ClubHouseTea #007: Reverse-Engineering A Hall Pass
The geometry of belief in this public square is polarizing, yet everybody wants a piece of it even if solace in solidarity co-opts security.
Welcome to ClubhouseTea ~ where the tea is steaming and the vibes are intriguing 🍵
Cultural snapshot - seven weeks, screaming completion.
Clubhouse Town Hall notes will be included in this issue
10M+ weekly active users on Clubhouse this week, confirmed by Rohan Seth
assume every conversation on Clubhouse is in the public square 💭
“Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”
Edward Snowden
Since the early days of Clubhouse, users have attributed the ambigious question of security on the platform as if all of the conversations we’ve had so far have been in a public square or a coffee shop. And yet, as the platform has continued to scale, some users have chosen to detach that ideal momentarily for peace of mind or even shitposting. We’ve speculated about what pockets of users exist in certain environments that may not appear in our hallways (i.e. whether a QAnon pocket on Clubhouse exists) or whether certain human transgressions like insider trading have been committed on the platform, but what has been tangible in public conversation, as of late, has been findings from the Stanford Internet Observatory.
What was spoken in abstracts about the foundation of Clubhouse has transpired into something entirely new with the public knowledge that Agora1 provides voice-backend infrastructure to Clubhouse. Tony Wang, the co-founder and Agora’s head of Asia Pacific and emerging markets, even agreed to an exclusive interview with South China Morning Post to reinforce a notion that Agora does not store public audio data or metadata despite criticism implying the opposite. However, Agora’s obligations to China’s cybersecurity laws legally requires Agora to assist in locating audio, should the government classify the audible material as one that jeopardizes national security.
This infrastructure isn’t cheap either. According to Stanislav Zayarsky at Trembit, it was deduced that Clubhouse will spend an average of $1.4M/month for audio streaming only and DTF Capital has speculated that as the scale of Clubhouse’s user acquisiton growth becomes exponential over the next coming months, that over $400M will be paid out to Agora. We can only speculate that the priority to build out their individual infrastructure for Clubhouse becomes dire and that they will need either switch audio infrastructure vendors or negotiate the price down.
Clubhouse’s dependence on the Agora infrastructure has also drawn the ire from its own community, who have attributed the report from SIO with great concern. In response to a scandal in which somebody was able to provide a open-source application layer that streamed Clubhouse audio feeds from multiple rooms, a room was created called “🚨 opench.aix.uy 🚨 is rerouting audio of all rooms” to address concerns within the community. Some east Asian users most notably in a room set up by Mandarin Learners Club also voiced concerns about potential state actors and third parties siphoning audio from these rooms and used for nefarious purposes such as surveillance. And as a result, some Clubhouse users took it upon themselves to silently protest the hack and siphoning of Clubhouse’s API access by writing out on their bio the exact user that was perpetrating this third-party access: Ai Eks.
A spokesperson from Clubhouse, Reema Bahnasy, had attributed that the user’s transgressions into the platform resulted in the permanent suspension of Clubhouse user and that they were installing new safeguards to prevent a repeat. A potential safeguard that we are able to surmise for Clubhouse is that they will prevent accounts from being able to access multiple rooms at once; in the past, Clubhouse users were able to replicate their presence within multiple rooms by using multiple devices on the same account. This method of replicating presence is how Ai-Eks was able to populate their Clubhouse audio player with thousands of rooms and does elicit concern about what other ghost accounts are employed on the network, primarily for data collection or surveillance.
Cultural Snapshot - Week Seven (Primary Happenings)
AI Add-On
Because Clubhouse API was open-sourced, individuals were able to manipulate and replicate the app. One Russian hacker, Gregory Klyushinikov wrote a Clubhouse copycat in one day and published it on GitHub. In a thread he revealed his use of the Agora infrastructure, PubNub and AWS. Unlike ClubHouse, his workaround of the app is accessible on Android. However, it doesn't always work.
