super thoughtful brian + very important question

a few reflections

1 this kind of impersonation-in-order-to-connect is one of the biggest threats to all networks, physical and digital, including plexus

2 we’re doing R&D here now on how to ensure sincerity and detect/prevent insincerity. Detecting insincerity is an enormously interesting and important problem (in large part an AI and graph theory problem)

3 i think we’re lucky that plexus will be better off than networks with public profiles linked to real contact info/identities and/orwhere there’s no friction to see everything a person has ever posted (eg twitter/facebook/reddit). Though people can feel comfortable sharing relatively unfiltered thinking on plexus, knowing there are more hoops to jump through for anyone (including bad actors) to see their thoughts... it will be very important that people maintain a basic level of internet caution when engaging in further interactions with anyone they connect with

4 we strongly advise that people who are in particularly vulnerable states don’t use plexus or any open online communities--there are much much better resources and dedicated communities for people in vulnerable states

Thanks again for raising this--it’s one of the core challenges to making a more authentic public square online