Breaking the Echo Chamber

When was the last time you had a calm, productive conversation about politics? In a world where social media algorithms push us deeper into echo chambers, Thomas Moore is building something different. PoliTorium, which launched February 25th on iOS, aims to transform how we engage with different viewpoints online.

His solution combines thoughtful design with cutting-edge technology to foster respectful discourse. PoliTorium's feed purposely shows you diverse perspectives instead of just content you'll agree with. Its reputation system follows users across the platform, making trolls immediately identifiable while rewarding quality contributions. Perhaps most innovative is the AI system that detects condescending tones and passive-aggressive language - the subtle disrespect that often poisons political discussions.

What truly sets PoliTorium apart is its focus on local politics. While we obsess over national issues, it's local politics that most directly affects our daily lives. Yet most Americans can't name their city council members, and finding information about local candidates remains frustratingly difficult. PoliTorium creates a space where users can build reputations in their communities, potentially encouraging more civic participation where it matters most.

Unlike many platforms that prioritize engagement at any cost, PoliTorium's bylaws explicitly prioritize users over shareholders. Its transparent moderation system makes all actions publicly visible, preventing the unexplained bans that plague other platforms.

In a time when many feel democracy itself is threatened by polarization, PoliTorium offers something increasingly rare: hope that technology can bring us together rather than drive us further apart.

Download the app available after February 25th and join the conversation that might just help heal America's divisions.

https://www.politorium.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Politorium
• 8:16 The Problem with Political Discourse Today
• 18:44 How Politorium Works: Features and Philosophy
• 32:07 Building a Better Reputation System
• 42:46 Challenges of User Verification and Privacy
• 54:34 Local Politics and Community Engagement
• 1:02:08 Final Thoughts and Launch Details

Transcript

Victor: 0:00

Welcome everyone to the I'm Not Dumb but Podcast. I'm your host for today, Victor, joined always by Rob. Hello, Chris, Yup.

Rob: 0:10

And Cesar. Yup, so who do we got? We got another guest right. Is this Chris's replacement?

Chris: 0:17

Why am I getting replaced every episode?

Rob: 0:22

Actually, Chris, I want to let you know these interviews are for positions on the podcast.

Victor: 0:28

We're actually interviewing. Tell me, guys, how often do you guys talk about politics? All the time, never, never for me why? Is that. Is it too heated, or are you just out of?

Rob: 0:40

the loop. It just seems it's so radicalized now. It just goes one direction or the other and you never really get an answer. You never have a place to talk about it, and it's better to just avoid it or just, you know, sit behind your screen and start typing ideas.

Chris: 0:55

For me it's like I just don't want to say the wrong thing, just to tell my opinion or my thoughts and then piss someone off.

Cesar: 1:09

And then that person just goes off for no reason. Try having right opinions then exactly, chris, to be honest, it's all like I don't talk about it because like I'm very logical and think the way I think, and if things are black and white, well then I'm always gonna set a reason right. But we've gotten to the point where there is no reason at all, absolutely not. So it hurts my head to even like. Why am I wasting my time talking to you when, literally, you're going to hear me one ear out the other?

Victor: 1:31

Well, today our guest, thomas Moore, is attempting to solve this issue. He is the founder of Politorium, a new app that wants to fix how we view debate and discourse and to help us answer the question I'm not dumb, but how do you talk about politics?

Cesar: 1:49

Welcome to the I'm Not Dumb but podcast, where we won't claim to have the answers to life's deepest questions but we'll give you an exciting journey into the realms of knowledge you never knew you needed Might be mainstream, but not common knowledge. From artificial intelligence to conspiracy theories, no topic is too taboo for us to explore. Let's get curious together.

Victor: 2:10

Tom, welcome to the show, thank you. Thanks so much for joining us. So you are the founder and creator of Politorium.

Thomas Moore: 2:19

That's correct, yeah.

Victor: 2:20

What is Politorium?

Thomas Moore: 2:22

What is Politorium? It's a social platform for respectful discourse, so a place you know where you can expect like not to be trolled and like a place like where people just want to kind of have a real conversation. You know whether it's like social or political. Yeah, just somewhere people can go to get out of the polarization that's in politics in America.

Victor: 2:45

Polarization this is the first time I'm hearing about it.

Chris: 2:48

Like the bear Polar vortex. Yeah, it's a new thing.

Thomas Moore: 2:58

No, it's a big problem right now. I started building it two years ago, so I had the original idea for it, which, honestly, I think tons of people have had the idea for it, and the fact that nobody's really made it yet is baffling to me. But everybody knows it's a problem. Everybody knows we all need a place to have a real conversation. The whole X and Facebook and Reddit all of them have political biases.

Victor: 3:22

Yeah, we've all had those family gatherings, holiday gatherings where everyone's at each other's throats.

Thomas Moore: 3:28

Yeah, you know, and so here's the big picture, honestly is I feel like the internet has damaged the way we communicate with each other. So I want to build Paulatorium as a place to kind of start like mending that. You know, that wound of how everybody's like just so divided and the way that we talk to each other like just in general, get communication kind of more on a on a respectful scale.

Victor: 3:54

You know, like people talk on the internet like in ways that they would never talk you know in person, obviously, Cause you're anonymous, See, I mean technically you can hide behind a username and then no one really knows who you are or what you're saying right, right, you know, and people can remain anonymous on paulatorium.

Thomas Moore: 4:12

The idea, though, is, um to encourage you being you. I mean, there's so many like different features, um, that encourage you to to be who you actually are, you know. Uh, you know, we have, like id identification verification system, um, which comes with like perks of being able to create petitions and everything like that, but the big picture is basically fixing how we speak to each other.

Thomas Moore: 4:36

You know, but, um, also kind of bringing the people back together, whether you're on the left or the right or whatever side, because as long as polarization exists, the power exists in the hands of the politicians, not the people. Because if we can't be on the same page, then we can never really make actual change together. The app.

