What Is Skylight Social? Is It The *NEW* TikTok? Interview with CEO and Co-Founder Tori White

It's crazy. We are in one of the most

divisive times and yet our entire social

media is going to be in the hands of

like four guys. And maybe it shouldn't

be. And I know, God forbid, maybe that's

a hot take, but it shouldn't be. I'm

Tori. I am the CEO and co-founder of

Skylight Social. We are working to build

a videobased social platform that allows

creators and users to own the social

accounts that they build. So, what does

that mean? Is that so funny? Right.

Decentralization.

>> Yes.

>> Really? Okay. So, we are built on what

we're calling the open social internet.

It's the same infrastructure that Blue

Sky is built on. And really what it

allows the user to do is or the techn

the technology of it is that the app

owner doesn't have to be the owner of

your social account in order for you to

log in and see your content. And that

becomes incredibly important because

that means that I as the owner of an

application don't own everything that

you create. And I don't just mean your

videos and your photos. I mean the list

of followers that you have, right? The

community that you build, the recipes

that you press save on, I'm not the

owner and owner of those. And what that

means is that I can't just kick you out

of the things that you've created. You

have ownership. And so when you have

ownership as a user, you can actually

hold me accountable as an app owner and

say if you are not a good facilitator of

this space, I'm going to leave and I

want you to stay, right? And so I'm I'm

going to try and respect what the users

want. And so I I get the question a lot.

I think of how can I trust you? How can

I trust you as the CEO of this new

social media site? And I want to be able

to earn your trust, right?

>> But I also am building this on the open

social internet so you don't have to

trust me because you have the power to

leave.

>> And we're just not used to it. We're

used to being stuck in places like

Instagram where if you have a million

followers and you try to leave, that's

it. You say goodbye to your community.

And I think that's that's the power that

we want to start seeing on social media.

>> Can you break down a little bit more

tactically what that means on Instagram?

So let's say to your point, someone has

a million followers on Instagram. They

want to come use Skylight. What does

that look like for them? So Instagram is

a closed platform. So you wouldn't be

able to bring your Instagram followers

to Skylight. But Skylight is built on

the open social internet. Blue Sky is

built on the open social internet.

Flashes is built on the open social

internet. And so what that means is that

when you log into Skylight with and

start gaining followers and start

gaining presence, when you take that

social account and log into Blue Sky,

you're going to have the same followers

there. You're going to see all of your

content there, too. So it would be as if

Tik Tok and Instagram worked together

rather than constantly being at each

other's throat for our engagement,

right? It would be as if you moved from

Tik Tok to Instagram easily. All of your

followers were there. You could have as

many accounts as you want. If you wanted

to separate out accounts, you could,

right? But it's just the control is in

your hands. So, what's in it for you as

the CEO? Our purpose is to be a good

arbiter of this space, of this video

platform, because we still get to make

decisions in governing this platform.

But yeah, I I guess I'm just not

motivated by a lot of the same things

that they are. I don't feel that I need

to own your data. I don't want to strip

as much engagement out of you as

possible to the point where it's like

detrimental to your mental health. I'm

not motivated by those things. The

reason I started this is because I'm a

creator myself and I was about to lose

my audience and I was angry. And so, I

think that's the thing that I'm working

to build. M how do you make money?

>> So, we don't make money right now. We

haven't monetized at all. I know that

there's the traditional ways like live

gifts, subscriptions, and we're looking

at some of those to help support the

platform and possibly do things like a

creator fund. I think that's just going

to take time, right? We have to get

people on the platform, figure out what

they're really liking about it, what's

working, you know, get that flywheel

going before we put in monetization

levers. Got it. And you have I saw

290,000

users. It's September 25th. Is that

right?

>> Yes. Actually, we have 300,000.

>> That's amazing. That's wild. People are

motivated. Like people want to have

platforms that don't make them control

everything and can take everything away

from them. I think people are seeing it.

I'm excited about the future for sure.

