Ask HN: Suggest features that you would love to see in a new social network

Please don't sell my info to others!

- own my own data. (nearly impossible depending on the model, but you asked haha) - non-permanent. Ie, I'm more willing to be engaged if I feel secure that I'm not going to regret what I say in 5 years.

Ability to view a list of upcoming events that meet my interests, budget (time & $) and locale vicinity.

No ads, and also no data tracking for targeted ads.

What business model would you use?

Ability to view my friends information or public stranger's information without them being notified about it.

Being anonymous by default (like 4chan) and allow the user to reveal his identity case by case.

I want to see a distributed/peer-to-peer social network with privacy in mind and free software implementations of this network, with no company to capitalize on the user's data.

All the federated stuff (e.g. based on ActivityPub) is quite interesting right now. Mastodon has done the "Twitter clone" quite well IMHO, but other aspects are missing, e.g. more private/closed things, like groups or (big thing when talking to Facebook users) event planning: invites, RSVPs, ...

Add a functionality to allow users to "endorse" a publication as a verified truth, and heavily warn when that many users have seen it and not "endorsed" it.

Somebody has to put a stop at fake news, anti-vaccine campaigns, homeopathy...

Easily offer an export of your own data and simple deletion method that truly does remove any trace of you ever using the social network.

This includes all messages sent, comments made, events created, posts liked, etc. Yes, this means handling "What if two people had a conversation or it's a group conversation with multiple people? What happens to those messages?" I say for sure delete the message all across the board from the person who asked for the deletion but retain the rest of the group. If it's only two people, completely delete the conversation/thread as if it never existed.

"Opt in."

If you can't sell your feature to your users, don't force it upon them.

Identity, I want to be sure when I read something by startupflix is really being written by startupflix. And I want that everybody that reads my stuff knows when is the real me posting stuff and not a random pretending is me. This is the most important feature both Facebook and Twitter got right, mainly because they are the source of truth on what gets posted on their platforms.

An honest timeline feed. Not this "curated" mumbo jumbo. I don't like the notion that I can be manipulated, by the social network itself, or 3rd party advertisers.

Keeps ads out of the feed, and populate the front page as content comes in. Some days it will be boring, sometimes I may not like what I see, but hey that's life.

The ability to describe my interests and personality in as much detail as I choose and it will match me up with like minded individuals anywhere in the world, but preferably in my own country/culture. It should help me find TRUE friends, not just people who I've happen to run into within my local sphere of influence.