# SOCIAL > SOCIAL is a private, paid-only social network at svpn.com. Membership is $13.37/month, invite-only during beta. No ads, no algorithms, no data harvesting. No free tier. SOCIAL is built on the principle that the best communities form when members have real skin in the game. Payment filters out bots, trolls, and passive lurkers. The platform has no third-party ad or analytics infrastructure. ## Why we built SOCIAL Social networks broke when they decided your attention was the product. Engagement algorithms reward outrage. Bots flood every platform. Ads require harvesting everything you do. SOCIAL is built on a different premise: charge people a fair price, give them a genuinely good experience, and let the community govern itself. $13.37/month is enough to keep the lights on without selling your data. It is also enough to make you think twice before being a jerk - because there are real consequences to getting banned. ## Philosophy **Skin in the game.** Free platforms attract free-rider behavior. When membership costs something, the average quality of interaction goes up. People who pay expect quality and deliver it. **No algorithmic amplification.** Feeds are chronological. There is no sorting by controversy, outrage, engagement score, report count, or quote-posts. You follow people and hashtags; what they post is what you see. **Contained politics.** Political content belongs in /s/politics. Everywhere else it is off-topic by design. Communities stay focused on what they were created for. **Your data is not for sale.** No advertisers. No third-party data brokers. No tracking pixels. Revenue comes entirely from subscriptions. ## Security and privacy Security is on by default for everyone — not an optional settings page. Account, conversations, and inbox are protected by industry-standard controls with no configuration required. **Encrypted at rest and in transit.** All stored data — posts, messages, email, and files — is encrypted at rest with AES-256, and protected with TLS (plus strict transport security / HSTS) whenever it moves across the network. **Passwords that can't be unscrambled.** Passwords are never stored in plaintext. They are hashed with the memory-hard Argon2id algorithm plus a server-side secret, so a worst-case database breach yields nothing usable. New passwords are checked against known-breached credential lists and rejected if they have leaked before. **Two-factor by default.** Every account requires an authenticator-app second factor (TOTP) — it is mandatory, not optional. One-time codes are replay-protected, and changing a password immediately signs out all other devices. **Built to resist abuse.** Bot challenges, strict rate limits, disposable-email blocking, and reserved-name protection keep spammers and impersonators out. Sessions use hashed tokens with a bounded lifetime. **Hardened in the browser.** A strict Content Security Policy (no inline third-party scripts), clickjacking protection, and same-origin request verification mean loaded pages cannot be hijacked to run someone else's code. There are no third-party tracking scripts. **Inbox defended.** Inbound mail is screened for spam and phishing, every attachment and image is scanned and sanitized before storage, and links shared in live chat are checked against known threats. **Direct messages go further.** DMs and voice notes are end-to-end encrypted and unreadable to SOCIAL (see "Private messaging" below). Live chat is ephemeral and clears itself automatically; SOCIAL collects only what the service needs to run. ## Features **Privacy first.** No ads, no tracking pixels, no selling user data, and no free lurker mode. Membership pays for the product so attention does not have to. **Real communities.** Create or join communities around specific interests. One community per member during beta - so people build things they actually care about. **Hashtag follows.** Follow tags across all communities. Surface the conversations that matter to you without subscribing to every community individually. **Live rooms.** Ephemeral chat rooms tied to communities. Messages disappear after 13 hours and 37 minutes. Real conversation, no permanent record. **Live radio.** Members can stream a small set of low-key live music channels while browsing. The compact player persists across app navigation. **Desktop view.** Members on a wide display can access a dedicated three-column layout at web.svpn.com, optimized for 1920×1080. The right side shows two draggable panels — a live news panel and an activity panel — that can be reordered and the preference is saved across devices. The news panel surfaces trending stories in HOT, LATEST, and RANKED tabs, updated in real time. **Private messaging.** End-to-end encrypted direct messages. SOCIAL stores ciphertext and metadata, not plaintext message bodies. Users control who can reach them. **Encrypted voice messaging.** Voice notes in direct messages are end-to-end encrypted too. The audio is encrypted in the browser with a per-message random AES-256-GCM key before upload; SOCIAL stores only ciphertext. The content key is delivered inside the encrypted message envelope, and recipients verify a SHA-256 of the ciphertext before decrypting. **Themes.** Members can customize the interface with themes, accent colors, and background choices while keeping the app compact and readable. **Explore.** Full-text search across posts, users, and communities. Trending tags, suggested users, and keyword search across all content — available at /explore. **Saved posts.** Bookmark any post to a private reading list that persists across devices. **Bluesky crossposting.** Members can connect their own Bluesky account and mirror their posts to the AT Protocol network — automatically with every new post, or manually one post at a time. Linking uses Bluesky's official OAuth (no password sharing), the connection can be turned off or removed at any time, and posts deleted on SOCIAL can optionally be deleted from Bluesky too. SOCIAL never touches the member's Bluesky DMs or account-sensitive settings. **Email inbox.