Rob: 4:57

How would it be laid out? It would fact check things. Or because right now we have moderators, how do we even fact check things? Community notes, community notes, community notes that's what it is.

Thomas Moore: 5:06

Community notes has certainly become the thing that everybody's kind of switching to, because fact checkers just come with political bias.

Thomas Moore: 5:13

And community notes do too. But I guess community notes people can community note a community note and everybody can just sit there and provide facts for whatever. So Politorium this is kind of the sequence that makes Politorium work. It's a group of features, functions and philosophies. It all starts with fostering respectful political discourse. People have to want a place to be respectful, they have to want a place to have serious conversations and really talk to one another and leaving all the baggage at the doors I mean without them wanting it to begin with, then the whole thing doesn't even make sense, it's useless. So that's the first step is showing people that it's possible to have real I don't want to say intelligent, but intelligent conversations with one another without just always being at each other's throats. And the second step so all of like X, for example, or Facebook, they all want you to doom scroll because then they make ad revenue right.

Thomas Moore: 6:12

So what they show you is things that you want to see, things you agree with, and it creates an echo chamber right, always showing you the things that are on your side, the opinions you already have. So the suggested feed is an AI algorithm that my team's made that basically it's not going to just constantly show you things that you hate, but it's going to show you points of view that are different from your own, that get you to engage with the other side, so kind of just opening up channels of communication through a suggested feed. That is a lot different from every other social platform suggested feed. We don't care if you do and scroll Like. At the end of the day, if you sign off of the app, then you sign off the app. We want you to be open-minded. So then the third step, the reputation system. It really helps with two things it encourages quality content and it also shows people like who the trolls are, if somebody has like negative 16,000 reputation, then it makes people be like I'm not even gonna get hooked on your troll.

Thomas Moore: 7:13

So basically the reputation system anywhere a user's content is, whether it's a post or a petition or a comment even the users carry it across the entire platform. So every single place you see a user, you'll know the type of content they create and you know whether or not they're a troll. It really helps people kind of like save time, like don't engage with that.

Victor: 7:34

And would that include things like bots that are just like posting randomly to to just get the reputation all comes from.

Thomas Moore: 7:42

All it's a. It's a. It's literally, I guess you could say as simple as reddit's karma system. Right, it's just the sum, the average of likes and dislikes that a person gets across all content, whether it's, you know, comments or whatever. So it's essentially karma. We're just using it in a different way. We're using it as like. You're gonna see it every. You don't have to go to the user's profile to see their reputation. It is on every single place that they post any content that they create. You're going to, they're going to carry it across the whole platform.

Thomas Moore: 8:11

And the fourth step we use an AI algorithm that detects tone and phrase detection. You know, like condescending remarks, like constantly, just any, anything that a person says on one side, it's always met with sarcasm and a condescending tone always. You know, just putting each other down constantly. And the ai uh, tone and phrase detection will keep people respectful and open. I guess you could say, like keeping people real, legitimate, um, just not talking down to one another like a check and balance to their like hey, you're yeah, you're sounding a bit passive-aggressive, there exactly um because it's one of the.

Thomas Moore: 8:50

It's one of the things that you know like, even if you don't, even if you're not using like slurs or cussing at somebody or whatever you know like if you're not, even if you're not straight up um being like rude you're, you're, you're still being rude, you know you're still being rude.

Thomas Moore: 9:07

You know you're still just with sarcasm and just being condescending to each other. But so step five incentivizing ID verification. Instead of like on X you know you pay $16 or whatever it is for a blue check mark. It doesn't verify who a user is or anything like that, it's just like hey, you're there. I don't even know if they call it verified anymore. I guess it's just like there's a premium user, it's a. Yeah. So our ID verification. It just uses an API system that we work with another company, that they just scan their ID and then take a selfie and it proves whether or not they are, who their profile is and this all comes.

Thomas Moore: 9:47

So there's local home, just who you follow, and then suggested and in the local feed. The objective is to get people to build a reputation in their local community, as you know, just through their political views, and hopefully remove the gate guards. You know, the 30-year city council members, that they just win every year. Because they win every year, um, or every election a lot of them, I think, are just unopposed as well.

Thomas Moore: 10:12

Yeah, exactly and just encourage people to uh to get involved in their local politics because, like change seriously does start locally. Yeah, you know federal uh like presidential politics, obviously it affects all of us, but local politics is where you live, you know, it's just so far removed, though I think like just federal government and of that high caliber, is just so far removed from what impacts your life daily.

Victor: 10:37

Yeah right, but it gets so much of your focus because, like I think I remember one time I tried looking up, it was like election year, it was a, it was like a mid-term year, wasn't even like a big year, and I just wanted to see who was running in my local government. I found their names, but that's about it.

Rob: 10:55

I knew nothing about no information on there is no information, you know what they believe, what they stand for nothing.

Victor: 11:01

What are they gonna do? Uh, I know they're Democrat and Republican.

Thomas Moore: 11:05

Right, so that's a whole part of the local aspect as well is every user you know, based on their zip code. If they allow approximate location you know being turned on, then they'll be able to see, you know, their entire, the leadership of their whole community. Basically, wow, that's awesome and but, but the real objective of the local section, which, honestly to me, the local section is like maybe the most important feature of the app, because it's encouraging people to build a reputation in their locals. You know their local communities and then run, do, make change, make change, be part of the change. But yeah, so the ID verification, it's a huge aspect because we want to encourage less anonymous accounts. You're obviously allowed to make an anonymous account. Not everybody's even allowed to express their views, which is something maybe we can address later, but if you have a job and then you're expressing, some views that you have, you end up getting fired, so you have no choice but to be anonymous.

