INTRODUCING ACTIVIST: THE PLATFORM FOR GOOD
- alex24809
- Jan 1
- 6 min read
Updated: Feb 12
By: Alex Ferguson
Part I: Fixing the Issues Caused by Social Media
Activist Technologies is the world’s first Social Action Network, an online platform that empowers users to connect, organize and take action around shared political and social ideals using a comprehensive set of civic engagement tools. We founded Activist to bring power to the people with a state-of-the-art platform that makes civic engagement simpler and more impactful. Activist aims to be an alternative to social media platforms that have had overwhelmingly negative impacts on the United States’ democracy and its society.
Social media companies like X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and Truth Social are some of the companies having the biggest impact on our democracy. These companies have been responsible for spreading misinformation, increasing political polarization, moving our society closer to an oligarchy and impacting the outcomes of elections with the explicit intent of making their billionaire owners richer and more powerful. Social media billionaires like Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, are poised to see their fortunes increase through backroom deals for increased government contracts, lobbying to decrease regulations and taxes on their companies and gaining seats at the table for critical public policy decisions that extend beyond the scope of their industries. Since Donald Trump was re-elected, companies like Meta have followed suit by eliminating their fact-checking and moderation teams as well as rolling back their diversity, equity and inclusion practices, while simultaneously donating large sums of money to the president elect’s inaugural fund to win his favor.
The result of all this is a society where billionaires can buy elections and influence public policy to an extreme degree. These billionaires use their platforms to spread disinformation and misinformation with the goal of convincing citizens to vote against their own self-interests. It’s left many of our citizens questioning reality and turning to their base instincts of hatred and fear. Meanwhile, the billionaires get richer, and their control of our public institutions grows larger by the day. If the status quo remains the same and these trends continue, our democracy’s days are numbered.
Activist’s mission is to stop this from happening, and we believe that we have a plan that will work. We are creating an alternative to these social media platforms, a platform for good, which will counteract their negative effects on our society and our democracy. By creating a platform that is specifically designed to make civic engagement easier and more impactful, we can disrupt the existing social media companies’ incursion into our politics and leave them to focus on what they were truly meant for, unserious things like sharing funny memes, flattering selfies and cute animal videos. Activist aims to be the preeminent platform for politics that gives ordinary people an alternative to using existing social media platforms for politics.
Part II: Pioneering as a Public Benefit Corporation
Some critics say that it is the responsibility of non-profits to be the moral crusaders that fight back on the negative impacts caused by corporations; a for-profit corporation cannot effectively do this. We agree that non-profits traditionally have a better track record of mission-driven impact and morality in their day-to-day operations; however, they’ve been unable to meaningfully impact the larger forces and entities in our society that have eroded trust in our public institutions and have harmed our society’s well-being.
While some larger non-profits like the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood have had positive impacts on preserving our rights and providing valuable services, they have not been able to change the way people receive and interpret information, or in this case, misinformation. These organizations play a vital role in impacting legislative and judicial outcomes, and we should absolutely continue to empower them, but they are not designed to truly combat the negative impacts of the prevailing social media platforms. To do that, we need to fight fire with fire by creating an alternative technology platform with specialized civic engagement features and appropriate guard rails to protect our democracy and our society.
Activist intends to be this platform. To do this, we need to raise vast sums of money to develop our platform, which will be a truly ambitious endeavor. To raise this level of money and build a comprehensive platform, we need big money investors, and those investors need to be able to profit off their investment to be truly incentivized to invest the level of capital we need. This is why we have to be a for-profit corporation. Thankfully, there is a special type of corporation that was designed for scenarios just like this – the public benefit corporation or B Corp.
A public benefit corporation (PBC) is a for-profit company that is legally structured to prioritize generating social and environmental good alongside financial profit, meaning it aims to benefit the public while still operating as a business, with its public benefit goals explicitly stated in its formation documents; essentially, it balances shareholder interests with broader societal impact.
As a PBC, Activist can sell shares of its stock to investors who can then make a profit either in the form of dividends paid or by re-selling their shares at a higher price. In contrast, non-profits have no owners and cannot disperse profits to individuals. This means that non-profits give no true financial incentive to would-be investors, forcing these organizations to typically rely on individual’s small-dollar donations, grants and big money funders who often provide funds with strings attached, which can negatively affect the organization’s mission and day-to-day operations. Simply put, non-profits are often not economically sustainable nor are they well positioned to develop a cost-intensive, large-scale technology platform.
Being a public benefit corporation allows Activist to seek the investment we need to build our ambitious platform and achieve long-term economic sustainability, all while preserving our social impact mission and vision.
Part III: Leading with Mission, Vision and Values
To make the impact on our democracy and society that we believe is needed, it’s imperative that Activist has strong mission, vision and values that it can ensure are upheld as a public benefit corporation. We pledge to never take an investment that alters our mission, vision or values as part of the terms of the investment. Below are the statements that guide our company ethos:
Our mission is to develop software that revolutionizes civic engagement by making it simpler and more impactful.
Our vision is to become the preeminent platform for politics that helps build a more sustainable, equitable and inclusive world.
Our values are:
Strengthen democracy with bold innovations.
Help others, especially the most vulnerable.
Demonstrate courage in the face of adversity.
Strive for excellence in everything you do.
Do the right thing for the right reason.
Prioritize impact over income.
These are the beliefs that guide our company and will keep Activist from being co-opted by profit-prioritizing investors, malicious platform users and outside forces that seek to stop us. These beliefs will be incorporated into everything we do, from our day-to-day operations to our investment and partnership decisions, all the way down to the platform’s terms of service and their enforcement.
Activist will also fully incorporate these beliefs into the features of our platform and our company’s practices. Below are some of the specific features that will incorporate these beliefs and differentiate us from existing social media platforms:
Verified Profiles Only: our platform will only have verified profiles. Users will not be able to post, share or comment unless their profile is verified with a valid government ID. This means no fake profiles and no bots.
Fact-Checked Posts: all trending content and posts will be fact-checked with flags and filters that both identify and remove disinformation and misinformation.
Moderated Debate Forums: Activist will feature debate forums to discuss policy issues, candidates, elections and other topics. These forums will have human moderators that ensure civility and adherence to our terms of service.
Survey-Based Algorithm: we aim to develop an algorithm that is non-biased and accurately provides user and content recommendations based on individual user’s true political and social beliefs. To do this, we intend to rely heavily on first-person survey responses from users, which will inform the algorithm as to how those users define themselves, their view of the world and what type of recommendations they want to receive.
Terms of Service Enforcement: the platform will include content and channel moderators as well as the ability to report users and posts. Our terms of service will be strictly enforced and will include requirements such as: no hate speech, no threats of violence and no organizing or facilitating illegal acts.
By doing all this, we believe Activist can be a viable alternative to many of the existing social media companies and fix many of the issues they’ve caused. Using a mission-driven and moral approach to business, Activist will be the platform for good.