>> Yeah. What are you seeing as obviously

we don't know what's going to happen

right now with the Tik Tok news. There's

a lot of news circulating right now

about the future of Tik Tok as it stands

as the standalone app right now without

American interference outside of the

security uh and data centers here, you

know. So, what do you what are you

hearing from people who are used to

using Tik Tok who are watching the news

unfold and learning that there are

there's a lot of American interest and a

lot of American I would say like

influential American people getting

involved in the future of Tik Tok. Like

what are you hearing from users of Tik

Tok for that? I think a lot of fear. Tik

Tok for a lot of people has become a

place to gather and learn about things

that you honestly just don't hear about

on other platforms. And I think people

are already starting to feel that

censorship that's coming down. Um yeah,

just just a lot of fear. And so I hope

that we're able to help create and build

communities where people can just have

more control over that community, right?

more ability to foster that community as

a member of that community rather than a

top down

>> that happens on these platforms where

the person at the top really controls

what everyone else sees. Interesting.

That brings up a good question. So, I

talked about how before we started

recording that I asked my Instagram

audience questions that they would want

to ask you. And I received a bunch of

questions about the algorithm. So, right

now we know that on the social platforms

that we're used to using, it's like a

black box. We don't have insight into

how the algorithm is built. How does

that work for Skylight?

>> Yeah, I would say that um we're still

early days, so we're still building out

the algorithm, if that makes sense. But

one of the biggest differences, I think,

between Skylight and a lot of these

other platforms is that you can kind of

build your own algorithm, which is to

say, you can create a custom feed that

other people can come across. So the

idea behind allowing these custom feeds

on Skylight and really having them be a

central part of the platform as you're

swiping up, you might run into different

creators and then sometimes you're going

to land on a feed like feeds like the

Cat Sky videos feed or the LA protest

feed, right? But the people who create

those feeds, we aren't them. We aren't

the controllers of those feeds. They're

connected to the social accounts of the

users who created those feeds. And so

they get to control the algorithm on

that feed. They get to control who shows

up on the feed. And so I think it's like

handing the mechanisms of distribution

and placing them in the hands of users

and creators and community members to

say like we don't have to be the full

arbiters of what gets seen. We can just

show this the feed and then who gets

seen on that feed is up to the people

who are like fostering the community.

And this has already been incredibly

effective on Blue Sky. Like one of the

biggest communities on Blue Sky is

actually Black Sky. And that is very

communitydriven. the man who started it,

Rudy, amazing guy. And that has, I think

he's grown it to like over two million

people on that feed, and he's building

his own application as well, the Black

Sky app. So,

>> there's just a lot of opportunity to

build out your own community and even

take it elsewhere, right? Like he

started that community on on Blue Sky

and his the Black Sky videos feed

actually exists on Skylight, too. So,

someone might discover it on Skylight

and then decide to download the Black

Sky app and dive even deeper into that

community. So, I think there's just a

lot of opportunity as a creator to build

something that is lasting and can even

go outside of maybe the first

application that someone finds you on.

That's cool. So, this might be a a

nuanced question, but let's say I want

to build my own algorithm on Skylight or

like my own what what would you call

that what you're just referring to?

>> Yeah, your feed.

>> Your feed.

>> Your own feed.

>> So, I would want would want to create a

custom feed that other people can

subscribe to is what it sounds like.

>> Exactly.

And then do those people influence that

algorithm or am I the controller of that

algorithm? You would get to decide. So

you could be it could be a feed that is

super niched down where you only have a

few creators on it because you feel like

this is a special community. It could be

a super broad

>> Exactly. You could handpick users even

which could lead to like some fun

things. I think of like maybe a book

club where you've chosen the people who

are going to speak about the book or

whatever. Right. But it also could be

incredibly broad where you are getting

algorithmic with it. And I think of like

so one of the best ways to create a feed

right now is using Gray's social and

that's who we're working with on the

feed builder. We're working on an inapp

feed builder that'll allow you to build

a simple feed inside of the app. If you

want to build a more what would be a

good way more complex feed that has more

levers in it, maybe is more algorithmic,

then you could use graze.social. So feed

builder is a external partner that

you're working with to build the feeds

in the app. Exactly. But I want to make

sure that we say too, so Graez is

another company on this open social

internet that has created a way to

easily build feeds and we are telling

people, hey, you can use this this feed

builder, but the feed itself ends up

connected to your social account.

>> So I I want to say that like you have

ownership over that feed as well.

>> So but yeah, that's one way and then I

would say this too is if you want to get

some people really want to get into the

weeds and build out an algorithmic feed

like and do encode it and that is what

Rudy has done. his feeds are written in

code. And so there's just levels levels

of what you might want to do. How would

you describe to someone who is new to

decentralization because this is a new

you're representing a very new era of

social media really. How would you

describe it the features in comparison

to like an Instagram or a Tik Tok? What

are they going to get that's very

similar and what are they not going to

get?