Thomas Moore: 12:08

Um, so you know, that's that's something that we also hope to hope to work on, like everybody should be free to express, uh, how they feel and what they think. Um, and then step six, though, is the transparency infraction board. So the idea of this is every social media company, my wife, for example. She was banned off of Facebook with no explanation and no appeal, right, lost everything of like a 15 year Facebook account, all the pictures she ever uploaded, just all that stuff, right, and because the whole thing is done through, just you know, know, ai, and there's no humans involved, really also it's not a it's not like a standardized like penalty system there.

Victor: 12:49

It's not divvied out evenly like yeah, if you, someone, can get away with something that your wife could be punished for, and absolutely absolutely so.

Thomas Moore: 12:58

The idea of the transparency is to say it's a public board where everybody can see every ban, mute, whatever infraction somebody got. Everybody can see the infraction, what the crime was and who the moderator was that issued the infraction. And this is something that I think will really really hold moderators accountable because, you know, because they can't have political biases if they're completely public, you know they'll just be removed. So the infraction system works through a hybrid, you know, system of AI and human. Basically, it'll always, at the end of the day, it'll always be a human that makes the decision of whether or not somebody violated. What the most important aspect of Paulatorium is is the community ethos all working together to have this one place, you know, where we can just leave all the baggage at the door and just really talk.

Rob: 13:55

So, like, how do you regulate the reputation? Like step three is reputation part. Like what if someone says something and it just gets downvoted into oblivion, you know like, is that going to negatively impact them? Or people are just going to see this person as they might have even said something that wasn't even that bad.

Thomas Moore: 14:13

Yeah Well, so, just like the appeal system, with people voting yes or no on content that got infractions, it's going to be the exact same learning process and learning curve.

Thomas Moore: 14:28

The whole thing is going to be kind of a living thing that is going to grow throughout time, because it's going to take time to foster this sense of respectful discourse and trying to just have a real place.

Thomas Moore: 14:42

And there will be a lot of people that you know love Trump and hate everything else in the whole world, so they downvote it, or vice versa. You know they just hate Trump more than anything, so they downvote anything dealing with them. So, in the sense of regulating it, what I don't want to do is, you know, limit people's reach or like stifle anybody. I want to, just I want the whole system to be based on encouragement and changing, like I mentioned at the beginning of this conversation, changing the way that we communicate with one another and, like these, these like torn apart feelings that we have about, you know, political conversation and social conversation and making people just want this place. You know so, and it will take time. It will take time to grow and to there will be people that come and they troll or they just like, just uh. Do you guys cuss on this?

Rob: 15:42

podcast yeah, go for it. Yeah, okay, they just. Oh, you can't say that. I thought you were going to say something else.

Thomas Moore: 15:49

Yeah, they just, they just uh, just bash, like you know, content real hard and then you know they end up like getting muted, banned, whatever, and then they leave and they don't come back and maybe a year they come back and they're a little bit better and a little bit better. You know it's going to. It will take some people. Some people want this straight away and they want it to work right now, and some people, you know it will take time.

Victor: 16:11

I think a huge issue with at least with polarization and the way people have, or try to get have, discourse around political topics is that people have different set of facts. I can go and say I read a Pew Research study saying yada, yada, yada, and then you can just look at me and say that's fake. This guy's on the take George Soros. Yada, yada, yada. That's not true. And then it's like now we're in a place where we can't even agree on what's real and what's not real. How are we supposed to have a conversation then about political topics?

Thomas Moore: 16:48

Right, yeah, yeah, the whole polarization thing. You know what? What I think deeply is that all stems from our election process. It all stems from like to to to get elected to begin with. You need to start creating some divide. You need people to hate the other side. There's no middle. That's why we're a two-party system, because there has to be this polarization and this divide.

Thomas Moore: 17:16

We went from pretty respectful. If you look back and watch the JFK debates and stuff like that, they sat in chairs and just they didn't. It wasn't all smear, you know, it was here's the good things I'll do. And now it's just like here's this terrible person. You know, my opponent did all of these terrible things and they're worthless and everything. Um, you know, in my opinion, one of the biggest things that I, that I advocate for and that, uh, you know, I'll probably forever try to make, uh, try to spread at least awareness on, is, uh, ranked choice voting, which is, you know it's. It's the exact same thing as democracy and everything. It's just picking um, at the. It's just basically picking a, a second and third place so people can stop with the whole. You know like, oh, you're wasting your vote, the, the whole idea of, if you vote for this independent you. You wasted your vote, or it's a vote for that guy. It's so un-American, it's insane. It's not how democracy is supposed to work.

Victor: 18:10

I think for a time. Didn't the loser become vice president?

Thomas Moore: 18:14

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, yeah, For a very short time it was like that. But then what it became? And see I've thought this too, it's that, but then it would. It became, and see, I've thought this too.

Thomas Moore: 18:25

It's like why, why don't we just do that, you know? But then I guess it becomes the same thing where, uh, the vice president or the president or whoever is super like on their own side and polarized by their own side, so it becomes like just a stalemate. Basically nothing happens, because everything the president wants to do the vice president gets in the way in the senate, you know, know so. So I've thought the same thing like that would really help with polarization. I guess people just can't be mature, you know, and and just try to work together. But the system of ranked choice voting, which is, you know something, you can YouTube and there's some real good like minute 30 videos that really explain what ranked choice voting is, and I firmly believe that it would almost entirely remove polarization from our election process and thus leading into actual politics, because everybody running for president, they rely on those second and third place votes in order to win. So you got to stop trying to just like create two sides.

Cesar: 19:22

You need that middle kind of fundamentally against democracy you have the right to choose but you can only choose two, two sides yeah, exactly, there's no way to choose flavors, chocolate or no?

Chris: 19:34

yeah, enjoy your democracy yep it's.

Cesar: 19:39

You're still in bitty testing, right. What's one of the surprising things that has come out? I know your user base is you want it to be more rational while they're doing their discourse, but when emotion comes into play, things can get out of hand, right. So what is one of the most surprising things based on your current member base?

Thomas Moore: 19:59

Surprising how.