The effort to reverse-engineer Clubhouse in China has pushed a Chinese bootleg version of Clubhouse on the Wechat infrastructure aptly titled “Clubhorse”, a title that alludes to the character of Bojack Horseman and the polarity between optimism and pessimism that can be found on the platform. The Global Times reported that Clubhorse was shut down by Wechat shortly after it had launched, primarily because it was “suspected of disrupting official service functions” and “infringing on the legal rights and interests of others."It's no surprise the app was banned in China, especially as it was easy to spread anti-CCP information.
Because Clubhouse’s API could easily be found on the internet, individuals in countries where Clubhouse is banned or under intense scrutiny from the government can make copycats. Users in some countries will possibly see their user experience on Clubhouse hindered greatly, withheld, or migrated onto a more localized social audio app.
Privyet Russia!
Alas, several nations found its home on ClubHouse this week. Users in the western world saw a surge in Russian and Eastern European rooms in their hallway.
With individuals from countries like Kazakhstan and Russia on the app, there may be some new political conversations on relations between Europe and its neighbors in NATO. Perhaps Putin will make an appearance on the platform, too. In fact, Elon Musk has invited the leader to a conversation on platform. The Kremlin responded, "very interesting."
The Lone Star State Struggles In A Winter Storm
The state of Texas faced a severe winter storm that crippled a lot of their utility infrastructure on the 8th of February. There were tweets detailing the account of the storm and the aftermath, but naturally people from Texas flocked onto Clubhouse when they were able to give firsthand testimony updates. Many Texans over the past week were left to deal with the fallout of their beaten-down public utility infrastructure, without electricity as well as heating and clean water in freezing temperatures.
Most Texan homes are not designed to insulate heat, but instead were designed to seep out heat from homes in times where the heat proved unbearable. This natural design in Texan homes made it difficult for people to find warmth amidst a several day blackout for most communities. The fluctuation of temperature rendered damages upon the pipes in some homes and caused water damage to property. Hotels were booked out of rooms entirely, being that electricity still remained for some parts of downtown areas. Many people were left sleep in their cars and vacate their homes in a matter of state crisis.
In regards to activity on Clubhouse et up to discuss what was happening in Texas, it was a range of conversational rooms whether it was in the ATX Tech Community club with “Is everyone doing okay in Texas? ❄️🥶 Updates + News + Help” or The Arcade club in which rapper The Game led a room called “LIGHTING UP TEXAS: Exposing Corruption Providing Relief”. Many rooms throughout the week proliferated to detail any updates they were able to give that differed from the official news reporting coming out the area. A story from Clubhouse user Edward Castillo managed to touch the hearts of everybody who gave him the platform speak as he detailed having to run packages of water and pizza boxes in bulk to help his South Austin neighborhood survive this crisis.
And after hearing this account from Castillo, Noelle Chestnut Whitmore along with several members of the Clubhouse community came together to create a charity intiative called #CHLOVESTEXAS. It was a fundraiser and a benefit concert that was made to funnel donations from the Clubhouse community onto several charity organizations and food banks that work locally in Texan cities. The intiative managed to raise over $76K to local Texas nonprofit organizations.
Welcome Joe Rogan 🤔
Joe Rogan has finally joined Clubhouse. Onboarded by Tim Dillon, Rogan was entranced with a room that capped out at 8K+ people in its peak. It was a welcome room with guests Lex Friedman, Eric Weinstein, Brett Weinstein, and Naval. During this conversation, Rogan became interested in the potential of Clubhouse and noticably surprised at how frictionless the conversation was with Dillon on a social audio platform. He did comment that he is probably unable to commit more time to Clubhouse due to having errands he needs to work on and mention that “smart people waste time on this” before sneaking off a quick chuckle. He discussed that people take survival for granted and talked about the aftermath of the Texas snowpocalypse, suggests that this vulnerability was not bad because we used to live on dirt floors and we used to not have electricity. He goes on to advocate for people to become preppers in order to survive, especially with a lack of infrastructure.
An interesting implication with Rogan’s arrival on the platform is that Spotify’s contract with Rogan may not cover the nature of synchronous social audio and may drive this point further that Spotify may stipulate restrictions on its talent accessing other social audio interfaces like Clubhouse. When Eric Weinstein voices his surprise about Joe Rogan being on Clubhouse and assumes that Spotify has control of personalities like Rogan, he does mention that a postured question they’ve been discussing is whether it disrupts and kills long-form podcasting. Joe retorts, “If this somehow kills long-form podcasting, then it deserved to die.”
