The concept of decentralization is arguably one of the biggest selling points of blockchain technology and its applications. In the financial world, for example, cryptocurrencies have provided an efficient means for people to transfer money and store value with no central point or entity backing the system. They can also be sure that poor government policies or inflation will not affect the value of their money.
In our business world, the root cause of most inadequacies can be traced back to the centralized nature of businesses. Individuals at the helm of affairs can simply make decisions that will favor them at the expense of others. Manipulation, corruption, and political influence are usually the order of the day when an individual or a group is entrusted with the business.
With blockchains, trustless and transparent systems can be built because these applications place every node in control, and decisions are made collectively through a common consensus mechanism. Thanks to this concept, many industries are developing, but some are still strongly confined by the walls of centralization.
The banning of U.S President Donald Trump by Twitter has intensified arguments surrounding the centralized nature of social media and has raised allegations against the social media giant, terming its action as an impediment to free speech on their platform. Facebook, Reddit, Shopify, Snapchat, Twitch, and YouTube are other platforms that either suspended or cut of affiliations with the president.
The actions by these platforms have generated mixed reactions and projects the need to balance checkmating comments that incite violence and promoting free speech.
In a series of tweets, Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey elaborated on the issue and highlighted the need for a decentralized standard for social media.
“A company making a business decision to moderate itself is different from a government removing access, yet can feel much the same. Yes, we all need to look critically at inconsistencies of our policy and enforcement. Yes, we need more transparency and moderation operations. All this can’t erode a free and open global internet.
The reason I have so much passion for #Bitcoin is largely because of the model it demonstrates: a foundational internet technology that is not controlled or influenced by any single individual or entity. This is what the internet wants to be, and over time, more of it will be.”
Jack further revealed Twitter’s initiative to build an open and decentralised standard for social media.
“We are trying to do our part by funding an initiative around an open, decentralised standard for social media. Our goal is to be a client of that standard for the public conversation layer of the internet. We call it @bluesky.”
Jack also rebuffed the opinion that Twitter’s action to suspend the President’s account emboldened other companies to follow suit. While this is arguable, what we definitely need is for other internet and social media giants to emulate Twitter’s incoming decentralized social media standard.