A new platform being beta-tested hopes to re-introduce an element of what many social media companies have seemingly lost sight of amid industry controversies — maintaining a sense of community.

"A big differentiator for us is creating a space where people feel like they don't have to perform," Somewhere Good Founder and CEO Naj Austin said on Yahoo Finance Live (video above). "There are no likes. There are no followers. There are no algorithms tracking you. We've removed any temptation for bad behavior that you'll find on other platforms."

Somewhere Good's audio-based formula has users interacting with each other through voice notes, simulating a conversation. Users are recommended communities based on their interests and values, and a short quiz for pairing with colorful scenarios and responses can be found on their website.

"We wanted to add a bit more humanity back to what it means to be online," Austin said. "I think after the last two years of COVID, we've all been looking for what community means to us ... as my team was thinking about it, it just became really important that you hear a person's voice when they're sharing."

'We won't allow any language that revolves around hate'

A new prompt — called "seeds" — is posted within each community every day, where Somewhere Good users can respond to them individually, snowballing into "conversations" branching off between customers from there. This is similar to Twitter's (TWTR) Spaces feature.

However, Austin stressed how her platform will be very different from Twitter and other social media networks where online discord can create toxic digital environments.

Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk's current acquisition of Twitter has the EV developer pressing the board on the presence of bot accounts and free speech concerns. Facebook parent company Meta (FB), on the other hand, is still trying to shake off echoes of a whistleblower revealing how their algorithm impacted teenage users' mental health last fall.