Cesar: 20:01

You're implementing these six steps and you're like I thought this was going to go a completely different way. I have this member base. I'm trying to get them to be respectful of each other, but I seem to be something seems to be awry.

Thomas Moore: 20:14

So Politorium is actually two years old, so I built it by myself and I'm not a developer, so I just had to kind of, you know, start teaching myself, basically. So before I I had my current team which built the current version that we're going into beta for. I built it myself and launched it and it was, you know, we've had a lot of uh press coverage, um, a whole bunch like business insider and everything, um during, uh, like the, the, the me era of building and um, so you know, we, we, we had a not a I wouldn't call it large, but 3,500 user base on the previous version and there was nothing but surprise. It was certain things that worked really really well and certain things that really really didn't work well.

Thomas Moore: 20:58

Some of the things that I guess I would say were a surprise, that that they worked was the reputation. You could like see an actual like if you look at the analytics and demographics of the way that people are, uh, the content that people are creating. Once they're like, really it's like people really take to heart their the likes and dislikes, the whole. You know they really don't want to, um, I guess, like be the loser. I don't, I don't know how else to say that they don't want to be the person that nobody wants to talk to.

Thomas Moore: 21:29

You could see like whenever their reputations in decline, they start really, you know, working like a little harder to make better content to like they pull back with like the emotional attacks, Um, and that was I mean, that was what I was hoping for and somewhat expected, but at the scale that it worked, I guess it worked really really well, because they have to carry that everywhere they go on the app.

Victor: 21:51

I mean it's almost gamified in a sense. You're trying to get the highest score, so you look the best Right.

Thomas Moore: 21:58

Right, yeah, and the encouragement that that comes with for quality content is great. It's a, it's a really great thing. And when you combine things like the ID verification so you know that you're really, you are who you say you are, and everything and the reputation system, like people can really really begin creating a name for themselves, and while you, you can do that everywhere I mean you can do that on X and Facebook but then what do you do beyond that?

Thomas Moore: 22:26

I mean, I guess you start selling courses or something like that. You know, uh, selling a book or something I don't know. But that's exactly why we have, uh, you know, the local feed to possibly make a change like speak out in your community with your now good reputation, large following, you know, talk to your community directly.

Rob: 22:46

So you said Politorium, is it? It's two years old now. Two or three years old now, Right, Two years. So in the early stages do you have like avenues for feedback? How did you get feedback from users to be like all right, let me go ahead and maybe change this or tweak this, or this is not working well, or this is working great.

Thomas Moore: 23:04

Right, yeah. Yeah, I mean there was kind of what you would expect in most apps, like there was like a every uh periodically, um users would have like a you know a modal pop-up saying you know how are you enjoying Politorium and everything, and then a feedback system system, but then also that feedback system is um accessible at all times, basically. So my, my version of the app was uh was very, I guess, low quality. I'm not a developer, you know. So what I did was I put a feedback button on every single page along with, like a bug button.

Thomas Moore: 23:41

So so, so I can get as much feedback and warnings, and this doesn't work. And this process of took four years actually, because the whole thought of all of this came during the 2020 election, where I just I kept on hearing it too, where it was like there's just no place to have a real conversation. Everywhere you go, it's just a divide.

Victor: 24:01

With ID verification. In a world that we live in now, where everyone loses my social security number, how do you guys take that? Do you guys do it internally or do you send it to a third party? And how is my information being used to verify who I am?

Thomas Moore: 24:19

So user-sensitive information anything from names to you know your location or anything like that is entirely protected and never sold. So the only type of data that Politorium sells is behavioral data. How long somebody was on a page, for what did they click things that just analytic behavioral data, but absolutely no sensitive data at all. And the id verification system is done through an api, uh, for a third party.

Thomas Moore: 24:51

So you know you scan it it automatically sends to them and verifies uh you know, via a selfie of yourself as well, the same way you would verify, like if you were trying to drive for uber, you know you'd scan your id and you'd take a selfie to reflect that you are the same person and it's all.

Thomas Moore: 25:10

You know, ai based and everything. Um, but, yeah, that was a hard and fast rule for palatorium since the very beginning. A lot of these things that, um, these other social platforms, like facebook, you know, was in. They had to go before congress, um, because they were selling everybody's data. They pretty much hold your, your first amendment rights in their hands. They decide you know what you get to say and same with every other social platform, you know. That's one of those things where you're like, oh well, in this company, they make the rules and and that is true and you know so our rules since the beginning and moving forward forever, are going to be rules that you know, support the user's privacy and rights always. And as we grow and learn and there's things that you know, we see we could be doing better, then that's what we'll do. But something like data is, yeah, absolutely protected.

Rob: 26:07

Is this your first venture? Like, did you always want to be an entrepreneur or get into something like this?

Thomas Moore: 26:13

No, not at all. No, no, no. I'm a lifelong musician, you know. So that was always what I wanted to do, was you know?

Victor: 26:21

What do you play?

Thomas Moore: 26:22

I play just string instruments, instruments like every guitar primarily, but you know I've been a bassist in bands and you know, play some some ukulele and everything. You know, um, yeah, so that was what I always. You know, like I'm a singer, songwriter, so that was always my thing. And um, yeah, I got, uh had a, had a problem with drugs, you know, so ended up to living in a halfway house. I got, after spending a year there, uh, super just fed up with this, you know, redundant, repetitive, going to meetings and doing drug tests, and so I joined the army. So from the army, I guess I got not political, but my eyes more opened up to, uh, kind of kind of the importance of politics. I guess you could say, like, I don't even talk politics, I run a political discourse platform, but I want to talk political discourse. I don't want to talk politics, I want to talk about how we can fix our engagement and communication.

Cesar: 27:21

Like.

Thomas Moore: 27:21

I can't change anything with politics. Me picking a side and telling just shitting all over somebody on Twitter is not helping nothing, so that's not what I want to do you built your own in the beginning?

