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Even the biggest social networks have picked up on the trend. In the summer of 2020, Twitter launched voice tweets, which allow users to insert their voice into posts. And in December, a beta version of the Spaces feature appeared, for live audio recordings of conversations between two or more people, moderated by a host.

an extra layer of connection to public conversation,” says Remy Bourgoin, senior developer on the Spaces and Voice Tweets team.

He says the plan is to make Spaces “as personal and norway number data comfortable as a well-organized dinner party.” “You don’t have to know everyone to have a good time, but you should feel comfortable sitting at the table,” he adds.

Not everyone will believe that Twitter wants to create a space that is “comfortable” and “intimate.” After all, Twitter is not known for being an environment that welcomes and protects vulnerable users from abuse.

Bourgoin says the group is deliberately taking its time to move beyond beta and a small group of users. Even a feature as rare for social networks as subtitles is being tested. “Right now, any Spaces user can report a violation,” Bourgoin says. “Reports will be reviewed by our team, which will assess whether they violate Twitter’s rules.

The unattractive side
Audio content is much more difficult to moderate than text. You can use metatext and auto-moderation to do this, but the most effective way to deal with offenders is with live moderators. This puts users at risk. When services that people can join at any time and start chatting make audio appealing, moderation becomes a huge problem. “For any platform with user-generated content, it’s definitely a huge problem,” says Austin Petersmith, who launched Capiche.fm in beta last year. The site grew out of a community of programmers that is a bit like a radio show: hosts call each other to start a show and invite listeners to join in.

As Clubhouse users have learned, voice space can quickly lose its appeal. Those users who are already suffering from online abuse are unlikely to want to join a community where it will be even harder to find abusers.

There is also reason to believe that new platforms that are difficult to regulate will be attractive to extremists and conspiracy theorists.

However, audio social networks seem to offer something that traditional social networks cannot. One of the main advantages of this format is that it gives users the ability to immediately connect to a voice or video call, but on their own terms.