>> Yeah, I want to say first that web 3

decentralization has been around for a

lot of years and so we are really

standing on the shoulders of giants.

very thankful for Blue Sky who built out

the app protocol which is part of this

open social internet that we're on. As

far as the things that you're going to

get that are the same, you're just going

to get fun platforms. Fun platforms to

post your cool stuff, to post your blogs

like Leaflet, to post your pictures like

flashes, which is like an Instagram

competitor, to post your videos like

Skylight. It's just a fun place to be, a

fun place to hang out, right? And the

thing that you're going to get that's

different is power. you're going to be

able to say I am it's really a choice to

stay at this at this application because

if I stop agreeing with what they're

doing I have freedom of movement as a

user and then another thing that there's

like so much opportunity when you own

the content to be able to do like there

is a another creator her name's Sharpie

who we've been uh working with and she

really wants to have her feed show up on

her website and her live streaming show

up on her website as well as show up on

Skylight and she can do that because it

all goes through her social account that

ultimately she gets to own. And so I

think when you have ownership over

something, there's just a lot more fun

like playful things you can do with it.

>> So yeah, you can have video, you could

have photos, you could have you could

almost create a blog experience to what

you're saying. Like it seems like

>> a lot of people use it. It's called

Leaflet and people write blogs on it.

>> Wow. So like even looking at like a

Substack, this could be a potential

replacement for that for them.

>> Exactly.

>> Exactly.

>> Interesting. and it's all connected to

your one account, right?

>> And that's what I think is is

challenging for people to understand

because they're so used to going to

these separate social media platforms to

get their username, to get their own

account, to build their content on

there. It's just so different for people

who are brand new to it.

>> Yes. Yeah. This is it's we're so used to

having our accounts and all of the stuff

that we create owned by companies. We're

not used to the freedom of getting to

control where that account sits. So, I

like to I truly like to think of it as

like your social website because

websites are something where we truly do

understand this really well, right? Like

you have a personal website, I'm sure,

and I do too. Buildwith tori.com and I

get to choose the company who hosts that

website. Maybe I build it on WordPress,

maybe I host it with Forcell, right? And

then when I go on Google Chrome, I can

see that website, but I also can see

that website when I go on Safari or when

I go on Mozilla Firefox, right?

>> And if Google Chrome got banned, I

wouldn't cry for Google Chrome. I would

just use a different browser,

>> right? And that's that's what we want to

bring to the social media space is to

say that we want you to be able to build

your social website, put all of your

cool stuff on it, your comments, your

videos, your list of followers will

exist on this social website, and you

can view that social website on Skylight

where we'll we'll filter out and only

show you the videos. Or you can view

that social website on Blue Sky where

they're going to show you a lot of your

content or view it on Flashes where

you'll get to see your pictures, right?

But at the end of the day, that social

website belongs to you and you get to

choose the company that you host or that

hosts that website for you. So a lot of

people have blue sky, right? If your

username ends inbsy.social, then that

means that your social website, your

personal data server is with Blue Sky,

but a lot of people are migrating right

now. So there's a ton of users who have

migrated to Black Sky. And so if you see

a username that says blacks sky.app,

that means that social account is held

with Black Sky. But they're still able

to sign into Skylight. Sign in to Blue

Sky, sign in anywhere and see all their

stuff.

>> What about security? So right now you

have on social media especially tons of

bots, tons of AI automated content

that's being built. How could Skylight

be different for people? Yeah, we

already have people who are like doing

bot bot detection and filtering out.

That's the other thing is we have a lot

of composable moderation and this is all

stuff that was built by Blue Sky. That

team is incredible. But basically, it

allows anyone to build a moderation

service and track things and you can

sign up for that moderation service. And

so there's ones that track AI and will

label AI for you if they if they think

it is like a AI generated thing, it'll

put a little label on it. So you can

like opt in to these things if you're a

user. Interesting.

>> Exactly. Exactly. And this is the

composability part. You really get to

like choose your own journey.

>> Yeah. Ends up being pretty a pretty

awesome experience. And of course

there's we still have a ways to go right

for building these things out but

there's a lot of people in the community

who are building these out. So Blue Sky

obviously started it but there are

people like again Black Sky has a

moderation service that you can you that

moderates your your content and honestly

it does a lot of stuff around like hate

speech as well.