Beware of Clubhouse When Discussing The Thai Monarchy
In Thailand, there is a controversial and strict enforcement of its lèse-majesté law, which forbids any insult to the monarchy and imposes criminal punishment on anybody who seeks to defame the Thai monarchy. The role of the palace has been especially controversial as a movement of pro-democracy protesters seek to abolish a kingdom where an arch-royalist army and aristocracy is allowed to influence the sphere of Thai politics. The role of the lèse-majesté law has been exercised by King Maha Vajiralongkorn to muzzle pro-democracy activists.
That same treatment to pro-democracy activists is also being exercised in accordance from a bold declaration the Thai government issued its citizens about Clubhouse last Wednesday. Clubhouse has seen a large influx number of Thai users joining its platform after Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a prominent Japan-based critic of the Thai palace, joined on Friday and started discussing the monarchy. According to Reuters, the room hit max cap real fast.
Digital minister Puttipong Punnakanta had mentioned that the Thai authorities were monitoring Clubhouse users, political groups, and conversations fostered on the app that insinuate “false information” and violations of the law. The implications of state surveillance on Clubhouse has been a frequently discussed topic; “being invited for tea”2 has been a conversation starter for Chinese Clubhouse. The insinuation in regards to Thai authorities monitoring Clubhouse users, political groups, and conversations on the app imply that they are scraping user data or that they have a suitable method for disseminating multiple audio feeds. It is most likely that Thai state actors recording Thai-based conversations on Clubhouse to use as legal evidence against dissenters.
To what extent is state surveillance on Clubhouse permissible with a controversial subject as a lèse-majesté law? Would Clubhouse audio be admissible as legal evidence? It is a troubling, dystopic subject that deliberately postures this question of localized enforcement being subject for the world of social audio, that the synchronous audio format will come in the crosshairs of free speech practices that each respective country will continue to uphold.
Cultural Snapshot - Week Seven (Ancillary Happenings)
Fewocious x Two Feet hosted an AMA on Clubhouse with their latest NFT collaboration on NiftyGateway worth more than $700K, titled “FEWOCIOUS epic talk with epic people”. NFT collectors, crypto artists, and curious users tuned into this chat. They discussed the ownership aspect of NFTs, the collector-artist relationship, the music industry, the process of creation, etc.
If you’ve been on Clubhouse for a bit, you will notice that the room capacity of any given Clubhouse room continues to expand. The server blackouts have become more noticeable and are to be expected; sometimes, we question what 8,000 person room is deterring the user experience.
Last Thursday, several Clubhouse users experienced difficulty accessing the Clubhouse app due to a SSL certification error tied to certain wifi routers in the Xfinity/Comcast. Their DNS servers are not properly resolving the SSL transfer layer/protocol to Clubhouse servers, causing the issue. Users had to quickly resolve this inconvenience by using cellular data or by using a VPN to bypass the ISP’s DNS servers.
On Monday February 15th, there was a room called "Shoot your shot NYU girls" re-appropriating Black CH”; it had ultimately come together to discuss the suspicious rise and adoption of the Shoot Your Shot brand and whether the overnight popularity of “Shoot Your Shot NYU Girls roasting tech bros” was appropriating Black Clubhouse given factors like the internal push from Clubhouse staff, sponsorships, and the existing rhetoric with tech twitter regarding their “shoot your shot” room as content innovation. We actually did an entire issue on this topic that you can check out here. In the aftermath of this community-driven room talking about cultural appropriation of “Shoot Your Shot”, the folks behind Shotsclub no longer use “Shoot your shot” in their room title and have opted with something simpler like “Welcome to Simp Nation: NYU Girls”.
More companies are actively participating on Clubhouse with open development phases on product roadmaps (Gumroad), some all hands on deck meetings with a concise topic to discuss (Creator economy with Julian Shapiro and On Deck team), abstract creative (Kool Aid man on Clubhouse), and the occasional kickback session from record labels (Anjunafamily: Friday beers with Anjunabeats and Anjunadeep, Dirtybird, etc).