Chris: 27:33

At what point you're like I need to take it up to the next level and get your team or developers in.

Thomas Moore: 27:39

I was definitely thinking it the entire time. From the start, I was like, because I'm not a developer, I'm not a coder, nothing like that. So I tried so many different avenues of like how can I do this? And this was like before. You could just tell AI because this was two years ago. So I guess those AI app builders probably were out there, but they weren't real mainstream and I didn't know about them and they probably sucked as well, because they're only okay right now.

Victor: 28:07

anyway, they're like cookie cutter, they're just like you can do this or this and that's it.

Thomas Moore: 28:13

Yeah, you can't be real specific with it.

Victor: 28:16

Right.

Thomas Moore: 28:17

And it's also like if you use like Boltnew, it's super expensive because you run out of all the currency that they you know the tokens or whatever super quick just trying to make a change on a button or something. But yeah, so I I learned uh like low code, like um bubble adalo, so like uh no code, with a little bit of code, I guess you know um, and with the code I just use chat, gpt. I don't know what a single thing means with code but, yeah so so the other do most coders.

Thomas Moore: 28:46

Yeah, don't touch it yeah, so so it was a very I wouldn't even call it generic, I'd call it almost like childish. You know, it was what it was. It wasn't. It definitely wasn't what we're about to release right now. Um, my, my lead developer is, uh, I think 10 or 12 year, uh, full stack developer and yeah, I mean it's like the if you compare mine and his, you know, nine day, but um so I just randomly actually saw him make a post on reddit that was like I've sold three companies, I'm looking for something that I can just actually sink my teeth into.

Thomas Moore: 29:27

I'm not looking to build an exit, I want to build something. And his post was removed because this was in r slash startups and they delete every like. They just delete everybody's. Anything you post, it gets deleted. It's crazy. The rules that they have is nuts. But so I managed to actually catch him, like right before it was deleted, and I sent him a big thing about Paulatorium and yeah, and then he's just like dude, this is it, like let's build this.

Victor: 29:56

So he's built it.

Chris: 29:57

He's rebuilt it.

Thomas Moore: 29:58

Yeah, it was, it was all. So the stars aligned. The fact that his post was even deleted a couple minutes later and I never would have saw it, never would have met him. So if I can just ask the big Shark Tank, it was just like AdMob, basically, and Stripe subscription that comes with additional features, the standard kind of like X revenue model, I guess.

Thomas Moore: 30:31

Yeah, obviously there will be a whole premium section In the beta. Everything will be available because we want everything to be tested to find bugs and everything. But so once we actually launch the 1.0, there will be a subscription for premium that comes with a set amount of features which we've got all worked out and everything, different tiers actually of premium, so really really cheap. And we're considering a sort of we're going to see how it goes with the community and how much everybody wants to kind of, I guess, play along to make this work. If it does go well at the start, then we're going to do a kind of like pay it forward sort of thing where you know if you can afford, get this tier and you'll get all of it and it will pay for the guy that and so so basically, you can get premium, even if you can't afford it, basically, and we just kind of help each other that sounded a little bit like twitch's, like sub model.

Thomas Moore: 31:27

If you like, you can gift like a subscription to someone else, kind of thing right, yeah, yeah, you know, um say somebody's just starting to try to really build their, their reputation and everything, but they're like well, I can't even access these, um, and I can't afford it, because I'm trying to focus on on this, like making content and everything, but I'm not getting paid yet.

Victor: 31:49

Yeah.

Thomas Moore: 31:49

You know there's. I don't. I don't want people to run into a problem like that. If you like your hearts in it, you really want to access, like petitions, because you want to make change, I don't want to stop you from doing that, you know I want you to be able to do that. So so that's the whole thing is figuring out, um, kind of I mean, obviously we, we are a company and we have to make money, you know so but figuring out the best way for for users to have full access to, uh, to the world, to every feature and function that that we offer. Another model, of course, is the same exact thing as X, like the revenue split between four subscribers. So we'll host subscribers, content, videos, everything like that, so you can subscribe to a specific person. The exact same thing as X, basically. And then there's a revenue split between the content creator and us.

Rob: 32:46

Yeah, I'm glad you said that, because a lot of businesses now are going toward that like triple bottom line for like sustainable business. You're trying to make that financial bottom line but you're also trying to meet that societal bottom line, which is what you're doing, you know, and then some will go into that economic bottom line. But you made a good point is like, how about those guys who maybe can't get in the game or aren't allowed to, because you don't want a certain amount of people just kind of run in the show there?

Thomas Moore: 33:14

Yeah, yeah.

Victor: 33:15

Rob, I feel like you just wanted to use those big NBA words. Yeah, well, I paid $2,500 for it.

Rob: 33:20

Well, I paid $2,500 for it.

Thomas Moore: 33:32

I want to also note that in our bylaws and this is something that will probably make it very difficult for us to get venture capital but at the end of the day, I'm retired from the Army due to injuries, so I have a decent enough nest egg to be able to, you know, help my team, help myself and everything. So if this specific fact that I'm about to note makes it difficult for venture capital, then we kind of just deal with it. But in our bylaws states always you know paragraph of our always respecting our ethos and that. So that's what always comes first Um instead of the shareholders.

Thomas Moore: 34:07

Bottom dollar is the most important fact. Or they sue you, you know, um. So that's like stated. You know, the very first thing in our bylaws is, you know, giving the users the best possible experience, whether that's like financial and saving them money or that's you know the best content. So say, venture capital gets involved. And they're like, hey, if we start just showing them a whole bunch, like they want us to create an echo chamber because then there's more ad revenue. So that's firmly and strictly stated in our bylaws that that is not going to happen.

Rob: 34:38

So from the inception until now. So what are the strategies that you're using to gain new users or to grow that following Right? Are you like partnering with other institutions, educational institutions?

