HOW A ‘HATER FREE’ SOCIAL NETWORK BECOME A HEAVEN FOR TROLLS

Two former Googlers launched a social network last month which they believed would offer a respite from the nonstop judgment for which the Internet is famous. Members of Candid would be free to post their innermost thoughts anonymously, and an a special algorithm would downvote comments it deemed negative or trolling. Less than four weeks after the launch, however, co-founders Bindu Reddy and Arvind Sundararajan are learning that it’s hard to code a polite social space, and have been overrun by racist and sexist posts.

Take the “Roast me babies,” image post by RichDragonfly, her hips tilted towards the camera. A flash obscures her face, but we see her ripped jeans, bare stomach and tanned legs. Her post has nineteen comments. They range from “What was the point of buying those pants,” to “Now how about some t*** and a** photos?”

This type of content is commonplace on the interweb, in fact there are reams of subreddits dedicated to this exact behavior, but its occurrence on this new social network is disconcerting. This post was placed inside the “Teen Selfies” group — which is open to all— and so far has 162 posts and 839 members. And they’re all anonymous.

Which is both the point and the problem of this new network — and this self-created group highlights how machine learning still needs a lot of work. Design wise, you’re presented with a flat card stack, in neutral colors. As a new user, you’re asked to swipe right or left on card groups that match your interests — with data taken from your Facebook feed, such as employment and hobbies. Once you’ve selected this you can scroll down a wall of posts in each group, giving comments, likes or dislikes (there’s a broken heart icon) to content you have opinions on. You can also create your own groups, but other than the name and image pic, you have no individual control over it. This will be added to Candid’s  discover tab that lets users explore other groups, and you’ll get different profile badges the more you engage with people. It’s like Twitter had a baby with early stage Facebook, and arranged that into a Trello like social display. The app is completely anonymous and users get a different randomly assigned username for every post they make.

But why is this needed? Let me give you some context here.

Candid was launched on July 21st 2016 by Bindu Reddy and Arvind Sundararajan, two former Googlers in Silicon Valley. The apps premise was a social place to speak your mind — with a few caveats. First, every user was anonymous — but they did need a Facebook account to gain access. This was to hold users to a sense of accountability — and to give them group suggestions based on their Facebook likes. Second, though people can post whatever they like, a special algorithm was written to downvote negative and trolling posts.

Which means no discussion about gun control, abortion or politics — even if you gave very different views to those of your feed. “I’m determined to speak my mind,” Reddy said. “But I have anxiety with every Tweet.”

She’s not alone in feeling awkward on public social media. “Self-censorship is certainly a double edged sword for me, as much as I want to give my site its own voice and be honest about the content that is produced, I am always cognizant of  how it will be perceived,” said Ali Heriyanto, editor of music website Raw Volume.  “Will I alienate my audience if I inject too much of my own opinion in a story? It’s a fine line that I walk everyday while trying to appease everyone and have readers coming back for more.” But can a service like Candid really fill her need for complete disclosure?

Reddy hopes so and she has a history of working in successful social enterprises to back up her theory. She helped launched Google’s Blogger network and went on to found MyLikes, a social influencer platform. She knew what she wanted — but she couldn’t find it anywhere. Reddit was too ugly and divisive, Facebook too mainstream and apps like the now defunct Secret and Whisper skewed to young and had coalesced into vitriolic posts. Reddy didn’t just want to air her thoughts to anyone — she wanted the people who responded to her to be intelligent and informed, and open to healthy discussions. But she wanted that without having to give away her privacy.

Candid was her answer to this, a social network that skewed pleasant, where people can share thoughts and gossip about their life, business and careers. The app was beta tested for a couple of months, during which some basic kinks were ironed out. If someone was posting hate speech they’d be downvoted and branded an algorithmic hater — too many occurrences and they’d be banned. This was to ensure that conversation remained appropriate — but also allowed a wide range of topics.

Sex as a topic, for example, wasn’t banned, but if you knew you’re conversing with real people, your conversations might be more helpful than harassing. In the early days, this is what happened. Reddy enthusiastically told me about groups on pregnancy and dating where solid advice and suggestions were handed out. It was also a good place for above board gossip — groups would be suggested for you based on your Facebook affiliations and you could then add/remove them at will. So if there’s a rumor at Yahoo! you could link to an article and see what other Yahoo!’s thought about it.