An inside look at the moral and technical considerations of crypto social media

Following Vitalik Buterin’s call for more social application use cases on Ethereum earlier this summer, multiple crypto companies voiced intentions to build decentralized versions of mainstream social networks like Twitter. However, to create and view crypto-centered social platforms as merely decentralized versions of Twitter is shortsighted. The moral and technical implications of creating truly decentralized social networks that abide by Web 3.0 principles extend far beyond what the idea of “decentralized Twitter” currently encompasses.

Beyond mere decentralization, there are four key themes central to the idea of crypto social development: private communication and censorship resistance, moderation, decentralized governance, and secure and decentralized money.

Private communication and censorship resistance

Privacy is a human right, yet this right is becoming increasingly violated by centralized Big Tech companies who are financially incentivized to collect, store and monetize the data of their users. In Facebook’s Q2 earnings report earlier this year, it was reported the company had generated $28.6 billion in advertising revenue alone. As the adage goes, “If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product,” and it’s time to redesign the incentives at play in existing social networks. Currently, platforms are motivated to collect private information from users to get paid by advertisers. With the privacy and encryption of crypto social networks, this paradigm is challenged since identifiable personal information is not nearly as accessible — if at all — to advertisers.

At the core of any crypto social network should be the ability to freely communicate and organize, divested from centralized, corporate oversight. In recent years, concerns over online censorship have mounted, a notable example being when Discord banned the r/WallStreetBets server amid the GameStop short squeeze, reportedly due to concerns about hateful content being posted in the community. Unlike centralized Web 2.0 platforms, such as Discord, decentralized social networks remove choke points for censorship. If nobody controls the network servers, then not one single person or entity can control and censor content. While this combats censorship, it also presents a unique challenge: moderation.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/an-inside-look-at-the-moral-and-technical-considerations-of-crypto-social-media