Thomas Moore: 34:51

So you know, social media it's a difficult thing because there's no users without content and there's no content without users, right, so it's like a chicken and egg thing.

Thomas Moore: 35:02

And there's no content without users, right, so it's like a chicken and egg thing. So our primary marketing strategy, when I was doing it just myself, it was all paid advertisement. Basically. You know which, digging into what the statistics and everything are for paid advertising, it's like 8% of ads get clicked and then like 1%, two percent, even, uh, use your call to action, what you're wanting them to do, and then you know, so it's just like breaks down to like almost nobody. You know um, yeah, so you know the.

Thomas Moore: 35:30

We actually have um he's, he's not our, our like cmo, like a marketing officer or anything, but we have an advisor. You know a guy that's uh been in marketing for like 30 years. You know real, real, real tech savvy, knows. You know he knows what the modern way to do things are, and you know one of the avenues that we, you know, think is most important is, like the whole, like peso. You know paid, earned, shared, owned, really using other social platforms. You know just being overly active on Substack and X and X and just really, really putting the word out there. And then, of course, there's going to be, you know, incentives for inviting new users, sharing our content onto X, things like that. So basically the Peso model of marketing. That's our strong approach, with the paid being probably the least amount of effort put in.

Victor: 36:30

Do you feel that people in general have kind of stopped pushing for a goal of making society better, like, for example, I see a lot of people now I run into this with a few friends of mine and it's everything that federal government is terrible, they should disappear and not exist anymore. And now it's not a conversation of let's fix things, it's just let's just burn it all to the ground. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Do you feel that that's where communities are kind of set now, or it's just like, well, screw making things better, we just want everything to disappear.

Thomas Moore: 37:08

Yeah, yeah, I would say, no matter who the president is or what party is the controlling party, the other side wants to see it go. And then some of the own side like in the current situation where we're in right now a lot of the right they want to see the government kind of get torn apart.

Chris: 37:29

And.

Thomas Moore: 37:30

I'm, I'm not like against budget cutting, but um, but I'm for everything, like from top to bottom, should be audited. We should, you know, be able to pass audits and everything. Um, but I, I do think it's a kind of outlandish thing to just jump in and like, first thing we do is, you know, start slashing people Um me personally. I don't, you know, start slashing people um me personally. I don't, you know, I, I have to remain like non-partisan, apolitical, because you know, like just the my company, it would be insane for me to support one side or the other. You know, it would like, uh, it would become an echo chamber. It'd be like, well, I'm not using that guy's platform, like he's yeah, he's a democrat, he's a republican. So for me personally, I do have my own views, but you know, I don't, I don't even talk politics you know, like I said, I talk political discourse and communication and how we can fix things.

Thomas Moore: 38:21

Like you, you know you're saying like people want to just like see it all burn. I think that's crazy. I think that we live in the greatest country and to just like see so many people like hate our country kind of on both sides, it kind of uh pains me to see that I I think if we just worked together then we could have an amazing place yeah, there's definitely a need for that.

Rob: 38:44

I I was at. I was at dinner yesterday with my wife and we're sitting there at this nice steakhouse, you know, having like a 70 steak or whatever it is. Thanks.

Victor: 38:52

Thanks for the invite.

Rob: 38:53

Yeah Well, I wasn't going to invite you, but it was funny because I'm hearing this table over from me and they're getting ready and the lady's like yeah, you know, and did you hear what Trump said about? I just don't understand what he said about Ukraine or whatever right, and the guy puts his jacket on and, in the middle of the restaurant, goes well, let me just answer that for you. Ukraine is the most corrupt country in the world. And I was like everyone just turned around and looked up and I was like so this is where we're getting our news from, like restaurants, but people have these questions and they're only going to ask their friends or their groups. They're not going to be able to get the full story If that's the answer. They're only going to ask their friends or their groups. They're not going to be able to get the full story If that's the answer they're going to get. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, whatever it is, but that's where they're getting reinforced ideas from.

Rob: 39:43

So it's like you need this place where people can say well, in a respectful way. Which that's going to be like. Defining respectful dialogue is going to be tough, because I think initially you're going to get people just used to using other social platforms and ranting Right, and then you don't want to just completely kill them because you want them, you need to retrain them, and that's essentially what you're doing, which you know. That's that's, that's great.

Thomas Moore: 40:10

Yeah, yeah, there's no, you don't see other points of view. And if you do, it's always an argument. Nobody's changing each other's mind by like calling them an idiot, you know, like without just like putting all your cards on the table and expressing why you really feel a certain way, like if you're just insulting them, calling them stupid for whatever ideas they have, or even being condescending, like just shouting that out in a restaurant, that's not changing anybody's mind it's not making anybody go? Huh well, I guess I'm a trump supporter.

Victor: 40:41

Nobody's doing that you know, but if you said it louder, of course he's just screamed at me.

Thomas Moore: 40:49

This opinion, um, say, say. Instead he posted that as like a post with um with his opinion on why he thinks that, and then he ends up having some back and forths in the comments with people and um, you know, maybe not even change your mind, but have all the facts or other points of view, other perspectives, and I think that's the most important part is like we're not getting other perspectives and if we do, it's just an argument.

Cesar: 41:16

You know, it's similar to fandom in sports, where a lot of people are, they stick to one team and no matter what you tell them, no matter what the facts are, it doesn't matter to them. And similarly, I see people all the time either, whichever, whichever side you decide to be on, either Republican or Democrat the time, either, whichever, whichever side you decide to be on, either republican or democrat, I'm only democrat, I'm only going to be think democrat.

Thomas Moore: 41:37

and in my head I'm like, why, why does it have to be voted yeah vote blue, no matter who or vote red until you're dead yeah, like why don't you vote based on policy?

Cesar: 41:48

yeah, it's like again when you, when you're dealing with fans of any sports team, right? They get so emotional. And it's all about the emotion and that emotion drives their thinking and their logic. It's the same thing. When I see videos I'm like but do you guys understand? You're kind of voting against your own interests, but you're voting just because it's one side and not a lot of the time.

