Rappler Communities: Platform FAQs

What is Rappler Communities? 

Rappler Communities is an online safe space for all. It’s available on Android and iOS, and on communities.rappler.com on the web.

At the core of Rappler Communities is you. In secure and responsibly moderated chat rooms, we will strive to build a gentler, kinder town square where you can easily access Rappler’s best stories, and engage with a vibrant and empathetic community minus the toxicity of social media platforms today. 

How do we combat toxicity? Aside from both AI and human moderation, we have specifically engineered Rappler Communities to be free from social media algorithms that favor hateful, angry content that end up funneling us into radically opposite ends, and echo chambers that disallow empathy in discussions. 

You will be able to interact directly with Rappler journalists, some of whom will be moderating the many varied chat groups from politics and governance to business to the lighter side of things such as sports, entertainment, and gadgets and technology. In the coming weeks, Thought Leaders will also be joining the chat rooms.

We are excited, and we encourage you to try it out, and give our vision of a healthier digital existence a chance. 

Who is it for? 

It’s for those who tire of trolls, and online disinformation campaigns that continue to proliferate on status quo social media. It’s for those who believe that there can be an alternative space for expressing ourselves online – one untainted by intrusive data collection practices, aggressive online ad targeting, and inflammatory algorithms. 

It’s for those who believe that free speech isn’t absolute, but rather it should involve a sense of responsibility and welfare for all the other members in the community, and society at large. 

Does this need a subscription? 

No. Joining is completely free. 

All that Rappler Communities asks from every member is to help in building and nurturing the community – which, at the minimum, just means following a few simple house rules, such as no personal attacks and no swearing. 

Simply log in with your existing Rappler account or sign up by providing basic details like name, email, password, and location. This aids our development team in enhancing user experience and resolving any app-related issues. You can also log in via your Google, Apple, Facebook, or X accounts.

What makes it different from other news apps? 

Our app merges two things: our stories, and our communities. A tab for news shows you everything you’d see on our main website. 

The Communities tab on the app and the communities.rappler.com website let you immediately discuss these stories – or whatever hot topic that’s happening that day, say, from Blackpink finally renewing their contract with their management, La Salle winning the basketball championship, or maybe, tips on avoiding scams. 

This merging of the two represents our vision for building an environment conducive to respectful, diverse, and ultimately, action-inspiring dialogues.

The two cannot exist without the other. Trustworthy information and news cannot survive in the toxic environment of today’s social media platforms. And a positive, empathic community is not possible where malicious, manipulative content is allowed to thrive. 

Why do you need communities for the future of news? 

The current information ecosystem in which online communities find themselves is prone to manipulation and favors inflammatory content that can often drown truthful information and news. News dies in such an environment.

If you’ve found that things sometimes don’t make sense anymore on your feeds, that’s all thanks to the information dystopia. On our app, we don’t promise utopia, but we promise a real, kind community – the type where some manner of integrity is valued, and hence, it is one that makes sense.

You can read our other FAQs here:

Rappler Communities: Tech FAQs

Rappler Communities: FAQs on community-building initiatives

 – Rappler.com