Why thisnow

We were told not to trust ourselves.

Not to trust what we can see. Not to trust our own instincts. And not to trust each other.

Instead, we were told to trust authority. Trust experts. Trust systems.

When people stop trusting themselves and each other, they become dependent on systems to tell them what is true.

thisnow is built on the opposite premise. Trust is something that exists between people. It's not something that can be imposed from above.

No algorithm deciding what you see. No feed ranking your relationships. No ads, no accounts.

Your circles are defined by who you chose to let in, and nothing else. Your privacy and your safety are shaped by the people you trust. This app cannot save you from a bad choice. It can only give you a space where the choice is yours to make.

Private is where this starts. What you choose to share is a gesture — a smile across the room. An invitation, not a broadcast.

thisnow is in private alpha. During the alpha we run a helper server so phones can find each other and so public profiles are readable on the web. What that server sees — and what it doesn't — is written out at trust & privacy.

Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this: that one does good not because one is forced to do so, but because one freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it. — Mikhail Bakunin, God and the State, 1871