After many twists and turns that span over six months, Elon Musk, the richest person in the world finally completed a whopping $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, an SNS platform that has been running for 16 years. On October 28, Twitter was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, indicating that the social media giant has become a private company fully controlled by Elon Musk. Where will Twitter go after it was taken over by a Twitter KOL with hundreds of millions of followers?
Musk is known as the world’s richest person, the founder of Tesla, and the Iron Man in Silicon Valley. Apart from those titles, he is also a crypto tycoon who repeatedly endorsed cryptos like BTC and DOGE on Twitter. As the most vital “base” of the crypto industry, Twitter is also home to many Web 3 enthusiasts. That said, we have every reason to believe that Musk’s Twitter will, more or less, get involved with Web 3 as it moves ahead.
Evidence 1: Musk openly stated why he invested in Twitter: “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.”
As a result, Musk fired Vijaya Gadde, the legal, policy, and trust lead who suspended Trump’s account, after taking over the company. He also announced that he planned to lift all permanent bans, which echoes the idea of freedom championed by Web 3.
Evidence 2: The Web 3 legacy left by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. During his tenure as CEO of Twitter, Dorsey made huge contributions to the development of Web 3. For instance, he led the launch of Twitter Space, which is often used for hosting Web 3 conferences. As one of the top three social media networks, Twitter, under Dorsey’s leadership, became the first SNS platform to introduce NFT functions, allowing users to replace their profile photos with NFTs they have.
After leaving Twitter, Dorsey repeatedly said that Twitter violated its original intention, and he regrets the role his company has played in creating a centralized Internet. Earlier this year, when Musk showed intention to buy Twitter and turn it into a more decentralized product, Dorsey worked to make that happen.
Evidence 3: In a conversation with Dorsey, Musk once mentioned that “I think it’s worth both trying to move Twitter in a better direction and doing something new that’s decentralized,” according to revelations of the Twitter deal.
Since Twitter is likely to move toward Web 3, let’s imagine the possible functions it might launch in the future.
Possibility 1: Twitter might support crypto wallets but a Gas fee would be charged upon registration.
Musk has long been disappointed by Twitter’s censorship mechanism. Moreover, the platform abounds with fake users and spam messages. On Twitter, US President Joe Biden has over 22 million followers, nearly half of which are fake accounts, according to the latest audit released by SparkToro. Moreover, the audit also claims that 70% of the Tesla CEO’s followers are fake as well. The problem of fake accounts had even temporarily suspended the Twitter acquisition deal.
As such, if Twitter were to support login via crypto wallets, then the operation of existing accounts would require Gas fees, and so would the registration of new Twitter accounts. By raising the bar, Twitter would significantly reduce the number of fake accounts.
Possibility 2: Twitter may set up a DAO for reviewing content, introduce its own tokenomics, and adopt a reward and punishment mechanism.
Musk has tweeted that: “Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world.” However, US President Joe Biden suggested the billionaire had purchased a social media platform that “spews lies across the world”. So, how should Twitter build a platform with accurate content and information?
In this regard, Twitter could learn from SocialFi projects. In light of the interest of users, Twitter could introduce its own tokenomics. For instance, it could ask users to stake one token before posting a tweet and adopt the report/recommender function. Under such mechanisms, if User B finds User A’s tweet is wildly inaccurate, then he/she could stake one token to report the tweet. If the report is approved by the content review DAO, then User A’s stake would be deducted and rewarded to User B; on the other hand, if the DAO considers User B’s report unfounded, the token staked by User B would be deducted.
Possibility 3: Twitter might enable the private ownership of data and allow users to migrate their follower base across platforms.
In an age of information, privacy has become a growing concern. In today’s world, SNS applications request unlimited access to the user’s private information, including access to address books, cameras, and microphones, and many worry that their privacy has been compromised. For instance, it was previously revealed that Facebook stole users’ private data. Furthermore, the market now abounds with all kinds of SNS platforms, but without data interoperability, we cannot migrate our followers from one platform to another, which is a key concern among users.
If Twitter can embrace both blockchain and Web 3 in the future, these problems would easily go away. Meanwhile, once those key concerns are solved, the SNS platform will welcome new dynamics, which could bring its user base to a new height. Of course, steady efforts are required. We hope that Twitter could turn those possibilities into reality or even go beyond our imagination.
