you, of course this can absolutely be tied to what we are calling an "ethical NFT", which will absolutely be exchangeable for something of value at some point in the future for a completely plausible reason. You can trust this plan, because it comes from a real billionaire. Not one of those imaginary-money bilionaires.#
We all love codenames for things, it helps you focus when you're building it, and it helps focus people's attention, it's like a mini brand name. Because this structure is specifically designed to maximize freedom, participation, safety and stability, we've come up with what I think is a fantastic name for this part of the project. So incredibly excited. I really like the way it rolls off the tongue. Very snazzy.#
The key is stability, security, safety. Think stability, think status quo, think rock solid, think conservative, think stasis—#
Stasi. It’s for you!#
#
Now, this next part is critical to our goal of bringing social networking into the next era, beyond what's already been possible. We are going to amplify the possible, we are going to lift the possible to another level. We are going to unite the online with the offline.#
We are going to maximize independence and freedom right into the real world. This amazing country was built on the power of the individual, working alone, standing astride history with hammer held high, declaring, “Here we shall build our homes and our liberty.” #
Twitter 3.0 is going to be true to that spirit in ways no one has ever seen.#
To maximize freedom and independence, we maximize the freedom and independence of the individual. Remember, our members are real people, with as many names as the want, readily available to preserve anonymity and maximize communication. People adopt personas for many reasons, and one of those reasons is to tell the truth to power. #
You’ll be able to participate in a way that ensures that no one will ever know it was you. You’ll be able to communicate in real time with similarly-minded, freedom-loving individuals, and you won’t even need to know their real name. #
I’ve already described how moderation works, so this anonymous network is also guaranteed to be completely safe. We use end-to-end cryptography and conversations are permanently available to everyone involved, so everyone can keep in touch and know what’s been going on. (Don’t worry, if it turns out later you need to, with one click the entire thing can go away, permanently, because we don’t keep any backups.) #
#
Twitter 3.0 has also got some really great features for families, that help keep us safe, and find new things. We call this part "Theme Park Mode".#
Theme Park Mode lets you share a detailed, 3-dimensional topographical map overlaid in real time with the exact location of every member of your family. Augmented reality features let you scan the horizon and immediately see visual markers telling you where your family members are—just like a quest in a video game. #
Need to tell the twins to head to the roller coaster, while Dad needs to pick up some snacks and then meet somewhere else, all at the same time? It’s super easy to split out little groups like this and still keep everyone in sync. #
Real time push-to-talk; live task assignment, update and completion (“make it chocolate!”); instant note-sharing; inventory tracking (“who has the baby wipes?”). And voice-activated mode for smart assistant earbuds, for the inevitable times when your hands are full. Active noise cancellation lets you hear your family even in the middle of crowds.#
Naturally, Theme Park Mode works with all kinds of groups, not just families. It’s going to be fantastic for church groups and school field trips. It's going to be fanatastic for tourists, and experiential artists, or even just heading down to the mall with a few close friends. #
This is another lesson we're adopting from smaller, interest-bound communities. It turns out people like to meet up, even if they’ve never met. Getting together in real life, to talk about things you care passionately about, even if you’ve never met, and may never meet again? Well, that’s a special human connection that we’re proud to help enable. No matter where it takes us all.#
#
Along with Theme Park Mode, we’ve got big plans for a little thing that we’re calling Quest Mode. We are going to empower anybody to build an augmented reality game. You’ll be able to build your own treasure hunts, and pretend spy thrillers, secret monster hunters, you name it. #
We've got full, high-resolution, 3-D maps of every street, every sidewalk, every park, and every building in major cities around the world. We’re launching with a salute to every state capitol, and major metropolitan center, which means you’ll be able to lay out your puzzles and goals using real buildings, real doors, real windows. #
And because anybody can make one of these games, and anybody can participate, practically anything can happen! You can even update your game in real time, change things up to keep your players on their toes. #
And our patented algorithms will help your players, your families, your friends, your neighbors, even thousands of people you’ve never met and will never meet again, all come together to participate in something amazing. Maybe even world-changing, history-making! Wouldn't that be something.#
#
Of course, we haven't forgotten our commitment to safety. And here's where we have a unique opportunity all of human history: Tesla.#
Self-driving capable cars like Teslas are just bristling with sensors, and you don’t need to be sitting in one to make use of it. People are going to love how safe this makes everything. #
Even when your kid’s cell has run out of battery, you’ll be able to locate them anywhere. Even if they’ve gone behind closed doors, you’ll know just where those doors are.#
Because at some point, on the way there, they walked past a Tesla. Or a Tesla drove by, looking really cool, like a Tesla. And that Tesla noticed. And told Twitter. Possibly also SpaceX. #
(It definitely told the AI that remembers everything that ever happens to everybody, and looks for patterns to be exploited, in service to Its Holy Owner, which I just totally made up, and isn't a real thing a truly godlike billionaire would order built.)#
Twitter 3.0 will make it so easy to send someone trusted to pick your kids up, or whoever you're looking for, and escort them right where they really belong. It's like knowing everybody around you, personally, and always being able to call on people you trust. #
