The clubhouse aims to promote diversity. Is it working?

Higgins, who is based in London, joined the wave in October last year, calling it a “music renaissance” and stating that the user base at that time-at least for him-was more black than it is now, and from the early days it was mainly white. Technology base. Now the app is taking off in India and has spread to the UK and other parts of Europe, as well as Africa, Australia and South America.

“Each of these cities has had a certain cultural influence on the types of rooms we will see,” said creator Minh Do, who hosts clubs such as Crazy Good Fun and Movie Clubs, which usually have more than 500 users in the room. One example he gave was the green regulator signifier, which Atlanta users began to call the “green beam”-and it persisted.

“In the beginning, it was very technical, but I also joined after George Floyd. My impression of what happened at the time was that the user base promoted diversity at the time, and I think it has been since then. It keeps going,” he added. “I don’t think that Clubhouse has a lot of control over demographic changes on the app, because whoever is invited is in the hands of the user.”

Clubhouse does not collect demographic information when users create an account, so it is impossible to quantitatively understand the diversity of the platform. A spokesperson for the company pointed to several top color creators, some of whom are located in other countries and have more than 1,000 users.

Other social media platforms with an international foundation are equally diverse. Users can turn Clubhouse into a variety of echo rooms, but the application’s algorithm-although a bit mysterious-relies heavily on the “interests” chosen by users to fill your Corridors make you more likely to find users outside your bubble.The application only has a profile picture and a user name used to identify the user, and it also avoids some racial biases built into artificial intelligence, which have allowed the application to be used. Like twitter Before trouble. Nevertheless, despite many examples of what not to do, the question remains: Does the company know what to do next?

What does growth look like?

In recent months, Clubhouse has begun to cater more to creators, launching the “Creator First” initiative to support Selected creator Through the provision of resources, services and allowances.The app also added Payment function Using Stripe allows users to monetize their audience-100% of the money flows directly to users, which is different from other platforms, which charge fees.

Features such as these are encouraging, especially for creators of color who are often diverted from the profits made online. However, in addition to the user base, as the application grows, part of the inclusive equation is biased by the people behind the technology. Seth, one of the two male co-founders of the app, is of color, while the other Davidson is white.

“There is definitely a strong masculine energy. The more popular rooms tend to be those with mostly white male technical speakers,” Beth said, noting that other voices also exist—if you go take a look. “When two men launch apps in Silicon Valley, they have an inclusive agenda, which is different from the atmosphere when women launch apps to ensure women feel safe in the community. For clubs, perhaps exclusivity used to be a marketing strategy. But at some point, it may become their Achilles’ heel.”