While Facebook pursues crypto, crypto is pursuing social media.
Block.one – the multibillion-dollar startup that built the EOSIO platform – is the latest blockchain firm with social-media aspirations. Announced Saturday at a glitzy event in Washington, D.C., the new platform is called Voice.
Block.one says Voice will stand out by not turning its users into products.
In a release, CEO Brendan Blumer said:
“Our content. Our data. Our attention. These are all incredibly valuable things. But right now, it’s the platform, not the user, that reaps the reward. By design, they run by auctioning our information to advertisers, pocketing the profit, and flooding our feeds with hidden agendas dictated by the highest bidder. Voice changes that.”
Voice will run on the EOS blockchain, which is also upgrading to a faster Version 2.0. By using the public chain, everything posted to EOS will be public. Meanwhile, the leading social network in the world, Facebook, announced earlier this year it would move in the opposite direction – with CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlining a “privacy-focused vision for social networking.”
Excitement in DC
At an event with the production values one might expect from a company that has raised $4 billion in funding, Blumer came out on stage and offered a manifesto against social media as we know it. (You can watch the full keynote here.)
“Our attention has been captured,” Blumer told the crowd. “Social media has not been a good friend to us.”
He promised that Block.one’s new social media product would not let algorithms decide what dominates. Everyone, he said, would have an equal shot to be heard.
“Everyone – the user, the platform, the contributor – plays by the same rules,” Blumer said.
Trade active