And because humans look out for each other, it’ll be easy to tag houses in your neighborhood so everyone can see where to get the good candy on Halloween, or who needs an extra little watching after. Never know who might need looking after. You can keep a list, subscribe to lists of people you trust. People you can count on. Count on to be there, and step up, and do what needs to be done. To whomever it needs doing.#
#
The essence of this project, the emphasis is on mobile. Think mobility. Flexibility, maneuverability. Being at the right place at the right time—hundreds of places, all simultaneously. Staying in connection with everyone and everything around you, yet still able to focus, and move, stay in motion, stay mobile. Motion. Mobile— #
Mob. Join it!#
#
Twitter 3.0 is going to be everything you love about America, turned up to 15. Plus crypto, don't forget that. #

Thursday December 29, 2022; 8:24 PM EST

Why Twitter 3.0 is going to be the greatest#

(9 min read)#
#
We have finally figured out how to build and run a social network that maximizes freedom, safety and also profitability. We are building Twitter 3.0, on a handful of tested principles, to be the final social network.#
First, tie every account to a person. No fake people, this is important because fake people are really the worst. Bots are fine, because they belong to someone real and set a flag saying so. #
Fake people are just garbage data, trying to infect humanity with something terrible, which is generally stupidity so we will all fall easier for someone or other's scheme. So no fake people. #
You can make up whatever name you like, of course. You can have sock puppets for your various moods, but they’re aliases tied to the same main account. This allows for legit bots, pseudonymity, role-playing, masking for safety, avoiding being dead-named, and all the other perfectly reasonable reasons people have for not wanting to use their full legal name just to have an opinion, or create things and share things.#
Then you list the bad words you can’t say. This is a pretty short list, like just a few thousand things. The key is, the list needs to be comprehensive and vague so it can apply where it’s needed. I am kidding of course, that is how you build something that exists only to deny responsibility and just get through the end of another day. #
What you really do is have a sensible set of guidelines, like no fake people, and apply them where they're needed. #
But how do you know where it’s needed? This is the huge thing, right here. This is what makes or breaks your social network. And we've finally figured it out.#
#
There is one key lesson you can take away from every single successful site that deals with making user content available to other users. This is a lesson learned at interest-specific forums, Reddit, Metafilter, and many other online communities. You have to use humans. #
At scales such as Facebook, it is done with subcontractors in cheap places. Smaller communities, such as Reddit, are watched over by volunteers within the community. But you have to use humans.#
I can’t stress this enough, algorithms are only going to get you so far. There is no substitute. Humans are very good at figuring out how to navigate around the edges of algorithms. We use puns and misspellings and cultural references, and we mutate it all faster than software can adapt. #
In Twitter 3.0, automatic anti-fake measures, combined with a properly implemented flagging system, along with straightforward, easily applied moderator tools, ensure an approach that has a well-documented history of working well in practice, to ensure quality discussion with minimum drama. All at scales that might surprise you.#
Now, what differentiates a small community such as Reddit, or Metafilter, from a real social network like Twitter, is that there is only one conversation at a time. Everybody is participating in the same thread, so there’s a consensus reality going on. #
You can count on people flagging things that are outside the norm of a given space, ie, this-person-is-out-of-line, is something that is outside whatever norms usually hold for a particular space. Even in a social network you have myriad simultaneous conversations, you don't need a huge number of types of reasons for flagging. The number of reasons should match the number of rules you have. #
Flagging just denotes, I saw this and think this should be looked at by someone. It works no matter what kind of community you have. What it doesn’t handle is the little toxic cesspools of conversation, where everyone is in on the shitty behavior and they love it because they are getting away with it. The problem is, the little cesspools are private—and they should be. #
#
But we all have an interest in maintaining the safety and freedom of this new social network. So you handle this in two ways. #
First, you give people who aren’t members of the group the ability to flag content posted in private groups. This can involve a slight piercing of the veil of privacy, in that the content of the messages may be occasionally displayed to other safety-minded volunteers on the network. But the identity of the problematic participants can be obscured until really necessary, and after discussion with actual humans about when this is really necessary. And of course to ensure protection against retaliation, flagging naturally remains completely anonymous, as do appeal and final review. #
The other way you handle these private conversations is that you provide people an incentive to flag content in their own private conversations they otherwise might not. You grant privileges, or even daily cash back, and people will really want to step up and do the right thing.#
I don't have to tell you, of course this can absolutely be tied to what we are calling an "ethical NFT", which will absolutely be exchangeable for something of value at some point in the future for a completely plausible reason. You can trust this plan, because it comes from a real billionaire. Not one of those imaginary-money bilionaires.#
We all love codenames for things, it helps you focus when you're building it, and it helps focus people's attention, it's like a mini brand name. Because this structure is specifically designed to maximize freedom, participation, safety and stability, we've come up with what I think is a fantastic name for this part of the project. So incredibly excited. I really like the way it rolls off the tongue. Very snazzy.#
The key is stability, security, safety. Think stability, think status quo, think rock solid, think conservative, think stasis—#
Stasi. It’s for you!#
