Over the weekend, AirChat joined the fray. The app resembles both Twitter and Clubhouse. Instead of typing, you speak posts. The program swiftly transcribes your speech, so your followers can hear it as they browse through their feed.
AngelList founder Naval Ravikant and former Tinder executive Brian Norgard created Airchat, a more personal social networking platform. After following them on AirChat, I suddenly realized I’d never heard the voices of people I’d known online for years. AirChat seems like we’re having real discussions, but because it’s asynchronous, it’s not as intimidating as entering a clubhouse room and talking to strangers.
It may seem terrifying to upload with your voice, but you can re-record if you mess up. If you transmit three-minute audio recordings instead of typing or having a podcast, AirChat seems natural. 
My favorite speech-to-text tool is AirChat, but its transcriptions would make it useless. English accuracy is almost flawless, including accurate Pokémon name transcription (tested extensively). It’s unclear why or when the program converts voice straight to English instead of transcribing, but our tests showed accurate translations.
Will AirChat stay? That depends on who finds community on the platform. The feed now appears to be a San Francisco coffee shop because the majority of users are techies, who are frequently the first to explore new applications. Threads (an Instagram extension) and Bluesky, which fostered ludicrous memes and irreverence, didn’t have this problem when they began. Since the app has suspended invitations, this won’t improve soon.
The app’s ethos may mirror its Silicon Valley and venture capitalist origins. How interesting that AirChat’s initial channels were “Crypto” and “e/acc,” which stands for effective acceleration, a pro-tech movement.
I use Twitter/X every day (reluctantly), and the IT sector there is very noisy. However, on X, my feed also includes postings about my favorite baseball club, music, and the local bike lane issue. So far on AirChat, most talks are about tech.
One red flag for AirChat is its naïve approach to content control.
“We’ll try to give users as many moderation tools as possible. Our goal is to be hands-off. However, sometimes you have no option, as Ravikant stated on AirChat.
The phrase “hands-off” recalls Substack, which lost Platformer and Garbage Day after failing to aggressively delete pro-Nazi material.
AirChat declined Eltrys‘s request for a comment.
Ravikant says AirChat should be like a dinner party where you wouldn’t boot someone out for a peaceful disagreement. You should intervene if they start shouting aggressively.
“We don’t want to moderate content, but we will moderate tone,” Ravikant stated.
Disagreeing and explaining your position is typical in social circumstances. This is doable at your dinner table. You’re in communication with thousands of people on AirChat, so without better content filtering, it’s like holding a massive music festival with just one security guard. Maybe everyone will love the music and conduct themselves without supervision, but that’s unrealistic. Just watch Woodstock ’99.
Again, AirChat resembles Clubhouse. While AirChat had block and mute options, Clubhouse’s content management was much more lax, as there was no method to ban users for months after their debut. Clubhouse hosted unchecked antisemitic and sexist discourse.
This basic approach to content monitoring might bring AirChat into trouble. Copyrighted audio shared on the platform: What happens? When users dox or upload CSAM, what happens? How would AirChat handle these circumstances without a plan?
I like the notion of AirChat, but we must not be so naïve. If neo-Nazis sought to calmly explain why Hitler was correct, would the platform protect me?