>> So anyone can build these things and

then we all get to benefit from them on

all of these different platforms.

>> How do you control the bias in those

scenarios? So right now we have and I'm

just framing this up for people that are

used to using these traditional social

media apps that we're conditioned using

right now. Instagram, Tik Tok X, you

know, YouTube, Substack, right? They all

have their own protocols for moderation.

What's appropriate? What's considered to

be

>> potentially biased? What's considered to

be dangerous? Are there preliminary

protocols that exist when you sign up or

do you have to set all of that up

yourself?

>> Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's

preliminary protocols that exist. I'll

say this. So, you have control over your

social account, right? And you get to

choose the applications that you spend

time in, like whether you spend a time

in Blue Sky or Skylight. But at the end

of the day, Skylight, we are the owners

of Skylight. And so, we govern Skylight.

We do govern Skylight. So, we get to say

how much or how little of something um

ends up being there. And we have a very

open platform at this point. Um but

yeah, we are still like the governors of

this space. I like to think of it like

that.

>> And where does Blue Sky come in? So,

Blue Sky was just for those who maybe

are not familiar, Blue Sky was created

as decentralized almost version of

Twitter X is what it feels like I think

to most people. What is the connection

there between Skylight and Blue Sky? The

connection is truly that we're built on

the same protocol. Protocols are

something we use every single day and

are very common. the internet protocol.

The reason that we could go to this

website and film this and we both have

access to this website is because of the

internet protocols that basically just

say this is how data is going to get

organized. So when we build things,

let's make sure we organize like this so

that everyone can have access to it.

That's all of these that these protocols

do. Another really common protocol is

the email protocol. So that if you have

an Outlook email or I have a Gmail, we

can still send emails to each other.

It's open, right? And so we use

basically it's just a way of um like

organizing data. It's a handshake

between builders to say, "Hey, I'm going

to use bricks. You should use bricks,

too. That way, our things mesh really

easy or we all can visit these

websites." And what's the what's the

benefit of that? The benefit of that is

this like movement across applications

that users can do because their data

that is held in their data server is

organized in a way that allows our

application to read it and allows Blue

Sky application to read it and allows

Flashes to read it. And that's all it

is. And it's the same way that every

website has data organized in a specific

way so that when you go on Google Chrome

and you go to buildwith tory.com you or

skylight.social, you're going to be able

to see that website because the data

that is that website is organized in a

specific way for you to be able to see

it. So it's just it's like a Yeah,

>> that's a good handshake. Is that a good

>> Yeah, that's a good explanation. Yeah, I

think it's just a new world, right? It's

a new world for so many people.

>> What's funny is we actually we already

live in it, right? We all have the open

free internet. Social media was just

purposefully not built that way. And

I'll say this too is the internet was

almost not built that way. There were

many big players at the beginning of the

internet including Facebook who tried to

own it. Facebook offered internet to

like low-income countries to say you can

use we'll give you internet but oh

you're only going to have access to

these apps that we choose. And thank God

those countries were like no.

>> At the end of the day they wanted to

have the open free internet not that now

we all use and get to connect on. But

man were they effective with closing

down social media and making social

media not open.

And we're used to seeing that. But to

think that a company could

>> own the internet or in a world that we

live in right now own these social media

apps. There is probably going to be a

time when we're going to look back on

this and say,

>> "How did we how are we?"

>> Yeah. How are we okay with four dudes

choosing how we form community and how

our communities find each other? Mhm.

>> I think I completely agree with that

that we'll look back on this and say

that's that was insane. I can't believe

we let them rule over how we connect.

>> Yeah. When we look at the algorithms

right now that we're familiar with in

the traditional social media realm, we

don't have insight into how the

algorithms work, but we know for a lot

of people that social media is now the

primary source of where they get their

news. But how does that work? If someone

wants to see more news, for example, in

their feed, is that something that they

can just build? Do they have to be

intentional about it or does the

algorithm surface that content initially

like it would if you were to go into

TikTok to almost like test to see if

you're interested in it? Yeah, we're

going to um showcase that information.

