The Counter Point

When I read a thread on abortion and sex education on new social media site Counter Social (CoSo), I was at once hopeful, impressed, energised, and moved to write this. For the first time in my recent online experience, people with diverging views were having a thoughtful and respectful exchange on an emotionally charged and politically divisive topic. Yes…I know…it shocked participants too.

When I say views were diverging, they weren’t THAT different. This is a site overwhelmingly populated by those who’ve jumped ship from Twitter after being drained of social energy by pro-Trump bots, trolls, and extreme right-wingers. But there are also a high and rising amount of folk with no political agenda just looking to chat, chuckle, and really communicate outside the noisy mess that Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other networks have become.

The site creator and main moderator, The Jester (or @th3j35t3r), is ex-military, a self-confessed Republican, and a renowned hacker who pulls no punches when he sees domestic and international threats to the US, injustice, and most things from Trump (there’s more background on him here). When building the site he controversially put in place a blanket ban on users from a selection of countries. Countries he and others have identified as primary sources of anti-US cyber threats, bots, and paid trolls.

I, like many, dislike the idea of banning users who could benefit from and contribute to the site on the basis of actions of a harmful minority, but, on social media, it often isn’t feasible (especially with just one or two bodies), to reliably moderate individual users and specific content on a large-scale. Regarding the specific places banned, there’s more than ample evidence of profitable, aggressive, and widespread technical and people driven social media manipulation…or not, depending on what you do or don’t read and believe. Something Twitter, Facebook and other social media management teams struggle (debatably hard) to deal with daily.

He has also hardened the platform, applying his security skills to make it one of the most secure Mastodon instances out there. Mastodon is an open source platform. A Twitter-like software template that any individual, group, or organisation can download and set up on their computer at home, at work, or wherever else they choose. And beyond the initial cloud hosted mastadon.social instance there are now thousands of Mastodon installations, with whatever protection and moderation administrators are willing and/or able to put in place.

Every user on every instance (unless administrators limit site settings), can find users elsewhere. All it takes is a simple @[email protected] search. A federated set up that allows people to focus both on specific areas of interest and spread their social wings as wide as they like. On CoSo different timelines show you posts from folk you follow, posts from all CoSo users, and federated content from all of the above, plus the folk followed elsewhere.

On The Jester’s instance, as a blissful bonus, advertisers are not allowed. They can’t hijack timelines to pitch their promoted wares, nor analyse users to target ads. He and helpers are also incredibly pro-active when it comes to tackling trolls or bots from permitted locations. Apparently (having seen trolls ‘disappeared’ within hours) that is working well, however, as it grows, CoSo will face big challenges. Similar to Twitter…just without the investor and ad-buyer pressure to grow the user base at pretty much any cost.

Already a rather large user base as it happens. The site, after a few months of building and beta-testing, was launched on 16th November with a couple of teasers and a single tweet from The Jester. It will likely hit 10,000 users today, (if it hasn’t already). Comparing that to Twitter’s start in life, even allowing for the dramatic change in prevalence of internet access and usage since then, it’s an impressive take off graph for a word of mouth launch.

That has brought early and urgent focus on the perennial moderator nightmare: Which folk are just temporarily overstepping appropriate bounds to express deeply and honestly held views that happen to diverge from those held by the majority and who is just there to derail, drown out, or otherwise aggressively divide folk for lulz or reward?

In some ways it doesn’t matter. As everyone should know, free speech isn’t an inalienable right. In our Western democracies you can say what you want (below local legal thresholds for violence-inciting hate speech), but you then have to accept the consequences. The consequence of persistently aggressive, offensive, cruel and/or intolerant behaviour (collectively referred to as asshattery by CoSo users), is a ban. But the kind of careful consideration that takes will be tough to scale, even allowing for the site’s independence. Without ad revenue or investors, there’s no reliable income stream to pay for moderators, infrastructure, support, and other running costs, despite a hoard of willing volunteers, and mounting bitcoin donations. How that shapes up medium-term is very much yet to be seen.

Circling back to the quality of observed interactions, all of the above leaves gaps in the commentary spectrum. Some extremes are missing because those just intent on hate-fueled, or politicised disruption are not there. Some cultures are not well-represented because of the country-wide bans. In other cases its obvious that CoSo is light on conservative voices. Not surprising given the very public views of its moderator and what prompted it’s birth, but, right now, does it matter?

