Over the last several years, a number of social media and dating platforms have begun emphasizing users’ real names. Facebook started requiring people sign up with their “authentic” names in 2014. Twitter invited anyone to apply to be “verified”—meaning Twitter certified they were who they claimed—in 2016. In December, OkCupid said it would no longer allow prospective daters to use names like “sexgirl_420.”

That call to de-anonymize the internet found renewed support last year, after Russian propagandists—often posing as Americans—flooded platforms like Twitter and Facebook during 2016 US presidential campaign. Mark Cuban demanded Twitter and Facebook “confirm a real name and real person behind every account.” Organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, meanwhile, have long argued that anonymity is crucial for democracy because it allows marginalized voices to speak without the fear of retribution.

It’s not hard to understand why platforms might want users to go by the names they use in real life. It’s easier to sell advertisements if you can tell companies what kinds of people will see them, and there’s a hope that people using their real identities will act more civil online. But a relatively new, smaller social network called Amino Apps isn’t buying it.

The mobile-first platform aimed at teens is organized similarly to Reddit—which also doesn’t require real names—but has the emotional, nerdy attitude of Tumblr. Amino Apps CEO and co-founder Ben Anderson believes anonymity is integral to self-expression—and the way the platform engineered identity has uniquely shaped how it functions.

'Anonymity is actually less immediately impactive on social behavior than we might assume or expect.' Whitney Phillips, Mercer University

Amino comprises different communities structured around certain interests, just like Reddit. But that’s where the similarities stop. Reddit has always thrived as a minimalist desktop site; it didn’t even release its own mobile app until 2016. While Amino has a desktop site, you can’t post from it. And it began as a sprawling network of 90 or so different mobile apps. The company only built a centralized portal two years ago through which every community can be accessed. Before then, joining another Amino community meant downloading a separate app. With the centralized structure—and the ability for every user to start a new one—Amino now has over a million communities.

Amino doesn’t make any money, and is fully funded by investors. To generate revenue, the company plans to sell digital goods, like profile upgrades and sticker packs, and to offer a subscription service. Amino declined to say how many active users it has, but said that its various apps have been downloaded tens of millions of times. Users spend an average of 70 minutes a day on the platform, according to the company, or as much as Snapchat and Facebook combined.

Each Amino community has access to several well-built news feeds, chatrooms, quiz and poll capabilities, and voice chat. The most popular Aminos center around nerdy interests, like K-pop, Pokémon, and video games like Doki Doki Literature Club.

But interests like vaporwave music, bisexuality, and feminism all have Amino communities too. Noticeably absent are some of the topics that often feel inescapable on the internet: The tiny Amino communities dedicated to US politics, Trump voters, and Bitcoin are mostly ghost towns. That’s likely at least in part because Amino has so few links to other parts of the internet, like news sites. Many problems that have plagued mainstream platforms, like fake news, have arisen due to outbound links. Conspiracy theories on Facebook aren’t published right to the platform, but to third-party websites which are then linked to. Amino has fostered a culture that often ignores the rest of the internet.

Amino also diverges from Reddit in that it doesn’t carry identity across communities. You can be one person in the Overwatch Amino, and another entirely in Mario Kart. You can change your name, profile picture, and bio to match each specific interest.