Following the purchase of Twitter by billionaire investor Elon Musk, media platforms and celebrities, who disagree with his stance on free speech, have been increasingly discussing the creation of an alternative. One Israeli entrepreneur did more than just talk – he started Post, a new social network.

Noam Bardin, former CEO of Waze, developed a new text based social network which aims to compete with Twitter. According to its founder, more than 300,000 individuals have already registered since its introduction two weeks ago, with sixty-five thousand already being granted access. However, no official date has been given as of yet.

According to Bardin, what makes Post stand out is the fact that it employs a financial model that allows it to exist without commercials. The model enables users to independently acquire content from a range of media entities. The founder, who continues to use his Twitter account, posted, “I’ve been working lately on the space between News & Social Media. I believe the future newspaper is the feed and want to make it more civil for users, profitable for publishers and better for society.”

The ongoing criticism of Twitter after Musk’s takeover contributed to Post’s relatively rapid rise. In his tweets Bardin critises its main competitor and asserts that his creation will be superior in many aspects. In his tweet, he wrote, ” I want to make it as diverse as possible within our rules (i.e. no nazi’s, antisemites, bigots, racists, homophobes, misogynists – there are enough platforms for them).”

of the platform and I want to make it as diverse as possible within our rules (i.e. no nazi’s, antisemites, bigots, racists, homophobes, misogynists – there are enough platforms for them). Please be patient and believe me we are working as hard (-core) as possible

— Noam Bardin (@noam) November 20, 2022

It has to be noted, the Post’s interface is similar to that of Twitter. You can upload posts, follow other users, give likes, etc. There is currently no algorithm that suggests or prioritises material, therefore, the user experience is the same for everybody and the posts are displayed in the order they were uploaded.

This is not Bardin’s first effort to launch a newspaper business model-focused start-up in the digital space. Only last year, he created a new company called Paygo Media, which offered the concept of paying for reading specific articles rather than paying a fixed subscription fee. Paygo Media ultimately failed due to a lack of cooperation with content providers and large newspapers, and the service was discontinued.

However, Bardin is not giving up. After securing investments from a private American venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and Scott Galloway, he is looking to establish a social network that will attract readers and serve as a platform to attract the big media players in the field to collaborate with the new model of payment for individual articles, as opposed to a traditional paywall.