#
Now, this next part is critical to our goal of bringing social networking into the next era, beyond what's already been possible. We are going to amplify the possible, we are going to lift the possible to another level. We are going to unite the online with the offline.#
We are going to maximize independence and freedom right into the real world. This amazing country was built on the power of the individual, working alone, standing astride history with hammer held high, declaring, “Here we shall build our homes and our liberty.” #
Twitter 3.0 is going to be true to that spirit in ways no one has ever seen.#
To maximize freedom and independence, we maximize the freedom and independence of the individual. Remember, our members are real people, with as many names as the want, readily available to preserve anonymity and maximize communication. People adopt personas for many reasons, and one of those reasons is to tell the truth to power. #
You’ll be able to participate in a way that ensures that no one will ever know it was you. You’ll be able to communicate in real time with similarly-minded, freedom-loving individuals, and you won’t even need to know their real name. #
I’ve already described how moderation works, so this anonymous network is also guaranteed to be completely safe. We use end-to-end cryptography and conversations are permanently available to everyone involved, so everyone can keep in touch and know what’s been going on. (Don’t worry, if it turns out later you need to, with one click the entire thing can go away, permanently, because we don’t keep any backups.) #
#
Twitter 3.0 has also got some really great features for families, that help keep us safe, and find new things. We call this part "Theme Park Mode".#
Theme Park Mode lets you share a detailed, 3-dimensional topographical map overlaid in real time with the exact location of every member of your family. Augmented reality features let you scan the horizon and immediately see visual markers telling you where your family members are—just like a quest in a video game. #
Need to tell the twins to head to the roller coaster, while Dad needs to pick up some snacks and then meet somewhere else, all at the same time? It’s super easy to split out little groups like this and still keep everyone in sync. #
Real time push-to-talk; live task assignment, update and completion (“make it chocolate!”); instant note-sharing; inventory tracking (“who has the baby wipes?”). And voice-activated mode for smart assistant earbuds, for the inevitable times when your hands are full. Active noise cancellation lets you hear your family even in the middle of crowds.#
Naturally, Theme Park Mode works with all kinds of groups, not just families. It’s going to be fantastic for church groups and school field trips. It's going to be fanatastic for tourists, and experiential artists, or even just heading down to the mall with a few close friends. #
This is another lesson we're adopting from smaller, interest-bound communities. It turns out people like to meet up, even if they’ve never met. Getting together in real life, to talk about things you care passionately about, even if you’ve never met, and may never meet again? Well, that’s a special human connection that we’re proud to help enable. No matter where it takes us all.#
#
Along with Theme Park Mode, we’ve got big plans for a little thing that we’re calling Quest Mode. We are going to empower anybody to build an augmented reality game. You’ll be able to build your own treasure hunts, and pretend spy thrillers, secret monster hunters, you name it. #
We've got full, high-resolution, 3-D maps of every street, every sidewalk, every park, and every building in major cities around the world. We’re launching with a salute to every state capitol, and major metropolitan center, which means you’ll be able to lay out your puzzles and goals using real buildings, real doors, real windows. #
And because anybody can make one of these games, and anybody can participate, practically anything can happen! You can even update your game in real time, change things up to keep your players on their toes. #
And our patented algorithms will help your players, your families, your friends, your neighbors, even thousands of people you’ve never met and will never meet again, all come together to participate in something amazing. Maybe even world-changing, history-making! Wouldn't that be something.#
#
Of course, we haven't forgotten our commitment to safety. And here's where we have a unique opportunity all of human history: Tesla.#
Self-driving capable cars like Teslas are just bristling with sensors, and you don’t need to be sitting in one to make use of it. People are going to love how safe this makes everything. #
Even when your kid’s cell has run out of battery, you’ll be able to locate them anywhere. Even if they’ve gone behind closed doors, you’ll know just where those doors are.#
Because at some point, on the way there, they walked past a Tesla. Or a Tesla drove by, looking really cool, like a Tesla. And that Tesla noticed. And told Twitter. Possibly also SpaceX. #
(It definitely told the AI that remembers everything that ever happens to everybody, and looks for patterns to be exploited, in service to Its Holy Owner, which I just totally made up, and isn't a real thing a truly godlike billionaire would order built.)#
Twitter 3.0 will make it so easy to send someone trusted to pick your kids up, or whoever you're looking for, and escort them right where they really belong. It's like knowing everybody around you, personally, and always being able to call on people you trust. #
And because humans look out for each other, it’ll be easy to tag houses in your neighborhood so everyone can see where to get the good candy on Halloween, or who needs an extra little watching after. Never know who might need looking after. You can keep a list, subscribe to lists of people you trust. People you can count on. Count on to be there, and step up, and do what needs to be done. To whomever it needs doing.#
#
The essence of this project, the emphasis is on mobile. Think mobility. Flexibility, maneuverability. Being at the right place at the right time—hundreds of places, all simultaneously. Staying in connection with everyone and everything around you, yet still able to focus, and move, stay in motion, stay mobile. Motion. Mobile— #
Mob. Join it!#
#
Twitter 3.0 is going to be everything you love about America, turned up to 15. Plus crypto, don't forget that. #

Last update: Thursday December 29, 2022; 11:16 PM EST.