A SOCIAL NETWORK WITH AN ENTRANCE EXAM.

Every social network before this one optimized for reach: the more people who could join, post, and be seen, the better the network was considered to be doing. 98 inverts that. Membership is gated behind a short, timed, procedurally generated cognitive assessment. Passing it doesn’t prove you’re smarter than anyone else — it proves you cleared a specific, documented bar, under specific, documented conditions, on a specific day.

Inside, the norms are different too: ideas carry a visible genealogy of who built on them, who challenged them, and what evidence backs them. Reputation is earned by reasoning in public, not by follower count.

98 is, deliberately, a research-mode product today. See Standards and Research for exactly what that means and what it doesn’t claim.