How PeopleOnly Works

The platform for real, verified people. No bots. No algorithms. No outrage loops.

Every contributor is a verified person

On most social platforms, you have no way of knowing whether the account you're reading is a real person, a bot, an astroturf operation, or a teenager pretending to be a geopolitical analyst. PeopleOnly solves this by requiring full identity verification before anyone can publish.

Verification is handled by Didit, an independent KYC provider. Your identity documents never touch PeopleOnly's servers — Didit holds them. We receive only a cryptographic token confirming you are a real, living human being. Verification cannot be bought, tiered, or fast-tracked. Everyone goes through the same process.

This is the foundation everything else is built on. A reaction from a verified person carries weight precisely because that person is accountable for it. An article published under a verified identity cannot later be disowned.

Real words with real consequences

PeopleOnly is built around one uncomfortable truth that most platforms avoid: if you are a real person saying something to a real audience, you are responsible for what you say.

Defamatory content can be challenged in court. PeopleOnly cooperates fully with valid court orders from recognised democratic jurisdictions. If a court orders us to disclose who published something, we will — and every such disclosure is logged publicly and permanently on our immutable disclosure ledger. There is no silent surveillance. No secret demands. Every disclosure is on record.

This is not censorship. We take no editorial positions, and we do not remove content because it is unpopular, uncomfortable, or politically inconvenient. We cooperate only with valid legal orders. Anonymity is not a shield here — but neither is power.

No algorithmic manipulation

PeopleOnly does not manipulate your feed. There is no black-box algorithm deciding what you should see in order to maximise your time on the platform. Your feed is determined by who you follow and the sort order you choose — nothing else.

Advertising on PeopleOnly is targeted by content topic, never by individual user behaviour. We do not build psychological profiles. We do not sell data to third parties. Posts cannot be paid to reach more people. Organic reach stays honest.

The reaction system

PeopleOnly uses five reactions, arranged as two mutually exclusive pairs plus one standalone:

Credible and Questionable — your assessment of the factual basis. You can only pick one.
Balanced and One-sided — your assessment of the framing. You can only pick one.
Significant — this matters, regardless of whether you agree with it.

Unverified reactions are shown alongside verified ones, not hidden. If a large portion of verified readers find something unverified or one-sided, that is information. We do not suppress reactions because they are unflattering to the author.

Logged-out visitors can also react, but their reactions are tracked separately and clearly labelled. Verified reactions and unverified visitor reactions are never mixed without distinction.

Verified takes

Any verified user can write a take on any piece of content — a minimum-20-word commentary that becomes its own post, linked back to the original. Takes go through an AI quality check before publishing: not a content filter, but a coherence check to ensure the take engages meaningfully with the original rather than just restating it or saying “I agree.”

Takes appear in the Trending feed and can themselves be reacted to. One take per user per article. Choose your words with care — a take becomes a permanent part of your public record and can never be edited once posted, though you can remove your own take later.

Who publishes on PeopleOnly

PeopleOnly has two contributor tiers, worldwide, both fully identity-verified before they can publish a word:

Verified Journalists — independent journalists and reporters, verified through KYC plus press credentials. Publish articles with beats, source transparency declarations, certainty levels, and depth indicators, and are eligible for ad revenue share and reader subscriptions.
Verified Citizens — any member of the public, verified through KYC alone. Post perspectives, react, comment, follow, and write verified takes on other people's articles.

All profiles are verified. There is no unverified tier. There is no blue-tick-for-cash. The verified badge means one thing: this is a real person.

Ad revenue, and a bonus for local coverage

Verified Journalists earn a share of PeopleOnly's platform-wide ad revenue based on confirmed reads of their own articles — never on which advertisers happen to appear nearby, so a story that's important but uncomfortable for brand-safety filters never earns less because of it.

A pure reads-based split would systematically favour big-city coverage over equally valuable reporting from smaller, underserved places, purely because of population size — working against everything our Near Me and place-following features are built to surface. So content from areas with less existing coverage earns a modest bonus per confirmed read, capped at 1.5x, on top of the standard rate. This is a bonus, never a discount: saturated areas always earn the full baseline rate, exactly what they'd earn under a plain read-share model. Nothing is ever worth less because of where it's from.

Think of it like a universal service fund: broader activity across the platform helps fund coverage in places the market alone would underserve. More reads is still, obviously, more money — everywhere. Your current bonus, and this same explanation, is always visible on your dashboard.

Questions? hello@peopleonly.app