Co-written with: Daniel Cawrey

By now, you have probably heard the news about Cambridge Analytica, the analytics company that harvested information from Facebook users’ profiles to target voters. This is a real-life example of what data privacy advocates have been warning about for years.

This issue is even more concerning when it relates to social media specifically. As users, we provide sensitive information on every step of our interaction with these platforms. According to a recent New York Times report, the firm in question harvested private information from more than 50 million Facebook users, without their consent.

This is Much Bigger Than Facebook

Many are raising questions about whether Facebook mishandled users’ data. This problem, however, is broader than Facebook. It is almost the standard within social media. In the early stages of development, social media platforms were focused on connecting users in a meaningful manner. There was no real divergence between social media and the social internet. However, at some point in time, the incentives of companies creating these platforms split from that of users.

The standard revenue model became selling user data to just about anyone who was interested in advertising.

This is not only a Facebook problem. It’s a problem for most companies in the social media landscape. Users on these sites and apps are constantly leaving their digital footprints public. All while allowing a wide range of ‘bidders’ to access data. These platforms have the best minds of a generation working to increase the digital footprint that can be sold.

As one study from Harvard Business School found out, people somehow believe the risks associated with online privacy don’t apply to them — just to others. It is not a lack of awareness of the risks associated with these activities, but rather the illusion that those risks apply only to other people and not to ourselves. The Cambridge Analytica incident cautions us about the consequences of such an illusion.

One of the possible explanations for this behavior is simply users are unaware the extent to which companies are exploiting their data. Further, no one is telling users how valuable their data is. The fact is, user data is valuable, it is worth tangible money to the companies that collect them.

So what do we do now? Should we stop using social media? The answer is no. Social media is critical to our global connectivity. The aspects of these platforms that involve connecting people with each other are still a positive good. However, they’re being tangled up in an algorithmic information and attention economy.

It’s time for us to rethink how social media is monetized. Companies need to find monetization strategies that don’t require a user base targeted with ads and selling user data. It’s time for users to control their data, and have a say in the process governing its collection and maintenance.

Reinventing Social Media

At its core, social media needs to be focused on emphasizing connection between people and their friends or family. Decentralized applications can provide a fix to this issue. By leveraging technologies like blockchain, distributed systems, homomorphic encryption and federated machine learning, we could make the cost of potential data breaches remain constant as the platform grows.

This would be instead of potential damage scaling linearly or exponentially — like in the case of Facebook. There would also be much bigger barriers for monolithic internet companies selling user data without the users’ consent.

The upcoming generation of social networking applications, like HelloFriend, are bringing this vision to life. HelloFriend is a platform being built out of Harvard’s Innovation Lab. It’s aim is to create a global community where people can buy and sell social experiences, while meeting people in real life.

Further, the platform aims to move beyond the advertising model and create a unique monetization strategy through the use of its native cryptocurrency token. HelloFriend does this by using the blockchain framework, while also allowing users to maintain control over their personal data.

Social media companies have a serious responsibility when it comes to maintaining user data privacy. Penalizing companies occasionally for mishandling user data might not be sufficient. We need a paradigm shift on how social media is suppose to work. We need to add new decentralized layers to social media, and blockchain is the technology to help facilitate this reinvention.