“Happy” social networks

Inspired by my recent micro.blog experience, some thoughts on the right way to have social networks without all the depression and unhappiness that are endemic to them today.

Interactions

  • Disallow “likes”
  • Disallow retweets, reblogs, etc.
  • Disable “follower counts”

Connections

  • Allow following, but keep it private. I should not be able to see who you follow, and vice versa.
  • No “comment threads”, only “replies”.

People

  • Dis-incentivize bots by disallowing mass free accounts. Have a fee either to sign up, or to post more than X posts, or to reply more than Y times.

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