So, we'll give you as you're swiping,

you'll come across different channels

and then you can subscribe to them if

you would like to, right? And then if

you click on those channels, you get to

see the person who built it as well. So,

you can actually go to that user's

profile and see who's the one that is

the creator of this channel. And there

are actually already popular news

channels who are what's her name? I

think it's Andra is the creator of the

news channel that is like incredibly

popular on Blue Sky. A great arbiter um

curator for that for that channel. So

this is what I think is going to happen

is that we're going to see pretty like

curators come up as the means of

distribution that they will start

curating and protecting communities and

start

>> owning the these levers of distribution.

But yeah, our goal is to showcase a

bunch of different channels for you. You

can save them. And honestly, we are

still going to do the Tik Tok style

where you will just get random creators

too, right? Like not everything has to

exist inside of a feed, right? So you'll

just keep swiping. Sometimes you'll see

individual creators. Sometimes you'll

see channels and you can save them or

you can mute them if you want to not

have that as part of your as part of

your like algorithm. So, one thing that

I noticed, especially because people are

using social media for news right now,

is is that, and you've heard this term

before, is that people get stuck in

these echo chambers because the

algorithms are learning to send people

down certain paths. Is there a way for

Skylight to Are Are you looking at it

purely as what people are expressing

interest in? Are you constantly testing

new pieces of content to gauge someone's

interest in things, if that makes sense?

>> Yeah. So, I think what we're getting at

here is collaborative filtering where,

oh, you liked this piece of content,

other people who liked this also liked

all of these, and so we're going to show

you a piece of that as well. Um, and

that can sometimes lead to very much an

echo chamber because we're only going to

show you the things that these other

people liked.

>> Mhm.

>> We used collaborative filtering at the

very beginning beginning of our journey

when we didn't have feeds and it just

wasn't as effective as we thought it

would be. um you don't know if that's

what we're going to end up doing, but I

do think at least at the end of the day,

you'll be able to search out channels

and intentionally follow things if you

want to. And then we are just going to

showcase different channels for you. And

so if you see one and you want to follow

it, so you get that maybe different

perspectives that start popping up as

they do, if you want to have a broader

perspective or if you say to yourself,

gosh, I wonder what's going on in that

community, why they're thinking this

way, and you want to follow it to better

understand, you would be able to. Can

people game the algorithm? Like, let's

say I'm a user and I want to see how

much engagement I can get. Can I do

that?

>> I mean, you can game the algorithm on

any platform. So, I would say I mean,

probably. I I don't know that we've had

anyone really doing that yet.

>> Ready? People watching this are going to

be like, I'm going over there.

>> Yeah.

>> I feel like it's difficult to just

because there's so many different users

who control these different methods of

distribution because of the feeds,

right? like gaming us versus gaming all

of these individual feeds might be a

different experience.

>> So

>> yeah, I I don't know. Hey, give it a

try.

>> Try it out, people. Yeah, that's the

that's the takeaway there.

>> Let's see. Let's see.

>> Yeah. Um how many people are on your

team?

>> Hey, so it's Reed and I.

>> Yeah. And is that

>> two of us?

>> Given you have 300,000 users, what does

that look like for the future? because

Tik Tok obviously is a global

>> entity with thousands of employees and

you have two people. So, I think there's

some concern and and I can be honest

with you, I do think there's some

concern for people of they're used to a

Tik Tok experience. They're used to an

Instagram experience. They want to come

over and support this new app,

especially given all the things that you

just talked about. However, there could

be hiccups of like tech hiccups or

certain things that are happening

because you're a team of two. So, what

does that look like in the future for

you guys?

>> Absolutely. Absolutely. So, of course,

we want to be a bigger team and that is

going to happen as we grow. And I guess

what I'll say though is that because we

are built on this open social

infrastructure, we do not have to build

everything ourselves.

>> So, while yes, we are a team of two, we

are actually working in community with a

ton of other teams, right? So, we have

live streaming on our platform and we

didn't have to build that. that was

built by stream place and the owner of

that is Eli and he created live

streaming that can exist on a ton of

platforms on or any platform that's

built on the app protocol and so that's

this part of like interoperability I

think of like our feed builder right

we're not building that graze is helping

us with that we

>> when it on a open platform where

everyone is helping everyone else it

really is we are all boats in this ocean

grays blue sky skylight and we are all

working together to fill it with water

so that we all rise versus being like

one tiny boat on our own little lake

which is what all of these other

platforms are. So yes, we have two

people but man there is a huge community

working to make the open social internet

amazing and we are working in congruence

with them. It just goes back the

question that I continue to have is

because you guys are doing this

full-time and right I'm assuming I'd

imagine.

