Can We Build a Better Social Network?
1/13/202641 min
Over the past year we’ve been working with the podcast “Search Engine” on a project that reimagines what the internet can be. What if instead of rage-baiting, a social platform incentivized friendly interaction and good faith discussion? Today we’re bringing “Hard Fork” listeners an episode we made with the “Search Engine” team called “The Fediverse Experiment” where we end up creating our own social media platform.
Guest:
- PJ Vogt, host of the podcast “Search Engine.”
Additional Reading:
- The Dream of the Fediverse Is Alive on Threads
- What Is Mastodon and Why Are People Leaving Twitter for It?
We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsCasey Newton· Host0:01
... The New York Times app has all this stuff that you may not have seen.
PJ Vogt· Guest0:04
The way the tabs are at the top with all of the different sections.
Kevin Roose· Host0:07
I can immediately navigate to something that matches what I'm feeling.
Casey Newton· Host0:11
I go to Games always. Doing the Mini, doing the Wordle.
PJ Vogt· Guest0:14
I loved how much content it exposed me to, things that I never would've thought to turn to a news app for.
Casey Newton· Host0:19
This app is essential.
Speaker 30:22
The New York Times App, all of the Times, all in one place. Download it now at nytimes.com/app.
Speaker 40:31
Well, Casey, we've got something different for Hard Fork listeners today. Uh, we are dropping in a special Tuesday episode, and this is an episode that we have been working on for a very long time. We're very excited to bring it to our listeners.
Speaker 50:43
It might be, Kevin, the first episode in the history of Hard Fork that took more than one week to make.
Speaker 40:48
[laughing] In fact, it took more than one year to make. So more than a year ago, we started chatting with friend of the pod, PJ Vogt, the host of the great Search Engine podcast, which both of us have been on. PJ's been on Hard Fork as well, and we started talking about this experiment that we wanted to run together, the three of us. And so today's episode describes the results of that experiment, and it involves the fediverse.
Speaker 51:17
That's right, Kevin, and honestly, it kind of started as a joke. You'll hear it in the episode, but based on the response that they got over there, it kicked off more than a year of reporting and getting together in person,