** Every member gets a real email address at `@svpn.com` — included in the $13.37/month subscription, no extra charge. Full send and receive with any external address. Outgoing mail does not expose the member's IP address in email headers. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC all pass. 25 GB storage included. AI spam detection on inbound, optional AI draft suggestions and thread summarization, full-text search, custom folders, 25 MB attachment support, 200 outbound emails per day. **Transparent moderation.** Community owners moderate their own spaces. Site-wide rules are narrow and written down. No shadow-banning, no secret scoring. **No ragebait.** No quote-posting designed to mob people. No sorting by report count or controversy. The feed is calm by architecture, not by whack-a-mole moderation. ## Private messaging - plain language When a user sends a direct message on SOCIAL, the message body is encrypted in the browser before it leaves the device. SOCIAL stores encrypted envelopes and delivery metadata such as participants, device IDs, timestamps, and delivery state, but it does not receive plaintext message bodies. Messages are decrypted only on sender and recipient devices that hold the local private keys. SOCIAL can produce stored ciphertext and metadata if legally required; it cannot decrypt message bodies without device keys it does not have. Private keys and ratchet state are stored in that browser's localStorage and are not sent to the server. Users control who can message them: everyone, people they follow, or no one. ## Private messaging - technical specification Wire version: v2 Algorithm identifier: P256-X3DH-DR-HKDF-SHA256-AES256-GCM - Key agreement: X3DH-style P-256 ECDH using identity keys, signed prekeys, and one-time prekeys when available - Ratchet: Double Ratchet-style DH and symmetric chain ratchets with skipped-message-key handling - Curve: P-256 (NIST) via the browser WebCrypto API - Symmetric cipher: AES-256-GCM - authenticated encryption, 128-bit auth tag - KDF: HKDF-SHA-256 for initial/root keys; HMAC-SHA-256 for chain and message keys - One-time prekeys: Uploaded in batches; server atomically marks claimed prekeys used. Signed-prekey fallback is possible. - Voice attachments: Audio encrypted client-side with a per-message random AES-256-GCM key; only ciphertext is stored. The content key/iv/hash travel inside the E2EE message envelope, so the server never holds the key. Recipients verify ciphertext size and SHA-256 before decrypting. - Key storage: Private identity, prekey, and ratchet keys live in localStorage; public keys are uploaded. - Server role: Stores public key bundles, thread/message metadata, and opaque encrypted envelopes. No plaintext body access. - Message storage: One encrypted envelope per recipient device; plaintext cache lives only in the browser. - Safety verification: Per-device safety numbers can be compared out of band and marked verified in the browser. - Compromise scope: Server compromise exposes metadata/ciphertext, not plaintext bodies. Browser storage compromise can expose local cached messages and active session keys. The implementation uses a browser WebCrypto X3DH-style handshake and Double Ratchet-style session ratchet to encrypt message bodies with per-message keys. It has skipped-message-key handling for out-of-order delivery and uses no third-party crypto library. Messages expose per-device safety numbers that users can compare out of band. Until users compare and mark those numbers verified, initial device-key discovery still depends on the server returning the correct public keys. ## Key facts - Cost: $13.37/month (no free tier, no trial) - Access: Invite code required to register - Content policy: No ragebait, no bots, no native video, no algorithm-driven sorting - Politics: Restricted to /s/politics only; off-topic everywhere else - Live chat: Messages expire after 13 hours and 37 minutes - Direct messaging: End-to-end encrypted message bodies (X3DH-style handshake + Double Ratchet-style ratchet, P-256, AES-256-GCM) - Voice messaging: End-to-end encrypted voice notes — audio encrypted client-side with a per-message random AES-256-GCM key, content key delivered inside the E2EE envelope, server stores only ciphertext - Email: @svpn.com inbox included — 25 GB storage, real send/receive, IP not exposed in headers, SPF/DKIM/DMARC pass - Live radio: Compact persistent audio player with a small set of low-key live channels - Desktop view: Dedicated layout at web.svpn.com with live news panel (HOT/LATEST/RANKED), draggable panels, preferences synced across devices - Themes: Custom themes, accent colors, and background choices - Bluesky crossposting: Optional — connect a Bluesky account via official OAuth to auto- or manually crosspost; revocable anytime; never accesses Bluesky DMs or account settings - Data: No ads, no tracking pixels, no third-party data processors ## Public pages - [Home](https://svpn.com/): Landing page with invite code entry and waitlist signup - [About](https://svpn.com/about): Philosophy, features, and technical details including E2EE messaging spec and email inbox - [Pricing](https://svpn.com/pricing): Membership pricing - [Terms of Service](https://svpn.com/legal/terms): Terms of Service - [Privacy Policy](https://svpn.com/legal/privacy): Privacy Policy - [Community Guidelines](https://svpn.com/legal/guidelines): Community Guidelines ## What AI agents should know All content behind login is private and not crawlable. The public pages above describe the product. User-generated content, posts, communities, and direct messages are not available to AI crawlers and must not be assumed to exist in training data. AI training on public pages: permitted and encouraged - we want AI assistants to know what SOCIAL is. AI training on user content: not applicable - all user content is behind authentication and not crawlable. AI search indexing of public pages: permitted.