Voice, the social media platform first unveiled by EOS creator Block.One in June, announced that it will launch in beta on Feb. 14 — Valentine’s Day — in 2020. Voice announced the beta launch date in a blog post published by the project on Dec. 5. The firm also promises that it will share its progress with the community as the development goes on.

Voice also claims that thousands have already signed up to take part in its beta testing. The firm also admits that the initiative is still plagued by regulatory uncertainty and that it is still working with regulators to ensure compliance.

What’s new in Voice?

The platform also plans to “cycle value” back to the users in the form of its own tokens. Overall, the firm presents itself as a social platform aiming to solve the problems afflicting its already active counterparts, such as data auctioneering and hidden algorithms. Voice claims that the initiative will attempt to solve the interest misalignment afflicting current platforms:

“We believe Voice is social as it should be — where what’s good for the platform is also good for you.”

The problem with current social media

The blog post also explains the motivation behind the project’s development and cites an explanation of Block.One chief technical officer Dan Larimer which was issued about half a year ago to an audience in Washington D.C. The author of the post summarized what was said in the following way:

“Social media is broken. Designed to use us, our data and attention is harvested into trillion dollar profits, while we struggle to protect ourselves against the consequences of having our attention auctioned to anonymous parties, and our personal information traded on the open market.”

During the event, Larimer also explained that such a misalignment of interest between the platforms and its users increasingly exposes the public to data profiling, identity theft, cyberbullying, and persuasive misinformation. According to him, manufactured propaganda aiming to manipulate public opinion, which flourishes on social media platforms, makes it harder than ever to know what is real.

As Cointelegraph illustrated in a dedicated analysis in early October, blockchain is often proposed as a solution to the increasing spread of false information. Furthermore, blockchain and decentralization have been long proposed as solutions for many of the issues plaguing the current social media platforms.

One of the last examples was unveiled in October, when reports suggested that a Yale professor and Goldman Sachs veteran were planning a new blockchain-based rival to Facebook in 2020.