Thomas Moore: 42:15

Yeah, and that's also what affects, uh, like the whole. Don't vote independent, because they're just gonna lose anyway. If you vote for this guy, it's just a vote for that guy instead, because you didn't vote for my guy it's like what kind?

Victor: 42:27

of logic is this, you know I think also that, though, there's like a severe lack of understanding of civics anymore, like do we need to bring back schoolhouse rock to?

Chris: 42:37

explain people how laws are passed.

Victor: 42:39

Yeah, or just how like governments worked, or how the electoral college works.

Thomas Moore: 42:44

Like yeah, just because you know, as as we roll out the beta and everything, it's actually going to be a lot of, uh, informational type things like that, because a lot of people don't know these things. They see one guy on X say something about the electoral college, and then they just run with it forever and then they start saying it or why they should get rid of it, or something like that.

Victor: 43:02

No, it works like this and when it's like it completely does not work like that.

Thomas Moore: 43:07

So there's going to be a lot of different informational sections on how you know, not just like what I don't want to do is just have massive walls of text because nobody's going to read it. So, right, interactive, engaging. You know ways to like simply learn these things that break these, these, uh, how, how everything operates down to to nuts and bolts, and really teach people all of these things. I think that's a very important aspect, right next to respectful communication. Knowing how everything that you're even talking about works to begin with is a pretty important topic.

Rob: 43:40

I think it is a fan base and it's tied to people's identities. They are this side and that's who they are, even if that side veers, but it's like that's not tied to who you are. You know you can believe in something or there's, you know, a gradient and you can be this identity. You know there's nothing wrong with being a middle Democrat. You know there's nothing wrong with being a conservative Democrat or you know conservative. You know it's just, people tie themselves to this team and they're like well, we'll get them next year. You know conservative. You know it's just, people tie themselves to this team and they're like, well, we'll get them next year, you know like that's it yeah.

Rob: 44:18

There is no place. And these echo chambers are. You know, they're not just online, they're in our community. You know people will be at work and they'll click together and then they'll just sit in a room and they'll just talk shop all day I mean, I'm not gonna talk to somebody from wisconsin about austin texas.

Thomas Moore: 44:38

They don't live here. But where do I talk about austin texas? What like the austin subreddit? Then it's like just controlled by like powerful mods that you know, like they have all this power, these mods, and everything, and they're only gonna let through what they believe and it's just insane. So there is absolutely nowhere to talk, uh, about your local community, and especially to like build a voice for yourself and build like a reputation and who you are.

Thomas Moore: 45:06

put your ideas out there and if you know you gain traction, people support you like like, where do you do that? Right now I don't think there is a place and I think it's super crazy because we are so polarized that nobody gives a shit about local politics, even governors. Most people can't name who their governor is. There's no town hall anymore. We have a world hall. Basically we have X and Facebook. Why would I talk locally to people in Nigeria? There's, you know it doesn't make any sense.

Thomas Moore: 45:37

So there's nowhere to to really make change and you're not going to make change at the presidential federal level. Just because you're calling people an idiot on X. You're wasting your time, you know, but this polarization has got.

Victor: 45:51

Well, have you tried DMing Trump on Truth Social? I heard that word, I could jump on there, jump on truth.

Thomas Moore: 45:58

I'm sure that's not a partisan at all.

Rob: 46:01

No, not at all I'm showing my ignorance, but like how do these mods work? Who picks them, who puts them in place and how is it different now with your platform?

Thomas Moore: 46:11

The same way that you would get any job show interest and we pick you as a person that if you've shown the interest in wanting to build a strong community, then you get hired to be a moderator. And they also have to essentially be aware and agree that they're going to be held to a very tight and high standard of our community ethos and what they do. I mean it will be public, and so we just kind of hope that that will incentivize them to just remain fair and bipartisan. You know, nonpolitical essentially, and just look at the ethos and did it violate that, yes or no? You know the community terms of service but they'll be, you know, picked based on interview process, like do you want this place to exist?

Thomas Moore: 46:56

And just finding the best people that are willing to do the job. So you know, as I mentioned, it's an AI, human hybrid, so they would review content that the AI flags and then decide there's we didn't get into it but with the transparency infraction board there's an infraction tier system as well and users can see, you know, if you get five full infractions, which different violations count as different levels of infraction, like a half, a strike or whatever and then users can see what do they have on their account, basically? And they fall off after certain amounts of time, and so, yeah, the moderators are chosen essentially just through an interview process and showing interest.

Cesar: 47:39

I know you spoke about your marketing strategy earlier, but you can always get Kevin Hart.

Victor: 47:43

I think he sells anything.

Rob: 47:47

Oh yeah, you'd blow up Draft kings, I'm pulling in.

Victor: 47:50

You got to get in.

Cesar: 47:50

Listen, local politics is still dominated by elderly individuals. I've been to a whole bunch of neighborhood boards. That is just a lot of old people and they vote. So how do you think you're going to try to attract older members to try to join when a lot of them are mostly stuck on TV, mostly stuck on Facebook?

Thomas Moore: 48:13

Right, how do you think you're going to be able to migrate?

Cesar: 48:15

that interest to yours.

Thomas Moore: 48:17

So this is, you know, probably one of the most important questions because, of course, everybody, you know, regardless of age, I mean, I think we have our age limit set to 17 to use the app.

Thomas Moore: 48:31

That's the you know, because then they're getting ready to vote, basically. But the you know, obviously, like older people, are absolutely more than welcome to come and, you know, have discourse on Paul Torium, but the most important as not I mean, I keep saying that about different things because they're all like to me they're all so important but an extraordinarily important aspect of Politoreum is teaching and encouraging younger people to become engaged in politics and, while that is going to take some time, without a doubt, but helping them understand that politics is literally what controls and shapes your existence and local politics is all the same. And those older people that you're saying that are in politics currently, that's who I call the gate guards. They're elected because they run unopposed and then they're elected again because, even if they have an opponent, they've just been in city council for so long that it's just who people vote for. You've seen their name for the last 20 years. Give them the vote.

