First: What is wrong with current standard kind of social media? Obviously - plenty - but in an attempt to understand current threats from digital technology the originators of the Butterfly Dreaming platform have compiled a list in the form of a series of tables each listing recognised hazards for Artificial Intelligence (AI), Social Media (SM), Virtual Reality (VR) and Video Games (VG). We hope to make this available as web site soon and will post a link here. The digital hazards list will include a link to the forum here to field feedback on the list.
One major root of the problems is that SM are run for profit - they have been offered by companies such as Meta without a paywall and Meta make money by selling private data. Indeed some sort of commercial arrangement appears to be necessary if an enterprise provides an easy to use system stores large amounts of data (as required for images, music, video etc). Thus the current model of SM is not at all suited for private conversation nor does it have a commercial incentive to encourage meaningful conversation - indeed it seems that the modus operandi is to encourage participation by fanning conflict.
It is for this reason that we are committed to offering a system with a more nuanced approach to the type of data that needs to be stored - ie we store predominantly text and only a small amount of curated binary. We depend on interactive generation of collage and this fits naturally with a more associative style of communication.
Anonymity allows us to guarantee privacy and moderation layers promote a high degree of safety.
The strategy of chat by editing of starter nodes can encourage a deeper level of communication and constructs narrative or lyrical chains for users to explore.
A User is defined as a device so it is possible for a conversing User Dyad (2 Users) to correspond to more or less than 2 people. For example a group in a face to face meeting can use 1 device. Again, it is in principle, possible for 1 person to employ 2 devices (IP addresses) to simulate a User dyad; however this is clearly cumbersome and this is a deliberate decision.