It’s no surprise that secretive social media sites are flooded with negative, abusive, and stress-inducing content. It seems their very function encourages it – and harms users in the process. But a new social network backed by some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley hopes to change that.
Maven is a new social network launched earlier this year but is just starting to gain popularity. The platform strips away likes, follower counts, and the algorithms that drive attention-grabbing or provocative content. Instead, it uses artificial intelligence to try to dig deeper into what users really want.
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For example, when a user posts about a topic they’re interested in on Maven, the platform’s AI analyzes the topic, tags it, and distributes that content not to that person’s followers (remember : they don’t have any topic), but to a community of users who also show interest in that topic. From there, users can engage in a dialogue about the topic without worrying about whether their post will receive likes or not.
Additionally, Maven uses a content discovery filter that allows users to decide whether they want to see content focused only on topics in which they have expressed interest or additional topics that Maven’s AI has determine that they might like. Users can also mute topics they are not interested in and flag other users’ posts if they find them abusive. However, Maven CTO Jimmy Secretan told Wired that to date the company has not seen widespread abuse on its platform.
“It’s not just about saying a nice line or criticizing other people, because that doesn’t get you much on this site,” Secretan said.
However, the companies that have succeeded at the highest levels in social media — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X — have done so based on users seeking likes and engaging in the conversation was clearly useless. Whether Maven can flip the script and succeed by becoming a less anxiety-inducing platform is still up for debate.
That said, the company has the backing of some powerful people to help it turn its vision into reality. Although Maven did not disclose the amount raised to date, the company’s main investor is Twitter co-founder Ev Williams. Maven has also received funding from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the company told Wired. And while it needs to raise more capital in the next few months to continue growing, gaining the backing of Silicon Valley heavyweights will go a long way.
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Those who want to try Maven can check it out Social network web applicationor download the Android app from Google Play or the iOS app from Apple’s App Store. In doing so, you can choose the topic you are interested in and start posting content. At the time of this writing, Haven doesn’t appear to have that many users or be that active, but if it can get the funding it needs to grow and users like the idea of a zero with likes, without followers, that can change in a big way.