>> Yes.

>> I was like that would be crazy if you

weren't. That would be nutty because

you're doing it full-time. Like I you

know from a living standpoint like I'd

imagine that at some point you're going

to have to monetize or or get paid in

some way. That's is that a matter of and

you might not be ready to answer this

yet and that's fine, but are you going

to be fundraising? Are you going to be

allowing ads in the platform? Like where

do you see that happening in order to

continue to scale?

>> Yeah, similar to Blue Sky, we're going

to be fundraising. Um, we've already

fundraised a bit and that's why we've

been able to sustain ourselves and yeah,

we're going to continue to fund raise so

that we can bring more money into this

ecosystem. I I definitely don't think

these things get built, you know, with

with nothing. We do have to have money

to support it. And then as far as

sustainability goes long term, it's

going to be about putting in those

monetization levers, right? like live

gifts, subscriptions, maybe sky shop,

which a lot of people are asking for.

So, I think

>> there's a lot of opportunity to make

money down the line. But yeah, at this

point it is investment, which there is

an article on TechCrunch about. If

anyone has any questions about our

investors, I recommend checking out that

article.

>> Okay. So, I'm going to ask a tough

question because if you're an investor,

then what is an investor hoping to get

out of this? Because it is

decentralized. This is a completely

different world once again than we're

used to operating in. So questions that

I had received on my Instagram when I

had asked people and I think there was a

lot of concern around like I'm just

pulling it up right now. I had one

person say, "Who, if any, are the VC or

other backers? What's their motivation

for getting involved? Why would they be

getting involved?" Someone said, "Are

there are the creators good people, not

evil billionaires?" Like, there is a lot

of and someone also has said, "Honestly,

funding. What are the company's

long-term goals? How how will Skylight

be different?" And so I think there's a

lot of mistrust that's happened

naturally among users using these other

social media platforms and they want to

know what they're getting themselves

into even with the the understanding of

the decentralization component of it

which I do think makes it more

appealing. How would you answer these

people who are coming from a platform

that is you know coming from these

platforms but one platform in particular

that is now going to have potentially a

lot of censorship and oversight from the

government. How do you answer that for

people when they're looking at investors

and investor motivations?

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I think

part of the reason we ask this question

so heavily is because we have to have

such deep trust in the people who own

our social media because they control

everything. We don't get to leave. We

lose access to our audience. If they're

not good arbiters of this space, we lose

everything that we've built, especially

as creators who build platforms. And so

I want to say first and foremost, the

reason we're building on this

decentralized platform is for the escape

hatch. So that if we are not or

arbiters, good arbittors of the space,

if you stop trusting us, you should

leave. You can and you should leave and

that is your right and your power and

you should step into that. But that is

to say that I hope we are able to gain

your trust, right? I do want to be a

good arbiter of this space. But as far

as our investors go, that is public

information. Mark Cuban, Grahamman

Walker, we we have investors, it's all

public out there. You can go see. And I

think they understand this too, right?

They're not going into this blind. They

understand that that is part of

delivering choice into the social media

ecosystem is that there could be users

that decide to choose differently. But I

just think choice is power, right? Being

forced into a place is never fun. If you

want something changed on Instagram, you

can beg Mark Zuckerberg or you can beg

the government to beg Mark Zuckerberg

and that's it, right? Jay always says

that. She's the CEO of Blue Sky. I love

that that quote because it that's true.

That's all you have. versus on Skylight.

I would say continue continue to ask us

the hard questions, right? Continue to

push against things that you don't agree

with. And if we don't hear you or if you

disagree with us, you have the power to

move to different platforms. And that is

what needs to get created in social. And

we're so used to being on these

platforms because they've created this

walled garden, this experience where our

friends exist on those platforms, but we

might not necessarily ethically,

culturally align with how they're doing

things. So you're really saying that

people are empowered to go do whatever

they need to do. They can go support and

take their audience to a certain place

that they believe in based on what they

know about the platform itself. There's

more seems like there's more

transparency.

>> Yeah. And and it's funny because it does

feel like every other area of life we

have choice, right? Like even at the

store I go in and I get to choose the

serial brand I buy, but it's social

media because they get us locked in. It

feels like you don't have choice,

especially if you've spent years on a

platform.

