Social media has evolved through the years. From simple sharing of photos and experiences, it has transformed how society interacts in the Digital Age
It also has its own problems which can affect users. There are various issues about social media that can be taken from different aspects of it. One aspect is in the creation and sharing of content on social media platforms.
The problem with social media today is that the platforms are highly centralized (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube) and have absolute control of content once it has been published by creators. That means that the platforms can censor or remove content and even ban anyone who does not comply with their policies.
It is fair to say that the social media platforms are allowed to enforce their policies, but sometimes there is a bias. Their algorithms can also promote more popular content, which gives an unfair advantage to top creators.
blockchain through provide a solution that can resolve these issues?
Traditional Social Media
Content is what drives social media through monetization. Creators can monetize their content based on their number of followers and interactions. The more engagement a content creator gets, the more they earn. This has been the social media business model, which is largely financed through advertising by third parties.
Many creators might assume that the content they create is exclusively under their control. However, when reading the fine line of the platform's terms of service agreement, a is given to the platform to publish and distribute the content.
The platforms can censor or remove content and the account of the creator can even be suspended (or permanently banned). That is because traditional social media is centralized, meaning it is under the control of a company or organization administrator.
Sometimes the content itself is not harmful or violent. It was censored based on the platform's policy, which can be influenced by advertisers and other parties. An example of this are censoring content related to politics or the culture wars.
The platform can also choose to ban creators with no clear explanation and this has happened on popular social media platforms. At the same time they are promoting the creators and content favored by their algorithms.
This is often where things get blurry because the creator can argue that their content does not violate any terms. The platform can then claim that the content is misinformation or something offensive to the public.
The creator's monetization is going to be affected because if their content is banned or worse demonetized, they will not earn. This can be consequential to creators who rely on their content as their primary source of income.
Figure 1. Social media is about getting user attention from content
to create engagement that leads to monetization.
(Photo Credit:
Web3 Social Media
There are real world examples of decentralized social media (e..g. Mastodon). What drives these platforms are the community of users who create and share content.
With Web3 (e.g. ), we introduce decentralized social media to the blockchain and cryptocurrency to provide content verification. Once verified on a blockchain, only the creator has full rights to the content.
A Web3-based social media app can provide an open platform for creators with verified ownership of data and publication of censorship resistant content. The users of the app can then consume the content.
Web3 is also decentralized, allowing anyone to participate and their content is not subject to removal by a centralized authority. A creator cannot be suspended or removed by a group or individual unless it is by consensus from the community.
This type of platform is also called SoFi (Social Finance) and is a radical shift away from traditional social media. The narrative is that with Web3 creators can own their content and earn directly without the need for corporate platforms, in an open and non-restrictive environment.
Web3 developers can incentivize community participation. Those who use the platform properly are rewarded with cryptocurrency tokens, while those who misuse it can face consequences.
The feed in Web3 apps can be made to only show the content a user is interested in, and the algorithm is not influenced by the platform. The users also have total control of the content they wish to consume from creators.
We like to assume that whenever new technology arrives, it will save the day. In the case of Web3 with social media, there is no definite answer yet, despite its many benefits for content creators like independent journalists, public influencers and social/political commentators.
Figure 2. is an example of a Web3 social media app.
A Use Case For Blockchains
A blockchain is a special type of database used in Web3 applications that is cryptographically secured. Creators will be able to edit their own content, which is stored off-chain (e.g. server), with verification (i.e. blockchain).
The content can be stored anywhere online, from a decentralized file system (e.g. IPFS). This gives creators flexibility on using a variety of storage systems without relying on a single system.
The content is protected by a creator's private key. In Web3, this is used when a creator connects their digital wallet to the platform and is like an access card. Only the verified owner of the content with a private key has full rights to it.
There are no username and logins with a blockchain. Creators use a digital wallet that holds the private key for access verification on a Web3 app (also called Decentralized Application). This is what gives the creator proof-of-ownership of their content.
While this solves copyright issues, it can also prevent platforms from censoring or deleting the content. There is no administrator that can access the content to override a creator's private key.
Creators will be free to post whatever content they want without any permission or approval. This is what absolute freedom is, but this presents another issue that will not sit well with regulators.
Figure 3. Web3 social media platforms offer creators
ownership and control of their content to counter
censorship. (Photo Credit: Antoni Shkraba
The Purpose Of Content Moderation
While the belief that freedom of speech and expression with content creation is absolute, some believe that is true only if it is . Who defines what is decent?
There are things universally agreed on that can be censored, but there are other topics that are contentious and may have been censored because it does not fit the narrative of the platform.
Some forms of censorship are acceptable and even necessary. An example is age-restriction of adult content. Mechanisms like this are reasonable and do not fully censor content for everyone but only for certain segment of users.
Centralized traditional social media moderate what is inappropriate but there could be a bias. When it comes to viewpoints, sometimes it gets censored because it is deemed as misinformation or hate. This is what makes traditional social media unfair to some creators.
For decentralized Web3 social media that is not the case since it is an open network and not controlled by anyone. You can have moderation for more mainstream users, but that is not a requirement.
Is There Moderation In Web3?
For a decentralized social media platform, to have absolutely no restrictions is possible, but is not acceptable to many. Critics argue that it can help amplify any content much easier than before, so this is something that regulators will be wary about.
Existing decentralized social media have moderators that follow the service's rules and policies. Creators can unfairly be censored when the moderators do not agree with the content, even if there are no violation of the rules. This is why moderation of content becomes a focal talking point.
Web3 moderation is performed in a non-trusted manner. The idea is to make it as unbiased as possible using elements of decentralization and incentivization to increase participation from the community of users in the network.
2 mechanisms that can be used for moderation of content in a decentralized social media platform using Web3, with a third proposed mechanism.
