oath social

If we could start over with social media, how would we approach it?

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what is oath social?

There aren’t many new features a platform can offer to differentiate itself; nothing is new anymore. The overarching goal of Oath is to put our users first. The name Oath came from the desire to make an oath to our users that a better experience is at the core of why we wanted to do this in the first place. An oath not to sell our users to the highest bidder or profit off turning them against each other.

Ultimately, we aim to move away from ads and towards a subscription model. Our goal is to answer one simple question: is it worth paying something to be free of ads, algorithms, and influencers? We believe it is and long for an experience free from the pressures of algorithms, influencers, and being someone you’re not.

Features

We don’t need to be everything to everyone or the world's newsroom. We chose verification for everyone who wants it, individual group feeds for your friends, a home feed in chronological order with text, photo, and video posts, chats that delete in 24 hours, a wide range of animated emojis, 24-hour stories, and one account per person.

We left behind the shallow experience of only interacting through likes, we've hidden profile follower and following counts, no more endless scrolling, and no excessive notifications demanding your attention. These are experiences that drive away from the purpose of social to connect with friends and family; oath can do without.

Long term goals

Family accounts and parent portals should be more than just being able to see your kids' settings. If your kids are under 18, we believe that parents should be able to see all the content their kids are consuming on our platform, including their messages. We believe this is an area where we can make the biggest difference. By providing transparency for parents paired with the ability to remove algorithms and influencers, we hope to create an experience that parents won't fear and one that we aren't ashamed of.

We live in an era where algorithms know exactly what a negative path looks like, but existing platforms have chosen to see the problems they cause in young people as the cost of doing business. To give an example: when a user searches for hashtags related to negative body image, they should be greeted by posts promoting body positivity, encouragement, and other content that kindles a healthy body and mind. It wouldn’t be much of an oath it we continued the pattern of looking the other way.

Initially, our focus is on personal accounts, but we understand that people also have businesses

and things they want to share. However, there are millions of accounts that exist solely to steal

or "reshare" content to gain views and sell ads. We believe that users should be able to identify the people or organizations behind accounts using business names. Our goal is to make it easy for users to see the verified accounts behind businesses and organizations. This way, we can

reduce anonymous accounts and increase accountability for the content that people post.

How do we get the word out?

Make a documentary. We’ve heard the stories of companies that were founded in the garage. Let’s tell a story about a group of people coming together for a period of time to build something better. First and foremost, this allows us to reach a much larger audience at once. More importantly, it allows people to meet us and see the why. People can see why we made certain decisions and how we even arrived at that decision in the first place. Letting people go along the journey with us gives them time to build trust in us and be more willing to give us a chance and be patient as we work through the bumps.

about us

taylor salley

After trying to start a small business and failing, getting a job in tech only to be laid off soon after, I have found myself at square zero. I’ve learned a lot about our country and how it’s becoming more difficult with time to find jobs with a living wage if you didn’t go to a handful of schools. My biggest mistake in life was not learning how to code. I have been spending the last year trying to convince someone technical to join me to no avail. While I have a few ideas I would like to explore at some point, I feel strongly about trying to create an experience on social media that isn’t as awful as it is now. I really do believe that people not from the world of ivy league would have a better chance of fixing it. If you have never had life kick you in the ass or worked awful jobs, it is impossible for you to relate to people. When this finally clicked for me, it made sense why social is the way it is. There are those who are ivy league and those who are not. They have no empathy for the rest of us; we’re just people to exploit.

Technical Co-founder

Want to build something that could make a difference? Please reach out.