FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried has announced plans to use blockchain technology to fix “broken” social media and improve interoperability between platforms.
“It’s a really messy system where there’s no difference between different platforms. Facebook doesn’t have the ability to see tweets. If you message someone on Facebook, WhatsApp can’t read it and it’s the same company,” Banksman-Fried told bloomberg,
But the CEO of FTX wants to change that narrative by drawing inspiration from the cryptocurrency space, which has made impressive strides in interoperability.
FTX CEO Seeks Spontaneous Collaboration
Crypto projects connect seamlessly with others and Bankman-Fried is confident he can replicate that kind of collaboration with Web2 companies.
However, he questioned the moderation policy of the major platforms and expressed disappointment with the current model.
He compared the policy to a policy run by “three people” and “a broken model”. “It’s the people who run the three companies who choose what does and what doesn’t get censored,” he said.
“This will be a really, really interesting, important innovation in social networks,” he said. Their new model will allow different platforms to access the same pool of data to make independent decisions on censorship that will be consistent across the board.
But it would also have the advantage of allowing new platforms to close the gap with their already established contemporaries.
Bankman-Fried told interviewers that Elon Musk has not yet been spoken to about his plans, but said he would be “excited” to have talks. The Tesla chief recently made a bid to buy Twitter at a valuation of $43 billion.
The reason for his takeover bid stemmed from his dissatisfaction with the platform’s directive on censorship. Musk believes Twitter has the potential to “become a worldwide platform for free speech” and to achieve that, the company needs to go private.
Tulane Law School professor Ann Lipton argued, “All these culture and discourse and the idea of democracy get out of the way because it’s not going to benefit shareholders.”