For the latest zap without the crap .

Why is it different?

Well, first we're normal people. (At least as normal as software developers are.) We're not owned by some billionaire space cadet who belives in weird stuff. We're going to always try to be reasonable, and we're going always to try to be honest and transparent.

Second, we're going to try our very best to provide a feature-rich service that is actually useful and enjoyable to use.

Third, we're going to make sure that you are in control of your feed. Even from us. We're just going to give you the tools you need to focus on areas while filtering content that you choose to avoid.

And fourth, we pride ourselves on being a community. We're going to be using this platform too, maybe even more than you, so we want to make sure it's a place where we can all be comfortable and have fun.

How will my social feed be improved compared to other social media platforms?

First, we'll have our community focus groups. You can join as many groups as you want, and you can create your own groups. You can create private groups, both open and invitation-only, and moderate within.

Second, by prioritizing your groups, we can provide the updates you want to see most, and offer choices in the order you want to see them. Suggestions only when you ask for them, otherwise just your feed, newest first or based on your preferences.

Third, we won't be inserting any ads in your feeds. Hell no! Ads are annoying, and we don't want to annoy you.

Ads are not blurbs, so they don't belong in your feeds. If we do eventually add any ads at all, they will be in reasonable places (e.g. footers), rather than pushed in your face.

Will I be censored? Do you believe in free speech?

You can jump and swear and scream and even insult people, as part of a spirited discussion. However, we do not tolerate hate speech, and we will moderate any content that is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or otherwise hateful, but we'll do so without deleting your posts. We also do not tolerate spamming or harassing users, and we will take action to auto-apply tags to allow users to filter this from our content relays and to give users the ability to filter/block you if you spam them.

Our intention is to never prevent you from posting, within the limits of the law, but to engage AI and other analyses after posting to shelter our users who do not wish to see such content.

Moderation will be in the form of tagging posts (and perhaps users) that allow other users to filter content. Repeat offenders may have such tags applied to their accounts, in the form of an algorithmically-universal score (applied evenly) and thus such a score will increase with frequency and severity. This avoids the problems other services have with not applying moderation uniformly, or with actions either being too lenient or too harsh, then the scorecard resetting once action applied.

We will be making use of an automated priority-based moderation system, which will allow us to "moderate" (tag) content in a timely manner, and to ensure that the most important abuses are tagged first. We will be as balanced as possible in tagging content, and we will always be transparent about our moderation decisions. But our primary goal here is to provide a safe social experience for users of our service.

Will I be censored on the Internet? Will search engines be blocked from finding my posts?

No. No content restrictions, no censorship, no moderation of outgoing content, only incoming. You control your posts. Just be aware that everyone on the Internet can see them, if they want to. Remember: "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." ;)

How can I join?

It's will easy when we enable it. Just click the "Sign Up" button on the top of the home page and fill in the form.

We don't ask for much information, we respect your privacy and your time, and you can leave if you change your mind. Try us, you'll love it!

Can I edit or delete my blurbs after posting them?

Hell yes, or at least we will not have policies to prevent this. Depending on where it has reached, there may be technical restrictions on what is possible. But you can edit or delete or add to your blurbs at any time as long as they remain on our servers. However, readers will see that an edit has been made, and will see the most recent version by default. So no rewriting of history after the fact! They can also check the history to see the previous versions.

Without ads, how will BlurbSocial make any money? Will it go under?

First, our primary goal is not to make money, but to provide a reliable ongoing service that you can count on and enjoy.

We don't want it to be annoying, so we'll keep our costs as low as possible, but one possibility is that we'll probably need sponsors or even some ads in a few less prominent places. If this happens, we promise it won't be intrusive, or appear within your social feeds!

And because ads suck, we'll also likely be offering you the ability to help us, either by donating, or paying a small fee to purchase the client application (which would also remove ads, if there are any). And when we say a small fee, we mean something like $1 a month, or $10 a year. This will always be optional. If we do, we're not going to be gouging you; we hope this is something most users will want to do, because let's face it, ads suck, and if many of us pay just a little, the service will be funded. It won't take much; just a few corporate sponsors would probably also cover it.

Can I quit at any time? What happens to my blurbs?

Yes. We don't want to hold you back. You can delete your account at any time. In addition to deleting your account, you can also export all of your account's personally identifiable information (PII), with full support for GDPR user rights applied to all nations.

When you delete your account, you'll be asked if you want your previously published public blurbs to remain, or all of them deleted from our relays. Private messages will be removed from your end of the conversations, but not others.

IMPORTANT: Note however that data that has already been relayed to other content relays is beyond the control of BlurbSocial, and we cannot guarantee that it will be removed from those relays. This is the whole point. It is your data, not ours or anyone else's. Be careful with what you post, many areas of the Internet are forever.

What underlying technologies does BlurbSocial use?

To get something out there for all to use as fast as possible, we're likely to store your data in a traditional database, however the current roadmap calls for all significant user data to eventually be stored in a distributed manner, using blockchain technology. Our content relays will use a distributed architecture, in order to ensure that you retain ownership of your content. This includes both control of the data and retention of the data if BlurbSocial was to ever come to an end.

We are currently considering use of Nostr for identity and authentication, for topic group definitions and options, and for the actual social content. But we also like the blockchain-based LENS protocol for social content and may also use that depending on your options. Technical folks and developers can get more information at https://nostr.com/ and https://www.lens.xyz/.