When you first join Warpcast, the sufficiently decentralised network, your reach is intentionally limited. There is a feature called a “Power Badge” which is bestowed on users deemed to valuable to the network based on some semi-transparent variables. When combined with another feature called “Priority Mode” which is enabled for all users by default, you become essentially invisible to the majority of users on the platform. This makes it challenging to get exposure on the platform unless you join with an existing following that can be bridged from other platforms.

Arguably this increases the quality of content that people see on the network because it filters out low quality content from bots as they are unlikely to earn a Power Badge. But it also has the potential to act as a form of censorship. Without a clear documented and open model for how accounts can gain promotion (or lose the badge), it is possible that some genuine accounts will never gain the badge and even if they do, there is always the threat that the badge can be removed killing your visibility overnight.

Don’t get me wrong, bots are a problem. Every day I’m followed by spammy accounts and when I click through their content is clearly generated by AI. Over time as the bots improve, I suspect they will become less obvious. But if the solution is censoring real humans by default and leaving the choice of who gains reach to an algorithm defined by a single entity, have we really improved on the web2 model or just changed the gatekeepers?