Twitter Makes A Bet On Protocols Over Platforms

from the well-this-is-nice dept

It looks like Twitter is making a bet on protocols over platforms for its future.

Twitter is funding a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media. The goal is for Twitter to ultimately be a client of this standard. 🧵 — jack 🌍🌏🌎 (@jack) December 11, 2019

Nearly five years ago, I first wrote about the idea of why protocols are a better approach than platforms for various internet platforms struggling with content moderation issues. In that first post discussing it, I talked about two companies that I thought might benefit most from such an approach: Twitter and Reddit. Over the intervening years, I've been thinking, talking, and writing on this subject quite a bit, including the big paper I released with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech. That details a variety of different ideas regarding how we might move to a world dominated by protocols, rather than just centralized, proprietary, siloed platforms.

First, we’re facing entirely new challenges centralized solutions are struggling to meet. For instance, centralized enforcement of global policy to address abuse and misleading information is unlikely to scale over the long-term without placing far too much burden on people. — jack 🌍🌏🌎 (@jack) December 11, 2019

In the paper I talk about whether or not it makes sense for a larger company to adopt a protocol approach and to move away from a platform-based world. I've been talking this over with a variety of folks in and out of the tech world for years, and kept getting told that there was no way any company would voluntarily move in such a direction. And, after watching Facebook's weird approach with Libra (which is already looking like a flop), it only seemed to confirm that many of these companies are simply too entrenched in the platform model.

Third, existing social media incentives frequently lead to attention being focused on content and conversation that sparks controversy and outrage, rather than conversation which informs and promotes health. — jack 🌍🌏🌎 (@jack) December 11, 2019

And yet... just a little while ago, Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey has announced that Twitter is going to start experimenting with protocols as a different approach to how the company might architect its business (and, yes, he cites my paper in his announcement). This is not, by any means, them jumping off the high dive into the world of protocols, but more a toe in the water. Basically, Twitter is going to seed fund an outside team, called BlueSky, that will be charged with creating an open and decentralized protocol standard for social media which Twitter might eventually use for its own system.

Finally, new technologies have emerged to make a decentralized approach more viable. Blockchain points to a series of decentralized solutions for open and durable hosting, governance, and even monetization. Much work to be done, but the fundamentals are there. — jack 🌍🌏🌎 (@jack) December 11, 2019

There are a lot of challenges here -- and many reasons why this project could fail. There are a bunch of existing teams trying to build their own protocol approaches for this as well. But, I think it is notable that Twitter, specifically (the same company I first wrote about regarding this approach five years ago) has decided to take a serious look at moving in this direction. I appreciate that Twitter is not shying away from the challenges and potential pitfalls to this approach, but going in with eyes wide open, suggesting that this is an experiment worth exploring.

There are MANY challenges to make this work that Twitter would feel right becoming a client of this standard. Which is why the work must be done transparently in the open, not owned by any single private corporation, furthering the open & decentralized principles of the internet. — jack 🌍🌏🌎 (@jack) December 11, 2019

If you're worried about the dominance of certain social media platforms, or if you're concerned about privacy online, or if you're uncomfortable with leaving the decisions for how content moderation works in the hands of a few internet company bosses -- this is big news and something you should be paying attention to. It won't change the way the web works overnight. Indeed, it might never have that big of an impact. But it certainly has the potential to be one of the most significant directional shifts for the mainstream internet in decades. Keep watching.

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Filed Under: distributed, jack dorsey, platforms, protocols, social media

Companies: bluesky, twitter