The Growing Need for a Social Media Company Playbook

Last week, TikTok announced that it has reached over 1 billion active users, faster than any other social media company ever.

Now that social media is well-established, and younger consumers are driving faster adoption of the hottest new platform, I anticipate that such rapid rises to power are going to become increasingly prevalent. This isn't to say that TikTok doesn't deserve this success; but Nancy Kerrigan with her measly triple axels couldn't win an Olympic medal by today's figure skating standards.

With great power comes great responsibility, and a faster rise to power means a need for faster maturity. Social media platforms of the future won't have the luxury of stumbling upon problems as if they were new, investigating them, and testing solutions the way early pioneers like Facebook did. Especially not with increasing regulatory scrutiny, savvy user bases who can organize easily, and even savvier bad actors.

Even platforms that have smaller audiences aren't safe. Take Twitch for example; today a hacker posted confidential information including the entire source code and much of the product roadmap, citing toxicity in the community as one reason for the leak.

I believe that the reason most companies find themselves in high-risk situations, such as PR scandals, is because of blind spots, not malicious intent.

Blind spots are avoidable.

For those of us who are passionate about building a safer and more stable future for the social media industry, there are two problems we must address:

1. Building for growth and building for scale shouldn't be so significantly misaligned. You shouldn't have to scramble to drastically change your practices when you reach a certain usage threshold.
2. Learnings that impact user health and safety shouldn't be privileged. If you learn that an algorithm optimization led to unintended consequences for select user groups, especially protected classes and minorities, then be humble and open about it.

The risk of inaction is simply too great. Facebook's reaction this week to the whistleblower allegations, of which I have been vocal, indicates that companies have a tendency to deflect blame rather than acknowledge the problems and commit to real change. If we are unable to change companies from within, then I'm afraid we will have no choice but to enact government regulation. And believe me, there is no greater headwind for lean startups than government oversight. Just ask any fintech startup.

If you take anything away from this article, I hope it's this: if you work in social media product, let's learn and grow together. There is room for all of us in this robust ecosystem. And who will benefit? People. That's who we're building for.