>> I mean, I know myself, I've been on

Facebook for over 20 years. That's

crazy. That's a lot of my life.

>> My grandma was on Facebook for 20 years,

right? And she's passed away now. So, if

I leave Facebook, I literally don't get

to see the conversations that I've had

on Facebook with my now passed away

grandma. They should not get to own

that.

>> They shouldn't get to own that. And

that's the basis of all of this. So, we

already make choices. We already choose

brands. We choose where to spend our

money. And that choice should just exist

in social media. And I hope that

skylight is able to earn that trust and

earn that choice.

>> Yeah. You think about how many walled

gardens we have between even our phones,

right? It's the same thing.

>> Yes, it is. Right. App Store, Google

Play Store,

>> a lot of hoops to jump through to exist

in these spaces.

>> There's a lot of work to be done to

continue to

>> Yeah.

>> free up free up different parts of the

internet. I'm going to look at some of

these other questions that people have.

So, someone said policies around

censorship and what can and can't be

shown, which I feel like we discussed at

a high level. Is there a place where

people can go un go understand your I

don't want to say censorship model, but

what's innate to you for Skylight versus

who you're partnering with to understand

at a basic level what they're going to

see and not see like the basic guard

rails, if that makes sense.

>> Um, yes, we have community guidelines

and privacy policy. I do not remember

the like exact website of those but I

can post those. Maybe I should post

those today so that it's obvious. And

then yeah that's great. What about

>> we do have those

>> and then someone else said so this is

once again we are looking at people

coming from traditional social to this

new experience in the decentralized

space. Someone had asked what is it how

does it work with following people. So

we're very conditioned right now to

following people on other social

platforms. Like what does that look like

on Skylight?

>> Yeah. Yeah. So, when you follow someone

on Skylight, they you actually end up

following them on these other platforms

as well. So, Blue Sky and Flashes. And

then as far as what it affects on your

algorithm, when you follow someone,

you're more likely to see that person or

see that person's videos. So, we'll

serve their videos to you.

>> Got it. That was the question. Great.

Someone else said, "What are the guiding

principles around hate, speech,

harassment, which I'd imagine is also in

your community guidelines."

>> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um and I don't

remember verbatim off the top of my

head, but yeah, we do censor hate

speech. We do um yeah I would I would

just recommend people go read our

community guidelines and honestly a lot

of the stuff too I would say we work in

congruence with blue sky as well. So if

you want to read Blue Sky community

guidelines as well would probably be a

good thing to glance at. Um helpful.

What about government interference?

Because that is a huge topic of

conversation right now with Tik Tok

specifically. What does that look like

for Skylight? how the government can

potentially get involved with the app or

have oversight over how the algorithm is

delivering things like is that because

it is decentralized and you're not a

tech giant, you know, going to these

White House dinners, you know, like I'd

imagine it looks very different, but it

seems like from what you're saying that

because it is the way that it's created,

there is really no ability for there to

be government in uh oversight because of

how personalized The platform is the

decentralization is really about

separating the app and the app owner

from the user and the social account. So

it is true that we have to follow US

government laws. We are a US company. Um

so if there was oversight one day like

let's say dystopia happens and we get

have the government says that they have

to control everything that gets seen

that is something that could happen to

Skylight. At that point, users would

then need to probably use that escape

hatch and go somewhere else. I think of

Flashes, which is actually owned by um a

guy named Sebastian, and he's in

Germany, and there's actually an entire

movement in Europe called I think it's

called Euros Sky that is working on uh

replicating the data, the servers in on

European servers so that this data would

always be protected. And so I think

there's there's a movement right now

around the world towards open social,

right? There's 40 million people on this

open social internet and so it's not

just us but um yeah we would be have to

fall under the laws of the government

but as far as being able to maybe escape

to other places right that's definitely

still an option in this world.

>> Yeah. Um is it global? So anyone

globally can sign up for Skylight?

>> No we're not global yet. We're just in

North America. So US and Canada we

absolutely want to be global but there's

just two of us and we haven't had the

bandwidth yet to make that happen.

