In part 1 I declared, “I’ve never tweeted” but almost immediately after publishing, I tried to get access to Mirror.xyz (a medium-like decentralised platform owned by its members). The catch, I had to sign up to Twitter.
It seems every time I go to publish this I find something new worth adding and as I said before, Lean out and breathe social is finally what I want to be part of.
To describe lean out and breath social is about a sense of autonomy which is either behavioural or platform-based. For me, Lean out social is a social media we control. We have control over our data, control over the decisions on the platform, control over what we consume.
Our current mainstream platforms have built software to capitalise on the web 2.0, read-write protocols, designed to be addictive, and designed to take our content by becoming gatekeepers of access.
Whenever you upload anything to Instagram, you’re essentially transferring your ownership of content to them, at any point they can de-monetise you or de-platform you, but can still continuously monetize your data and content. We all know it’s true but let that sink in.
What’s relevant in this context is that the next wave of powerful social media will be rooted in ownership for users, it will bypass the gatekeepers and we’ll be able to use these platforms peer to peer with a level of transparency and trust we haven’t seen before.
This wider movement is what many are calling the ‘ownership economy’, popularised by the recent explosion of NFT (non-fungible tokens ((certification of unique digital assets)) and the rise of the Creator Economy.
De-Social
We could get lost in this for hours but let’s start with decentralised social, De-social’s is a network (space, platform, browser) that is not owned by any centralised organization, e.g Facebook, and built on the Blockchain where it’s open-source, immutable and trustless.
There’s been a flurry of recent ‘De-social’ like Relevant, Voice, Bitclout, Twetch, Steemit, Fanhouse to name just a few, all offering similar formulas to traditional platforms like Twitter or Instagram. These platforms usually emulatee the behaviours of likes, follows, and upvotes. Consumptions habits we’re already all addicted to.
We’ve also seen a rise of NFT based social media platforms like NiftyGateway & Showtime, the latter created by Alex Masmej, who self-funded himself through the $ALEX token.
What’s interesting about these platforms is the attempts to try and claw back this control and value from the platforms into the hands of the users, RevPop or ‘Revolution Populi’ has been created with exactly this intention.
RevPop is a blockchain-based protocol that has been created to ‘To return data sovereignty back to the people.’
In fact, they believe that Personal Data is the ‘world’s most powerful natural resources’ and their mission is to facilitate an ecosystem where they can “create hundreds of hundreds or even thousands of social nets to bloom; creating the ultimate “Facebook Killer Kit”.
And while we’ll see moves from big incumbents, this new approach to ownership just doesn’t fit with their outdated advertising models. They cannot co-exist.
This is where RevPop’s concept is truly innovative, by allowing anyone to build on the RevPop open source ‘facebook killer kit’ it creates a friendly competition. Not only does it challenge big social, but if a service provider isn’t up to scratch, you’ll be able to ‘port’ e.g move your followers from one dApp (decentralised app) to another, creating a truly competitive ecosystem.
This is something we have seen Twitter start to talk about over the last few years, BlueSky, their decentralised social media protocol, would eventually be a standard which even Twitter used. Jack Dorsey has followed this up by talking about the ability to pick and choose which algorithms rule your browsing habits.
Would you like to be more or less addicted to liking strangers content at 3am in the morning or not?
So some What-if questions for me are…
- What if creators on decentralised social media stored their followers in their wallets?
- What if it was impossible to create bots on social media?
- What if users were rewarded for novelty rather than just echoing?
- What if decentralised social media could reward anti-clickbait?
- What if you could pay the photographer, stylist, designer and model when you view a paid #promoted post?
- What will it mean when brands and businesses can’t buy attention in a conventional way?
The power of de-social is that it doesn’t have to operate on the attention economy like the rest of the internet, instead, de-social can employ blockchain technology like web-monetisation and social token ownership in order to create value in the systems.
Something we’ll look more at in in-exclusive social below.
In-Exclusive Networks
In-Exclusive Networks is about the rise of smaller, niche communities that are deeply connected to decentralised social. This is the shifting of communities to smaller digital spaces, creating exclusive or safe environments with higher barriers of entry.
In fact, research from co-matter found that “72% of respondents would apply at least one selection filter for joining a community: you either have to be invited, go through an application process, be referred, or pay to become a member.” Source
This barrier to entry is something we’ve seen popularised through the rise of clubhouses’ invite-only mechanic, and also common through crypto-based access to telegram groups and discord channels like $FWB (Friends with Benefits)
We’re also seeing this in mechanics like $WRITERACE on platforms like Mirror.xyz for writers, where you can only get voted in by those already in the network.
It’s about rewarding those early members for their input and their loyalties, it’s about creating inclusive environments, but only for certain people, it’s about setting the pace, setting the tone, and setting the quality. It’s a paradox, but it’s a good one.
It’s this tension that makes these mini anti-social networks even more sociable, with stronger connections through creating safe spaces for communities. Safe spaces you can’t always guarantee on public forums like Twitter.
One of the fears of looking at these closed networks on face value is that they will ultimately lead to future polarisation in society, whether that’s social, political or cultural. Without exposure to other voices, we could be further diving into filter bubbles more powerful than we’ve ever seen before.
Something which can lead to dangerous chains of events, just like the storming of the capital in 2021.
But that’s already happening on platforms without closed spaces, perpetuated by algorithms and paid ads that entrap and encourage you. On these in-exclusive socials with the community ‘ownership’ comes the responsibility. The responsibility that platforms and spaces have to moderate behaviour within them.
Unlike the neutral positions of the centralised social platforms we currently have.
On the positive end of this, we’re seeing more safe spaces in a number of areas, from Quilt, Now&Me and Herd, and Pace
So let’s imagine social media without bots or trolls? Space where everyone has a verified pseudonymous identity?
That’s exactly what Proof of Humanity is exploring. While being built with the predominant intention of a universal basic income, the verification could work as a powerful digital identifier for social media communities. Lukso’s ECR275 standard is trying to do the same. These are just two ways that you could create safe spaces within virtual communities, without giving up your identity. So while you remained pseudonymous, you could still be accountable for your behaviour.
So there will be no next Instagram, but what will unfold could be both all-consuming as we saw in Lean in social or finally give us what we need in Lean out social.
In this new era of social, it will continue to change at a pace too overwhelming to keep up, and by the time this is published something new will have emerged, something which may tip the scales to a lean out and breath social.
That’s a social I want to build.
