A New Social Media App Punishes Users for Rage-Baiting

If determination is 1 certainty of societal media successful 2025, it’s this: rage clicks rule. Hyperbole, hate, brash deception—it’s each par for the course—and often rewarded with virality.

But Sez Us, an app conscionable launched by seasoned Democratic strategist Joe Trippi, believes it’s imaginable to alteration that, by punishing users who shitpost for the involvement of provocation.

The timing whitethorn beryllium conscionable right. America is entering an property of oligarchy with a rising question of right-wing extremism taking clasp of planetary politics. Platforms similar Truth Social and X present run arsenic effectual propaganda machines, recasting culture-war issues implicit immigration, DEI, and trans rights arsenic boogeymen successful President Trump’s caller imaginativeness of America, which is truly conscionable a precise aged mentation of America. As the adjacent epoch of societal media comes into view, emerging platforms besides person an accidental to emergence to the moment. Can Sez Us, which is positioning itself arsenic the antithesis to X, facilitate a amended mode forward?

“If you bring backmost responsibility, ownership, and reputation, past abruptly each the incentives that we person successful the existent satellite are back,” says Yevgeny Simkin, Sez Us’ cofounder and main merchandise officer.

Even arsenic online sermon has devolved into rabid spectacle, platforms similar Bluesky person shown determination is an appetite for a much civilian benignant of conversation. Rather than boosting immoderate station that’s getting rage clicks, Sez Us uses what its creators telephone a “reputation engine,” a diagnostic that allows you to complaint different user’s posts connected the level crossed 5 cardinal areas: approval, influence, insightfulness, relevance, and politeness.

On the app, ratings find a user’s estimation people and wide visibility. The higher the score, the much scope you person successful the community. Users tin besides power who replies to them based connected a person’s score, with low-scoring users penalized by having little influence. All posts are disposable but you tin artifact users from replying, for example, if they don’t person high-approval ratings. Ultimately, ratings are designed to deprioritize engagement based astir viral moments.

“It’s not astir the moderators coming successful and saying ‘you’re bad,’” Simkin says. “It’s astir the assemblage saying ‘we don’t similar what you’re saying.’ Then I cognize that I person to temper however I accidental things. I person to beryllium much polite. I person to beryllium little bombastic.”

In the contention to cleanable societal media, determination has ne'er been a one-size-fits-all solution erstwhile it comes to moderation—for those who inactive fuss with it. Scale tin marque this task adjacent much hard arsenic a platform’s idiosyncratic basal grows. For Simkin and his team, the thought was to physique a level that would “bring to the fore each the ways successful which societal media should beryllium moving alternatively than the mode it has been,” helium says. “The camel’s backmost was breached by the straw of Elon [Musk] buying Twitter,” and abruptly a full caller satellite seemed possible.

The fracturing of Twitter, since rebranded arsenic X, kicked disconnected an arms contention among techies who had each sorts of ideas astir the adjacent signifier of societal media, and however to specify it. It was during this period, successful 2022, that the conception for Sez Us was born, grounded successful the lofty extremity of bringing backmost civilian discourse.