Thomas Moore: 49:31

They just become an institution You've seen their name for the last 20 years. Give them the vote, they just become an institution. Yeah, exactly, it is institutional politics and it's exactly what I'm trying to encourage change with. So of course, it will be encouraging older people to take note and to really know what they're voting for and everything. But a big aspect of everything with the local is encouraging young people to find and use their voice, find what they believe and what they agree with and you know, and to to vote it's. You know, like there's all those like stickers and all those like govotecom. You know, but like what does that do? You're not even telling vote or die.

Chris: 50:11

Yeah.

Thomas Moore: 50:12

Like you're not, it doesn't encourage young people, like it doesn't tell them why they're just like, oh, it doesn't. I'm one person. We need, like that thought process of I'm one person, you know, like it's again, it's very like un-American, anti-democracy, you know, and we've never put the focus on encouraging, um, younger people. It's it's never been the focus on encouraging younger people. It's never been the case where that's who we try to get to vote. Of course, like you know, sides do, like you know, try to target the new voters and everything, but that's just to vote for a side. But we've never encouraged and taught them like they should be proud that they get to vote. A lot of people don't, you know. So this is something that I'm really, really trying to work with with the local aspect of Politorium.

Cesar: 50:58

What do I sign?

Victor: 50:59

Tom, thank you so much for joining us and we appreciate you coming on and speaking to us. Politorium available on. Where is it available? Where can I get it?

Thomas Moore: 51:10

So as of 2-25-2025, it will be available on the iOS App Store and then about three days and this is the. It's an open beta. So there's no you know sign up waitlist thing to get the beta. It's just going to be publicly available on the App Store and then a few days after that it will be available on the Google Play Store, the Android store Same beta. Obviously, it's cross-platform everything, but both will be in beta. But we basically just want to get through the iOS approval so we know exactly how to clone it for Android. We don't want to upload Android right now. Then they're like two different apps.

Thomas Moore: 51:51

So we're doing one at at a time, starting with ios, and then android will roll out and, uh, yeah, then it'll be public forever and we expect about a month, um, it will be an open beta and then it'll be the 1.0 launch, full features, everything you know. Very nice, yep, um and uh. Palatoriumcom is our landing page where, um, you know, you can kind of get all the information, see what it looks like, everything like that. Um, yeah, so I really appreciate you guys having me on. This is a great conversation. I feel like talks like this really open up like ideas. You know, um, like, oh, that you, that is an important aspect. So, yeah, this is great.

Rob: 52:32

Yeah, thanks a lot, Tom, for coming on. Thank you.

Thomas Moore: 52:35

Thank you guys. Yeah, hope to talk to you again.

Rob: 52:38

I'll be signing up tomorrow, so you'll see me. Sounds good, sounds good.

Victor: 52:43

I expect to see you guys, the first one that violates all infractions.

Thomas Moore: 52:48

All right, we'll see you later.

Victor: 52:49

All right.

Rob: 52:50

So, guys, final thoughts.

Chris: 53:00

Don't ask me first because I gotta think about it. That leaves you, chris, final thoughts. Um, yeah, so I think the idea of it, or the concept what he's trying to present or to bring it to the public, is like it is pretty cool, like I don't. I don't, I've never seen one, seen anything like that. Um, so, hopefully, good luck to him and hopefully it works. Hopefully that this will give a lot of people to have a safe place for them to talk politics. Yeah, I think it's a really good idea overall.

Rob: 53:20

Rob. Yeah, listen, there's a need for this right. There is no uh, safe space for people to talk about things and get a lot of information out. And you know the way Tom's doing it. He's doing it in a sustainable way. He's not just thinking he's running a business, so he's not just thinking about shareholders, he's thinking about his stakeholders. So he's creating this platform. He's dealing with all these other issues that it takes to run this business. But then he might have to come up with like a tiered approach or to generate revenue, but I like the approach, I'm looking forward to it when it comes out and I'll definitely be on there.

Victor: 53:56

And Cesar.

Cesar: 53:58

I think this is a really cool tool that can be used, because one of the biggest things about politics is that no one really talks about policies. Emotions is all, identity, right. So how do we kind of move forward with just everything? So I think this is, you know, a really good place for level-headed people to try to like, actually make positive change. Even if you don't really agree with someone else, at least you can talk policies and ultimately, at the end of the day, that's what it comes down to. That's what's going to move the country forward. That's what's going going to solve a lot of these problems that we currently have or any of the problems that are going to happen in the future. I think it's a good step forward. I think there's a need for this, especially now and as the country becomes more and more divisive. I think his user base is going to just continue to grow.

Chris: 54:47

Can I say something again? Don't something again. Don't copy me, chris. No, I'm not, it's final. She said what you had to say. No, but based on what you said, I think that being this the place, being the safe place, is like gonna be the key right, because you're saying stuff without getting shit on and, plus that, you get to connect with people of your sense, like I said, like feelings and thoughts, your beliefs and stuff. But I think that's gonna be the key point to this platform, where you can actually be yourself, I guess, and without getting shit on, pretty much.

Cesar: 55:18

Chris.

Chris: 55:21

I just said that. You just said that in Korean, I know, but that's why I know.

Victor: 55:26

But when he said that, I was like, yeah, you're right, that is once again, we want to thank Thomas more for joining us and please check out his app, palatorium, available now on ios and soon to be on android. We want to thank you for listening, but before I let you go, I want you to find that share button and send this to a friend and help spread the good word of the I'm not dumb but podcast. Also check out our YouTube channel at I'm Not Dumb but Podcast for more fun content. Until next time, stay curious.

Chris: 55:57

Later.