Blockchain based social media platforms aren’t catching on the way many people had hoped, but that hasn’t stopped more projects for trying. Block.one has announced plans to launch a new decentralized social media platform called Voice, which will be built on the EOS network.
Voice will reward content creators for creating valuable content rather than advertisers. As well as this, Voice will allegedly have no hidden algorithms that decide what you see – unlike Facebook.
Another Money Grab from Larimer?
Dan Larimer – one of the Block.one co-founders – has already launched a decentralized content sharing platform by the name of Steemit. Stemmit works in a similar way to Voice, rewarding content creators for producing engaging content that is upvoted by the platform’s users. Steemit feels like the Medium of the blockchain world, and Voice feels like it’s trying to be the Facebook of the decentralized world. Until we see some solid results, Voice is feeling like another quick money grab for Larimer and Block.one.
Learning from Past Mistakes
In a way, Voice is a direct competitor to Steemit, begging the question – has Block.one learned its lesson? Steemit is jam-packed full of bots, fake accounts, and its alleged centralization. Built on top of EOS, Steemit allegedly suffers from centralization, meaning securing consensus and voting is rigged – meaning it has the same issues that Facebook does. Larimer resigned as CTO in 2017 after these issues came to light, and we’re hoping that these issues are ironed out in Voice.
Cutting Out Fake News
The most prominent goals of decentralized media are to cut out the fake news and media manipulation. Currently, fake news is rife in the media and a few people in a position of authority abuse it as a result. They spread fake news to further their agenda and boost their financial gains – just look at how business insider caused a Bitcoin crash by spreading fake news. Fortunately, projects like DREP are helping to stamp out fake news outlets by introducing a reward system for content creators. Content that is upvoted and deemed to be true ranks higher in the algorithms, while content from authors that have been flagged as fake news receive less attention.
Voice is trying to change the way we interact and use social media, but unless it comes up with some revolutionary new technology, it could be hard to convert users away from Facebook. We love the idea, but the troubles EOS has when it comes to centralization could hurt the project – let’s see how this one plays out.
