The Public Square — weighted by reputation, not engagement
Short-form discussion that rewards being right. No like buttons. No engagement bait. Reactions that mean something.
Reactions, not likes
The Public Square has four reactions: Agree, Disagree, Insightful, Needs Source. Each reaction is a substantive signal — agreement, dissent, value-add, or a request for evidence. There is no like. The reactions are exposed on every post; the reputation system reads them differently than a vanity counter would.
Reputation moves visibility
A post's reach is determined by its score under the platform's Post Quality Metric, which incorporates the author's reputation, the reactions the post has earned, the tier of the people reacting, and a quality gate that penalises low-signal content. Trending is not a vote count. The For You feed weights posts by author reputation and by content signals — not by engagement velocity. The result is that contributors who have been right before have more reach than contributors who have been loud before.
Moderation tools that respect the user
Every account can block, mute, and report. Threshold-escalated reporting routes the worst offenders to a faster review queue. Reporters earn reputation for accurate reports and lose it for frivolous ones — the moderation system has its own accountability layer. Ghost mode automatically filters content from accounts pending deletion. Hashtags and topics can be followed and muted.
What is not on the Public Square
No vanity metrics. No follower counts displayed as social capital. No share-velocity boost. No outrage acceleration. No engagement-maximising recommendation tier. The signal Ekta optimises for is verifiability and contributor track record. Everything else is downstream of that.