“90 per cent of my comments are bots,” Musk tweeted on September 5th.
Even as Twitter insists on claiming that only five per cent of its users are automated accounts, or bots, the issue is increasingly incendiary, as Musk has been trying to back out of the US$44 billion deal for months, only to revive his bid at the beginning of October, just before the beginning of the Delaware trial aiming to solve the issue once and for all.
Where do we currently stand on bots?
Corroborating Musk’s theory that spam and fake accounts prevalence on Twitter is higher than on other social platforms of its size is a study by Cyabra, a data analysis firm using publicly available data to claim with 80 per cent confidence that bots represent 11 per cent of Twitter’s total user base, significantly higher than the five per cent reported by the company itself.
The same issue, relating to audience exaggeration and the pervasiveness of social media bots, is true for Facebook, now Meta. In 2017, Facebook claimed it could reach more people than exist within certain age groups, at least according to data from the US Census.
Musk’s wish to eliminate bots and false profiles from Twitter, as well as his insistence on user verification, is very honourable. His call for greater transparency is a message that Silicon Valley badly needs to hear, as much as it needs to know how positive an effect eradicating spam accounts could have.
Also Read: Is Twitter playing whack-a-mole with its problems?
The first social media platform to actually be able to do so will have a major competitive advantage over its competitors because once you have a fully credible environment, you can begin to develop many commercial applications around it, and you set an example for your peers.
Facebook vs regulators
What went wrong for Meta’s Libra project, the permissioned blockchain-based stablecoin formerly known as Diem, was the regulators’ –justified– concern that the company would come to completely control the world’s biggest marketplace without any real system of checks and balances in place.
And back when it was Facebook, Meta didn’t have the greatest reputation among legislators due to a series of controversies over issues like “data privacy, misinformation and alleged censorship”.
As of yet, Meta hasn’t proved its ability to manage the many pitfalls they have faced in recent years around security, fake profiles, scams and the like, nor has any real desire to do so.
After an initial planned launch set for 2002, Project Diem ultimately shut down in early 2022 after Meta and its Diem Association “said it became clear from dialogue with federal regulators that the project could not move ahead.”
How to solve the bot issue with Web3 technology
The solution to this is methodically separating the social media activity side of the company from its commercial activity infrastructure.
In this case, an independent third party could develop a project like Libra, entirely autonomously and without running the risk of interference between different projects from one side of the company or the other.
This independent third party would need to be a Web3 key player with a scalable infrastructure supporting an independent token, and it would benefit from the specific integration of an ID layer and zero-knowledge proofs.
The same is true for any social media company with a prevalent bot problem. Applying this same concept to a platform like Twitter, an ID layer at the protocol level, would enable a system of trust and credibility in which to continue fostering strong partnerships and seeing positive commercial results.
Within a controlled and regulated environment, facilitating the right kind of business projects would become infinitely easier, and so would assisting them by developing the needed tools and services.
Balancing privacy with accountability
Balancing privacy with accountability is our motto at Concordium, and it’s served us well. As a science-backed blockchain designed with business applications in mind, we are helping to build the technology needed for the world to migrate from Web2 to Web3 and beyond.
In the case of social media platforms, they badly need to revisit their Web2 strategies for Web3 purposes and intents, and I believe that blockchain-based innovations and companies like Concordium can help them do just that.
As social media platforms currently allow anyone to create an account with just an email address on file, we have very little accountability and absolutely no way to verify anyone’s identity unless they want us to know who they are.
Also Read: Elon Musk doesn’t look at credentials when recruiting. Is that silly or disruptive?
Casinos and online betting platforms have strict and efficient KYC (Know Your Customer) systems in place, so why shouldn’t spaces like Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter? After all, we’ve all seen how automated accounts, or bots, contribute to the spread of fake news and propaganda.
A hopeful vision for the future
In a statement from Diem’s CEO Stuart Levey announcing the sale of the Diem group’s assets to Silvergate, he addressed the need for a payment network with controls against misuse, such as “a prohibition on anonymous transactions, which pose both sanctions and money-laundering risk.”
And that need still stands; for a while, its execution was botched, but the vision of Diem and the ideals it was designed on were worthy and worth exploring. I believe Meta’s idea was spot on.
Online businesses –which, these days, means any business- greatly benefit from access to online customers and widespread reach of their messaging on social media platforms, but once Meta tried to control every aspect of such a large “database,” it became a monopoly in all but name. It was obvious that regulators would not let that fly.
A well-designed and efficiently targeted partnership between a social media platform the size of Meta or Twitter, and an external and completely independent ID provider, would be less controversial to those in Washington looking to either green light or end social media companies’ expansion.
So far, we have witnessed strained relationships between Silicon Valley minds and lawmakers in Washington, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Giving the power back to the users while balancing privacy with accountability and transparently doing it all could usher in a new era of collaboration between the two parties with one common goal: making the internet of the future safer, more inclusive, and less bot-friendly.
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