Hey gang. A new social platform can promise a lot. My first question for William Lavelle was pretty straightforward: what is Haven Social, and why should we eventually use it?
In Part 1 of our conversation, we stayed with the platform itself. What problem is he trying to solve? Who is it for? What happens when privacy runs into questions about content, age verification, and responsibility?
William’s answer starts with a concern I share: people should be able to communicate without feeling that every picture, conversation, and opinion is another opportunity to track them.
Privacy built into the experience
William described Haven as a social platform with familiar uses: sharing photos and videos, following people, and keeping in touch. The difference he wants to build into that experience is protection against surveillance.
His example was facial recognition. He talked about companies scraping photos from the internet and using them to identify people across images. Haven’s proposed response, he explained, is to process uploaded media in a way intended to interfere with facial recognition.
I wanted to know how that protection would fit into a platform people would actually want to use.
What interests me is the idea of making protection part of the platform people already want to use. William pointed out that even somebody who cares deeply about privacy still has friends who will not download a separate secure-messaging app. His goal is to make the social experience useful enough that those friends have a reason to join.
What pushed him to start?
One of William’s frustrations was “algospeak”: people changing ordinary words because they believe saying them plainly will get a post restricted or removed. He mentioned expressions such as “unalive” making their way into everyday conversation.
We talked about the comparison with Orwell’s 1984, and about the influence platforms can have over how people communicate. I have my own pet peeves about language, as regular listeners already know. But there is a serious question underneath the jokes: how much of our conversation are we willing to reshape around somebody else’s rules and systems?
William described Haven as his way of responding to those concerns. It has involved plenty of late nights, but the reason for doing it came through clearly.
Familiar features, with a defined scope
I asked about the comparison with YouTube and Instagram, and whether combining those features starts to look a little like Facebook.
William said Haven is intended to support many of the things people use those services for, while placing less emphasis on collecting a detailed profile of their lives. He was not describing a requirement to publish where you went to school, when you got married, or a collection of other personal details.
He also drew a boundary: replacing Facebook Marketplace is not part of the plan.
Good. You do not have to be everything to everybody. I would rather hear what a project intends to do well than hear a promise to replace every service on the internet.
Content rules and age checks deserve real answers
I wanted to ask about adult content and age verification together, because the questions overlap when you are talking about a platform’s responsibilities.
William separated them. He described a proposed policy that would allow adult drawings, artwork, and animation, while excluding explicit real-life imagery of people. He said he is not trying to turn Haven into OnlyFans.
Then we got into age verification. William is strongly opposed to systems that collect more personal information from users, particularly identification documents. I pressed him on the practical side. Saying “we have a plan” is easy; I wanted to know how far that plan had actually gone.
He discussed research, jurisdiction questions, and possible alternatives to holding users’ IDs. Among the ideas he raised were a small payment-card check and using the age of an existing linked account. These were options he was exploring, with practical questions still to answer.
I also asked about the weaknesses, including somebody using an account that does not belong to them. That is exactly the kind of question a project needs to work through. Privacy is a worthwhile goal, and the details of how a service achieves it matter.
Moving your content without starting over
One feature William described immediately caught my attention: helping people move existing content to Haven. He said the import plans also address preserving connections with an existing audience.
That is key. If you have put time into building a following, “come over here and start from zero” is a pretty big ask.
Migration is one of the practical questions I want answered by any platform trying to attract creators: how do you help people make the move?
Public posts, private messages, and responsibility
We also discussed the difference between public posting and private communication. William described planned end-to-end encrypted messaging and said Haven would not be able to read those conversations.
I asked what that means for misuse and for protecting younger users. Our conversation came back to the responsibilities of the platform and of parents. William acknowledged that no amount of intervention can prevent every possible misuse.
My concern is that governments can claim to be giving parents more rights while making more of the decisions for them. At the same time, asking how a platform handles safety is a fair question. Those responsibilities deserve an actual conversation, which is why I wanted to spend time on them here.
The website and the rollout targets
William said Haven is being planned for desktop use as well as iPhone and Android apps.
At the time of our interview, he identified May 2027 as the target for beta testing and August 2027 as the target for a public release. He gave those as development targets.
He was also specific about where to find the project: havensocial.org. With similar names out there, use the address he provided.
For me, Part 1 was about getting past the slogan and into the questions. William laid out what he wants Haven to become, the people he wants it to serve, and some of the difficult decisions still involved in building it. I appreciate somebody being willing to have that discussion.
Read the full Part 1 transcript, explore the project, and decide whether its approach is something you want to support.
Listen to Part 1 of my interview with William Lavelle on Spreaker.
Continue the interview: Part 2 — Funding the Mission Without Losing It.
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