Island: A Human-Only Community

"Humans are members of a community of language-users inhabiting a shared world, and this primal fact makes them essentially different to large language models. We can consult the world to settle our disagreements and update our beliefs. We can, so to speak, “triangulate” on objective reality."

"At this point, it’s not if most of what we see online will be AI-generated. It’s that it already is."

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Introduction

Island is a human-only online community. The aim of Island is to facilitate communication between real people. Our primary goal is to ensure that the community is made up of only real people.

In 2025, bots accounted for over 53 percent of all traffic on the Internet according to the 2026 Thales Bad Bot Report. Over the past 12 months, activity from bots driven by AI has increased more than tenfold. The rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) has turned social media platforms into "conduits for AI-driven content, prioritizing consumption over authentic social engagement".

In the current paradigm, change is unlikely. The dominant online media platforms have little to no incentive to thwart synthetic engagement. A 2024 study by 5th Column AI analyzed over 1.2 million X accounts and estimated that 64% might be bots. The traditional metrics of success on social media (active users, number of posts and comments, likes and upvotes, etc.) have always been fundamentally misaligned with the prevention of bot activity. Selling the idea of a bustling platform ripe with real consumers to advertisers has been the primary business model of the Internet. Whether or not this is a massive fraud that is only worsening is an idea we will leave unexplored for now. Instead, let's have a look at how the rules of Island are a bit different.

The Rules of the Island

Joining the community is by invitation-only. Anyone can request an invitation by completing a basic form submission on the home page. An invitation can be given after the request has been reviewed. Remember our goal is to do our best to make sure the community is made up of real humans, and the review consists in verifying the requester is one. Island's methods for doing so are not explicit. While psuedonyms are allowed, do not expect to be approved while maintaining complete anonymity.

An account must belong to (and only used by) a human. They cannot be created by a bot. The goal is to keep the community free from automated traffic and content - AI agents, bots, etc. We do not make distinctions between "good" and "bad" bots, Island does not permit any automated usage, meaning accounts cannot be handed off to bots of any kind. Automating requests to Island servers is a bannable offense.

No AI generated content is allowed. Not for posts nor comments. However, Island revolves around a Hacker News-style discussion board and links to AI generated content is technically allowed. However, all content is subject to being flagged and removed.

Detection

Island uses a variety of methods to detect violations of the rules mentioned above. Our methods are not currently explicit, and our philosophy is to err on the side of false positives.

Being a Part of the Community

Upon invitation to Island, a new person chooses their username and pays a non-refundable, one-time fee of $10. The main reason is to provide a reasonable barrier to entry. The second reason is to help with the costs of running the community, something we intend to do without outside investment.

As of now, the mechanics of the platform are based off Hacker News (HN) and Lobsters. In terms of the how submissions and comments are moderated, you can expect a similar guidelines to these communities. However, Island is not as narrowly focused in subject matter. HN and Lobsters are computing, technology, and business focused while Island is broad. To help categorize, a tagging system similar to Lobsters is on the development roadmap.

Also similar to Lobsters, we intend for community members to earn direct invitations to the platform, and to implement an "invitation tree".

Joining the Experiment

Island is experimental. We posit that people want a place for discussion with other real people, free of bots and free of AI. We also assume we can build a place online that is free of them. We do not actually know this for a fact, of course.

It is also our intuition that people want a human-only place to congregate, but I also suspect many people are like Cypher from The Matrix. They probably do not (or at least, subconsciously) really care other people are not even real.

It may however be for the best that people do not beat down the door trying to join. Maybe it just makes sense to just log off. But if you are interested in being a part of this, please request an invitation, we are looking to connect with you!