Users often feel powerless when a social platform adds unwanted features such as an intrusive AI chatbot, leaving them only the option to quit. Researchers at MIT introduced Social.Wiki as an alternative solution.
Social.Wiki enables users without coding skills to create and edit a wide range of social sites—photo‑sharing networks, discussion forums, dating apps, and more. The platform handles all back‑end responsibilities, so creators do not need to set up servers or manage databases.
The system relies on a decentralized infrastructure where user data is stored separately from the websites that access it. A “data guard” prompts users to approve each data‑access request, protecting against malicious or buggy behavior.
Every site features an “edit” button; clicking it opens an editor where users can manually modify the source code or invoke an AI assistant to generate changes.
Social.Wiki adopts a “plural governance” model. Each user defines policies that determine which edits are visible to them and can designate trusted editors—for example, only showing edits endorsed by at least two friends.
When the browser loads a page, it applies the user’s governance policy, so the same application may appear differently to different users, such as a ride‑sharing app with a uniform pricing algorithm versus one with dynamic pricing.
The researchers demonstrated the platform through several case studies: an editable messaging board, a ride‑sharing app where riders set their own fares, a map‑based housing‑co‑op communication tool, and a garden‑themed micro‑blog where posts grow as flowers.
Future plans involve broader deployment, adding end‑to‑end encryption for private messages, and improving developer tooling. The work is funded in part by Schmidt Sciences and the National Science Foundation.
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