- 1. DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) - Proposed solution which codifies a community-driven policy-making algorithm on the platform. In this case the users of the platform, including the creators themselves, can vote to censor with the use of digital governance tokens on flagged content. It is all automated on the backend using smart contracts. The will of the platform's users will always be the final outcome of any decisions regarding censorship.
- 2. Moderators - This requires incentives to moderators from the community to and are rewarded by the platform with new tokens. The stake is their commitment to moderate. Moderators can then decide which content to ban. In order for the moderators to practice non-biased decision-making, they must follow a set of guidelines. Failure to follow that can result in consequences to the moderator, who can lose their staked tokens. This is a way to punish those whose role is to provide fair moderation.
- 3. Automated Content Moderation - With the (Artificial Intelligence) Web3 social media DApps can perform a review of the creator's content before publication. This can be implemented with a DAO and does not need human moderators. All moderation will be coded in software, and for transparency will be open sourced and updates made by developers can be verified on a blockchain. It can also involve the use of a governance token that will allow users to vote for policies that help improve the system.
Creators will have to take full responsibility of the content they publish, and be prepared for any backlash. The platform does not care what that content is, but there will be other parties (e.g. government, agencies, groups, commentators, etc.) that will.
For fairness, if the algorithm censors a creator they should have the right to appeal. The final decision can then be passed to a vote by the community.
How Does It Affect Monetization?
Those who are skeptical about the Web3 model ask about how to keep monetization of content. Since Web3 is a decentralized model, advertisers may not be interested if the users are small niche communities.
Corporations that advertise on social media platforms do so because of the millions of active users they can reach. They spend on ads that help sustain these ecosystems, otherwise we would no longer have them for free.
The larger big money corporations do have influence in what they want from the platform. Some have pulled out of a popular social media platform due to disagreements with certain viewpoints. With Web3 there is less influence from big money and censorship of content.
If creators shift to Web3, the money from advertisers may not follow. The monetization of content will thus have to find other sources of funding, otherwise the content we consume from creators on Web3 will no longer be free but subscription based.
The creators can charge users directly for subscriptions or collect tips to consume their content without the need for corporate ads. This is because creators no longer need to use platforms where corporations can have influence on what content can be published.
This can still be a successful business model if we look at platforms like Substack, which are subscription based. The main difference is that with Web3 subscriptions (and tips) will be paid in the form of cryptocurrency tokens.
In Web3 creators and sponsors can work directly together since no intermediary is required. There should be no issue with censorship here since there will be an agreement first before the content is published.
Sometimes it is not about making money but rather to publish content for freedom of speech rights which could be suppressed on traditional platforms. In that case monetization does not matter, and donations can help support the creators instead of subscriptions.
Figure 4. Creators can have censorship resistant content
and monetize it directly, without an intermediary or
third-party that takes a cut of their earnings.
(Photo Credit: Andrea Piacquadio
Does Web3 Harbor Extremism?
Another major criticism of Web3 is that censorship resistance helps foster the creation of echo chambers that can multiply confirmation bias. It creates walled gardens on the Internet that can be a source of harmful content and misinformation under the protection of the blockchain.
There have been extremist groups all throughout history. They use whatever form of media technology is available to spread their message, and Web3 is a new way for them to disseminate their views.
What is important to understand is that a key feature of what a blockchain brings is transparency. These groups can further expose who they are since all their activities are recorded on a blockchain when Web3 content is created.
Those who are spreading harmful content can be held more accountable. The community can then come together and block a bad actor's wallet address, preventing further spread of their content. This can force bad actors out of the network.
The good thing about this is that any accusation can be countered due to the transparency on the blockchain. Since creators own their content, no bad actor can modify or delete it to plant any false information.
Web3 can protect your content no matter how harmful it may be, but there will be consequences. Bad actors who spam, spread misinformation, promote junk, and abuse the platform will face backlash.
While Web3 can be used by extremist groups, it will probably benefit marginalized groups much more. They can publish their content without suppression and foster the building of online spaces for their cause.
The use of Web3 social media still needs more studies on its overall effect. If implemented the way it was intended, it has the potential to mitigate the spread of harmful content while creating more inclusive online spaces.
Final Thoughts And Takeaways
The point about Web3 is that creators have more control of their content and no restrictions on their views. Decentralization makes the network free to enter and open for all users.
There might be consequences for what creators publish, but at least they are able to express their views or share information. It is not up to the Web3 platforms to judge the content the creators produce, but to the community.
It is the right of platforms to censor obscene and harmful content, but not viewpoints that have context. It might be better to consider non-human moderation of content as a possible solution. That would also make sense since it is a difficult task to dedicate a team of people to handle so many content to review.
Perhaps this is where AI can be applied to review content before publication. The algorithms need to be as unbiased as possible and be able to understand context and nuance, so that it can properly identify whether the content is appropriate or not.
As to the argument that an open and censorship resistant social media can amplify extremism, we have to look at how Web3 can counter that issue. With the blockchain we have transparency and accountability driven by the power of community that can combat those elements.
In the end, Web3 as a technology for social media can be fully open and not moderated or have a moderation mechanism. If creators use it for bad purposes, we should not blame the technology but the creators alone.
Calling for banning Web3 because it can help bad actors is not a fair argument. That would be like saying ban all knives because they can hurt people.
The challenges remain for fair censorship resistant social media, and there will be many debates about this topic. We will see in time as Web3 models evolve and develop, whether the community-driven approach using a decentralized blockchain network can truly fix the problem of censorship in social media.
(Image generated using SDXL 1)
Photo Banner Credit: Magnus Mueller
Disclaimer: The information provided is based on research and opinions open to public discussion. All views expressed are the authors own.
