Group chats on Towns can be configured so that only people who meet certain criteria (for example, with specific expertise) are allowed to post, while everyone else watches from the sidelines. In this scenario, Rubin hopes, large group conversations will no longer be polluted by misinformed recordings and scam posts. He believes that the ability for someone to prove they are a real person using blockchain-based credentials, meanwhile, could help minimize the opportunity for malicious actors to manipulate public discourse with bots.
The whole endeavor is a gamble that people will want their data – not just identifying information, but details about their activities, spending habits, etc. – etched onto a blockchain in the coming years. If they are willing to do so, Rubin believes, data can be used to group people based on shared experiences and characteristics. Towns could have a group for people who attended the last Taylor Swift tour, or for people who have a cybersecurity qualification, or for anyone who regularly eats out in New York.
Rubin spoke to WIRED about his plan to put that vision into practice and tackle the thorny issues — around moderation, police abuse and echo chamber effects — that have dogged the incumbents he now hopes Towns can topple.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Joel Khalili: Can you start by explaining how you came up with the idea for Towns?
Ben Rubin: I started my career as an architect. Because I've studied the architecture of real buildings, one of the things that continues to be a guiding force in everything I do is how to bring people together in very unique ways. I still consider myself an architect today. It's just that the medium I work in is digital.
So it wasn't just about building a Houseparty sequel or tackling Discord and WhatsApp.
As we become more connected, there is an opportunity to create spaces for people that actually influence how conversations happen, what intimacy looks like, and so on. There are some things you can't do with bricks that you can do with the digital world, and of course vice versa.
Naturally.
One of the interesting things about Houseparty is that it was a double opt-in graph, like the Facebook graph, where I ask you for a friendship and then you have to accept. It's not just that I follow you, like on Instagram. But the moment that happens, anytime you're talking to your friends now (just like at a house party where you might be talking to someone I don't know) I can go and say, “Hey.”
