On December 11, Jack Dorsey, the Twitter CEO unveiled an ambitious project dubbed project Bluesky. Through a series of tweets, Dorsey revealed that the project would be working on an open and decentralized standard for social media. The CEO added that it could take years before any meaningful results were realized from the project.
Plans to Move Twitter to the Blockchain
According to Jack Dorsey, the ultimate aim of the project is to move Twitter to the blockchain. In his tweets, he revealed that it would form the backbone for Twitter in the future. In his opinion, centralized systems were not adequate to address the challenges facing social media.
He revealed that when Twitter initially formed, many had hoped that it could create the standard for decentralized. However, the company later changed direction and it became increasingly centralized. He added that that might change in the future. For instance, he noted that Twitter was unlikely to expand its centralized enforcement policy around the world. In his opinion, this was placing too much of a burden on their people.
In his tweets, Dorsey gave a shout out to Mike Masnick, the founder of TechDirt, who has been advocating for the concept of protocols, not platforms to address the issue of moderating content. He said that this had inspired him to create Bluesky.
Not the Only One of Its Kind
While this is an important development, Bluesky is not unique. Various other projects have been working on decentralizing social media. One example is Sola, which does not allow users to follow particular accounts. Instead, it utilizes AI to match content with those that might have an interest in it. Thus far, there are about five serious projects working to integrate the blockchain into social media. According to Dorsey, the company could use existing standards of decentralization or it could look to creating a unique one. He believes that using the blockchain could help Twitter promote healthy conversations in the future.
Jack Dorsey is Active in the Crypto Sector
It would appear that Twitter has been keeping a close eye on developments in the blockchain sector and they do not want to be left behind. Jack Dorsey is quite passionate about crypto and the blockchain. Recently he attended a Bitcoin meet up in Ghana while on his tour of Africa. However, he has ruled out the possibility of Twitter launching a cryptocurrency or signing up for Facebook Libra.
The implications of this Project
There has been a push within the blockchain community to create internet 2.0, which will be powered by the blockchain. One such project is the Brave Browser project. Brave believes that the internet is in the hands of a few powerful corporations and content creators are not getting their fair share of the profits.
With more major internet companies taking an interest in the blockchain, it might transform the way internet operates in the future. In fact, a few years from now, some might wonder how the world ever operated without blockchain technology. This could help to democratize the internet and give people more control over their private data.
