Is the future of Twitter decentralized?
The following is an excerpt from my daily crypto newsletter ‘Web3 pills’.
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Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard that Elon Musk’s plan to buy Twitter is… BACK ON!
After initially offering to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share, Elon spent months trying to backtrack his decision. He claims that it was because Twitter had lied to him about their bot count.
However, many speculate that Elon tried to back out of the deal, after realizing that he was massively overpaying for Twitter (this was before the stock market had crashed). Fast forward to this week, and it appears that Elon’s lawyers convinced him that it was a losing battle.
At first glance, this may not feel like a crypto related story. That is, until you read some of the texts that leaked as part of the legal dispute. Specifically, there was an exchange Elon had with Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey, that raised some eyebrows in the Web3 community:
For years much of the focus around blockchain innovation, has been on decentralizing the financial system. However, in recent years, we’ve seen a number of projects arise that are attempting to decentralize social media as well.
There’s an argument to be made that social media is just as centralized (if not more centralized) than the financial industry. Just a few companies control online discourse, and this has led to problems ranging from censorship to predatory revenue share agreements with creators.
By moving users’ social graphs & content onto blockchain networks, it could disrupt the centralization of social media and tip the scales back in favor of users & creators.
Among the projects attempting to solve this problem are teams like DeSo blockchain, Lens (by the AAVE team), Farcaster, and even Jack Dorsey’s pet project Blue Sky.
So far these projects have struggled to overcome the powerful network effects of apps like Twitter. However, with new use cases like content portability & social tipping, that may soon change.
One key question is whether Elon will keep the status quo at Twitter, or if he will join these teams in the race to decentralize social media.
