How to build a social media site

CONFIDENTIAL: Only to be read by the eye-wateringly wealthy

Ah, you’re looking to create or purchase your own social media platform? You’ve come to the right place. But first… may we do a quick credit check?

That is a lot of zeroes. Sign here please. Wonderful.

Welcome, then, to our agency. We’ve had quite some success advising people like yourself on acquiring, managing, and building their very own social media platforms.

And now you’re a fully signed-up member, we can cut right to the chase: here’s how to handle your new purchase.

Secure funding from the most nefarious sources

Social media platforms aren’t cheap. Not only do you have a raft of staff to hire, you’ve also got to market and host the thing — and that’s to say nothing of the initial outlay.

Thankfully though, we’re in constant contact with a group that’s always happy to fund you: villains.

You know, your garden variety war criminals or dictatorial regimes or human traffickers or people who lean their seats back on airplanes.

Not only do they have money to burn, but they’ll make you look like Ghandi or Keanu Reeves or Danny Dyer in comparison.

That is what we call a “win-win.”

We’d advising visiting here to get hold of some low-interest capital.

Adverts are now content

Fully funded, your platform will now be purring along nicely. But let’s not get too comfortable: you spent a lot of money — and you didn’t buy a social network for altruism, no matter how many times the media says so.

What you need is profit. And for that? Adverts.

We have a rather whipsmart suggestion for you here. You know how you can tell the difference between adverts and actual posts when you go on most social media sites? How the content with money behind it has a tag?

No more.

Instead, adverts should be your content.

A user’s feed should be an endless stream of promoted posts: poor quality clothesware at sky-high prices; off-label viagra with names like “Lion’s Paw” and “Dragon’s Breath” and “Magnum Destruction;” kitchen gadgets that are banned in most countries under human rights laws; and a contestant from the first series of Love is Blind begging you to buy their NFT.

This is how you should view your social network.

It’s free! But you have to subscribe!

Confusing? Then this business model is doing its job.

Your social network should both be free (so users are the products you’re selling) and have a subscription model (so you’re selling the product to users).

We’d also advise making the benefits of the subscription as baffling as possible. You want to ensure all your bootlicking reply guys have something to feel superior about.

Verification — but with no verification

If someone wants to pretend to be the leader of an autocratic state or the official account of a pharmaceutical company, let them. Nay, encourage them.

At this agency, we’re all believers of free speech…

…unless the jokes are about you

They are not funny. Not funny at all. They couldn’t be less funny. Even using the word funny combined with a negative is wrong. It’s hate. Hate speech. Vile, hateful speech. Losers. They’re all evil losers. Who are illegal. It’s illegal speech. Wrong, hateful, illegal speech.

Those who make jokes about you, the benevolent owner of a social media platform, should be put down like dogs.

Keep the Nazis, though

Social media just isn’t social media without Hugo Boss suits, marches, and racial slurs. Protect this group at all costs.

No staff is the perfect amount of staff

We both know that people just get in the way. All they have are opinions, thoughts, and beliefs. It makes us ill just thiking about it.

And, worst of all, you have to pay these people? Money that should righfully be yours? Disgraceful.

As always though, our agency has a solution: fire as many as you can. Your goal, of course, is having no employees. Or, at most, one — the person fixes the robots when they break.

But we think a robot should be able to do that very soon.

This is an AI-generated picture, which is basically how your company should be run; AKA not by humans.

Problems? They’re someone else’s fault

Issues are inevitable. Everyone in this room knows it. And when they do happen, remember to blame someone else. Preferably a group of people.

Maybe it’s a political group. Maybe an age bracket. Maybe a nation. The limit is your imagination.

Just make sure you internalise this: whatever happens to your social media platform isn’t your fault. It’s them, the users, who are the problem.