Missed the Clubhouse Town Hall Sunday morning?
Here’s an outline:
It’s the second-to-last Clubhouse Town Hall of February (2.21.21) and this Town Hall is very Q&A oriented. Paul Davison and Rohan Seth discussed a continuation of their product roadmap conversation from last week. Let’s dive into it:
Over 10K+ users tuning into Clubhouse town hall
Q+A heavy oriented town hall, brief product roadmap update
Product Roadmap
They usually project two weeks out at most because there’s “so much going on”
New room cap is 8k people, but peak capacity for the town hall was 8.7K+ people
Release this week: links to your profile, links to your club
Test run of higher quality audio
Working on one-off events and in-app club creation (to alleviate backlog of existing club requests)
Figuring out the psychology of tipping feature prior to implementation: how to identify typical user behaviors of tipping? Potential hacking of tipping features for disingenuous use case. Analytics? Etc?
Q+A3
Q: Is there a way for moderators to distinguish moderator visibility4 and possibly host events outside of their club - lend their experience, more so?
A: no tight answer as of now, but philosophically the credibility of moderators will be something to emphasize
People are building production companies designed to build out chats on Clubhouse and work with brands, to gauge with demand
Specific curation of moderators with expertise handled by Stephanie’s team as well as informally within the Clubhouse community (i.e. Clubhouse user Noelle Chestnut Whitmore partnering with Netflix’s Strong Black Lead program to host a Q&A with Zendaya and Sam Levinson, for film promotion of Malcolm & Marie.
Q: Last week, you talked about the mod badges being invisible to prevent gamification and the social capital from influencing the room. Please expand on that.
A: Pinning somebody to the top of the room is a reason why people grant the mod badges as a user behavior. Pinning somebody outside of the mod badge would be useful, but the encouragement of mod badges for this reason is part of the consideration why mod badges should not be amplified as a source.
Q: Mods being paid to host rooms for brands? Partnership, etc.
A: Yes, it is pro-creator to formally support that and they want the features to be built in. Note: Some people on Clubhouse (i.e. Leah Lamarr who was hired by Overheard LA (Jesse Margolis) to run clubhouse events) are already benefiting from being able to handle official partnerships and sponsorships in tandem with Clubhouse activity.
Q: Does Clubhouse plan to have in-app currency in the future?
A: There are currently no affiliated currencies with clubhouse. Getting paid directly via frictionless microtransaction backend is something they want to build into the app.
Q: Club creation limit?
A: adminship in other clubs does not disqualify you from requesting additional clubs
Q: club discovery? Visibility of clubs i’ve created. Can we make it more notable?
A: current design layout of clubs on profile is very basic and they want to do a profile refresh. Also want to show upcoming events they are hosting. Use case here is that you might come across someone that you want to invite to your club; you can only add someone to be invited to a club by people you mutually follow
Q: Q&A submission feature?
A: spam factor and permissions make the exact configuration of a Q&A submission feature difficult. Just doing it the right way is the priority. DMs possible, submitting questiosn through backchannels, internal questions unsure.
recording or streaming rooms without the express permission of the speakers is against the terms of service. Clubhouse user Ai Eks was able to configure a player and streamline all the rooms into a condensed feed. They blocked the account and create the safeguards in place.
“We recognize that money introduces a next level motivation” and it is inevitable that people will invent new use case basis. There might be some things in regards to money that we will need to pay attention to.
Q: How will clubhouse be able to detect dangerous conversations in context of the scale?
A: Stacking the team, localizing the UI.
Visible blocklist from the respective user standpoint will be made visible
Agora is a Shanghai-based start-up, with U.S. headquarters in Silicon Valley, that sells a “real-time voice and video engagement” software as a service (SaaS)
A euphemism that refers to being questioned and taken away by authorities.
Questions are paraphrased for conciseness and due to the nature of synchronous audio; we don’t record town hall coverage but transcribe and edit content live
potential certification that displays in-app and indicates an experienced moderator, to display expertise in moderating and hosting rooms on Clubhouse