When you allow for the word of mouth launch, the motivation for it, the resulting initial user base, the social media PTSD suffered by many, and a concerted effort to play on that (certain factions are working hard to paint CoSo as an ‘AntiFa’ movement, a Russian intelligence front, or an otherwise liberal cabal), it should be no surprise that those right of centre are less common. HOWEVER, I have no doubt that will begin to change…and if it doesn’t no-one is expecting you to take any CoSo user’s opinion for granted. Listen, absorb, challenge, research, make up your own mind…things some groups would rather we give up doing.

In the debate mentioned at the top of this post the “Abortion on demand no matter what!” and “Abortion is murder from the day of conception!” camps were missing. And, if we are all honest, when we apply the current political pro-choice and pro-life arguments to the closest women in our own lives (mother, daughter, sister, friend, self), it is very, very rarely as black and white as it is spun in the media and necessarily divisive party politics.

It’s also highly likey that there were lurkers further to one end or the other of the spectrum who were never going to wade in because they were wary, or just didn’t feel it was appropriate to discuss this in a shared public forum. But it’s also likely that many, as they see more of the culture being fostered, will begin to participate.

And that, right there, is the WHOLE point. Because right now, in many corners of the world, social division is the single biggest threat to freedom and democracy. There are a wilfully ignorant minority who enjoy that, but the vast majority of folk just want to get to the truth and talk to sensible people about the multiple shades of grey that can coalesce into a compromise…IF they can find a forum where they are not attacked, en masse, the first time they air an opinion.

No matter how much you believe stories about nation-state propaganda on social media (see above for a cracking example, plus news of Twitter’s delayed reaction), I can guarantee you often struggle to find a balanced perspective, and almost always run out of steam when digging for unbiased facts. Join the club. It’s exhausting, and leaves all of us vulnerable to absorbing (however unconsciously), the media-amplified soundbite of the day. Soundbites that are, almost without fail, deluged with aggressive replies. Replies designed to grab attention, stir strong emotions, and drown out any of the subtler points essential to finding a workable way forward. Often they are partisan positions, designed to fit the narrative of a chosen interest group or sponsor. What we all see online is frequently not representative of anything other than the views of the power broker who can mobilise attention-monopolising supporters first.

CoSo is not THE antidote, but it is a salve. If you are open-minded and happy to allow for a certain amount of initial skew in content of prevailing posts, I’m willing to bet you will really enjoy yourself.

You will have access to many people with a huge amount of knowledge in specialist fields, specialists who freely offer knowledge they keep to themselves on other platforms for fear of reputation-damaging attacks. You have users who curate the news, summarising to save folks getting lost in the birdsite (a.k.a. Twitter) mire. Providing a place to start a search for more context, or balancing views.

You have people asking for help, or telling you they’re having a hard time, and multiple users popping up to offer support or advice. You have people who will read what you write and what you link to before they jump in with a reductionist aggressive response to the summary. You will see some big names on there and have a chance to have a real conversation with them (you can’t see how many replies, likes, or boosts – a.k.a. retweets – posts got before you engage, so it partially mitigates fear of joining in, and damps down the natural herd instinct to just amplify loud and popular voices).

You will be welcomed…literally. No doubt some new folk will slip through the net now it’s got so big, but most will get greeted after their first post with a link to help and FAQs. Something the beta-testers started and the vast majority of folk picked up and normalised as a courtesy offered to new faces. You will also get some seriously cute cat and dog pics, total daftness, hilarious gifs, and impassioned ranters, who most folk jog along with while they find out what the story is, or mute…like others you will want to mute or block.

Because this isn’t about everyone getting along, it isn’t a Russian honeypot, it isn’t about social activism, it isn’t about anarchy, it isn’t even about cosying up in a comforting echo chamber…it is whatever you want to make it. For me that’s socialising, fact-finding, and thoughtfully, civilly, debating with anyone who wants to do the same, no matter their race, religion, politics, or sexuality. Sure, I won’t find all world views there, I’ll go elsewhere to add back extra context, but overall it has offered something I’ve been missing online for a very, very long time.

P.S. You would be absolutely fair to ask why I’ve posted this anonymously. I’ve done so because of the negative attitude to CoSo among certain anti-Jester groups and suspicion from some people I work with who don’t quite know what to make of it. That may change, at which point so might my preference to separate my identities this way. For this alter ego you can find me at @[email protected]

Maybe see you there