Especially with a lot of the newer like

age restrictions laws that are coming

out. The laws in um Europe and the UK

are just a little bit different than

here and we want to make sure we comply

before opening up. Makes sense. What are

your thoughts on people who are

saying that they're done with social

media that they're going to go touch

grass that they're over social media and

they're ready to just ditch it

completely. Yeah. I I would say that

everyone gets to choose what's right for

them and that's beautiful and they

should, right? I don't I don't want to

or I wouldn't want to force anyone to do

anything. I think what's sad is that

part of the reason that they feel that

way is because of what social media has

become. This like addiction engine that

is trying to get more and more hours out

of you, not thinking about your

well-being or anything like that, right?

It's just about maximizing your

engagement and has nothing to do with

your like satisfaction or wellbeing as a

human being. And yeah, I hope we can

work to change that. That's something

that we really want to see change on

Skylight. Do you think social media in

that sense of what you're building can

have a positive effect for people? I

hope so. I hope so. Yeah, I know. And I

will say too, we are a public benefit

corporation and that's actually in our

mission statement which is on our

website if anyone wants to go read that.

And what that means is it just protects

us from if anyone tried to make us do

something because it was monetarily the

thing that should do because it'll be

better for making us money. We actually

have an obligation to protect the

well-being of our users above all else.

That's Yeah, that's a part of our

mission

>> and it's legally binding for us

something we built into our company.

When it comes to uh acquisitions, let's

say someone wants to come in and buy out

Skylight.

>> Yeah. So, this is part of that as well.

I think of the Twitter acquisition which

was massive and we all heard about it.

Um, Twitter because it's a corporation

that it has to answer to its

shareholders,

whether or not they wanted to, they

really didn't have a choice to accept

that offer because it was such a good

offer for their shareholders, right? And

that's why we became a public benefit

corporation because we could say if

someone gave us a offer like that to

purchase purchase us and we didn't agree

with the people who were going to

purchase us, we could say, "Hey, look at

our mission. This actually doesn't align

with our mission." And because of that,

we are legally bound to not accept the

offer. And so I think that's an

important protective piece that we've

put into place by being a public benefit

corporation.

>> That's amazing. That's awesome. And are

there other companies all the companies

that you're partnering with, are they

also part of that as well?

>> Yeah, so Blue Sky is a public benefit

corporation as well. I actually don't

know what Stream Place or Graze is, so I

don't want to speak on that, but um

everyone should go look into it. It's I

think an awesome way to for companies to

protect themselves. Love it. Talk about

the signup experience. when people go to

sign up on Skylight, what does that look

like and what information do they need

to have handy?

>> Yeah, so when you sign up for Skylight,

um you actually log in with your Blue

Sky account and if you don't have a Blue

Sky account, you can sign up for one

there. And that's just because we're not

currently offering social like the

ability to build a social account with

Skylight. I believe all you need is your

email and it makes it easy.

>> Great. Is there anything else you can

think of that would be helpful for

people to know, especially on a day like

today when they're thinking about

leaving TikTok potentially?

>> I would say that we would love to have

you on Skylight. Yeah, I think we're

living in an incredibly divisive world

where we don't really have a lot of

control over the things that we see and

hopefully we can work to build a place

in partnership with all of the users and

curators, build a place that has a lot

more freedom of information, less

censorship and more ability to build

community. What about people who are

signing up who are used to getting the

Tik Tok experience and they're not

getting it in terms of speed,

reliability, you know, maybe there are

some like tech hiccups. How can people

help you right now and what's the best

way for them to support Skylight? I

guess um I would say that a lot of

people already are like the comments

that are supportive people spending time

on the platform telling us what needs to

get fixed, people's feedback.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. I would say the best way we

actually have a feedback, it's called

skylight-social.io.

It's a way to give feedback on what

you're seeing on the application and

that is incredibly useful for us. It

lets us know what needs to get fixed,

what things aren't working. Um, and then

also it's a way to put in feature

requests to say, "Hey, I want to see

this in your application."

>> That's great. Have you gotten some juicy

feature requests from people?

>> Well, earlier we were we had a

horizontal feed, not a vertical swiping

feed, and that did not go over well.

That feels so weird to even like think

about that. I don't know. I just like

>> I don't know. Couldn't can't picture it.

>> So, we recently changed that and the

vertical swiping feed has gone over

really really well. People are loving

it. So, I encourage everyone to go check

it out.

>> Yeah. Love that. This was amazing. You

are great. And I think for people who

want to go support you, it's just time

for them to go download it if they

haven't already.

>> Let's go Skylight. fun you guys.