Zuckerberg Schmuckerberg
Is social media evil by design?
What is your opinion of the guy in the picture below?
Do you know who he is? If you do, what do you think about him?
If you don’t know him, that’s Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Facebook. He’s a 37 year old Harvard dropout worth just north of $120 billion.
And he loves doing quirky things like having a passion for only eating meat from animals he’s butchered…
Or more recently posting an epic Fourth of July pump up video...
Zuck is a quirky dude. He became filthy rich at a very young age and still retains control of the majority of the voting shares of Facebook, one of the largest social networks ever created with 2.85 billion users.
That makes this quirky 37 year old in the videos above one of the most influential and powerful people on the planet. He flexed that power when he banned President Trump from his platform in January 2021.
Ok, so why do I bring this up?
Well, I think there’s an interesting discussion to be had around whether or not social media is inherently bad for society or if there is a specific aspect of the way we use social media today that’s causing the issues.
Facebook alone has caused and is causing its fair share of societal harm. From the Cambridge Analytica scandal, to its influence on elections, the spread of misinformation and disinformation, and the increased odds of depression for users.
Do I think it’s worth exploring if social media is inherently bad for society.
Or, can we pinpoint a modification to how we use social media that expands the benefits and minimizes the consequences?
Never before has it been easier to use the internet and social media to connect with friends, launch a business, build an audience, make new friends, share your passions, and explore new interests. Social media has launched entirely new verticals and economies.
Much of this would not be possible in a world without the platforms that social media built. Many of my friends use social media as the main source of lead generation for their businesses.
But, are these benefits a package deal with the costs I mentioned above?
No, I don’t think so.
First, continuing our Facebook example, I think we can separate the technology that supports the benefits I mention above from the profit-motivated business built on top of the technology.
The underlying technology = software, servers, and code that allows people from all across the world to post, message, and connect.
The business built on top of the technology is Facebook’s ads platform and algorithms that monetize our attention by selling ads.
I feel like the exclusive use and ownership of the technology by a profit-motivated business is where the majority of the damage to society is made.
Capitalism created the social media networks, but is it also the reason that they’re tearing at the fabric of society?
As antitrust suits against Facebook and other technology companies heat up (the suit against Facebook from the FTC was just thrown out but there will be more coming down the pipe), maybe the alternative solution isn’t to break social media giants apart but to break them open?
What would Facebook look like if the platform became open source?
Open-source software is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose.
What could entrepreneurs and individuals build on top of the network if anyone could build apps and features for the users of Facebook?
Is the future of social media open source?
Now, I’m not usually one to be a cheerleader for government intervention, especially in private business. Most of my opinion comes from their (government’s) history of incompetence, self-dealing, and waste. But let’s pretend our government is perfectly capable of executing open sourcing Facebook as part of its antitrust suit for this exercise.
If Facebook gets open sourced, they could get broken into two parts.
The Facebook that we know today
A new version that’s stripped down to its basic functionality which others can build on top of and integrate into
In the bare bones version, the protocol of the network, the part that connects the individuals, runs the platform, and hosts the infrastructure gets separated from the profit-motivated entity.
The profit-motivated entity still exists, it’s just no longer the default option for social networks. Users choose to opt-in for the functions and features that Facebook offers.
One of the major problems I see with big tech monopolies like Facebook is that all of their decisions for what features they build, what updates they make, and what policies they enact are always going to be motivated by their fiduciary duty.
All decisions at Facebook have to be in the best interest of the company and its shareholders. And for them, that means using every tool in their arsenal (and the hoards of personal data they collect) to keep us on the platform for as long as possible.
That is the source of the damages as I see it. The study I linked above showed, increasing “[Social media] use was significantly associated with increased depression.”
So, in effect, social media networks that are run for profit are associated with increased depression. But, if Facebook were to do something about this they would be going against their fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of their shareholders.
That’s why I think a rational approach to managing the impact of social media (while still cultivating a competitive environment to continue innovation) is to separate the technology that provides the social good from the business that must create profits for the shareholders.
Remove Facebook’s monopoly on the technology of the network and they’ll need to innovate more reasons why users would choose to use their network versus using the open source versions. Social media then becomes a public good.
An open source version of Facebook will allow individuals to build their own apps, tools, and businesses on top of the most valuable parts of Facebook and other social media giants, the connection to all the other users.
Twitter is working on such a platform (although it’s still shrouded in mystery) called Blue Sky. The idea behind the decentralized, open source platform is that the users decide what rules and features are created.
There are many questions to consider in all of this. What is government’s role in regulating monopolies? What does the government optimize for? How do we increase the societal benefits of social media while decreasing the harm?
One place to start is to open source the technology that allows us all to connect, create, and distribute our thoughts and ideas.
I’m not saying to give up on capitalism, break apart Facebook, or BITFD (burn it the fuck down) but to separate the technology from the profit-driven business.
My thesis is that over the next 10 years this will happen. Whether it’s through government regulation splitting apart social media giants or entrepreneurs building new open source, decentralized networks using blockchain networks (like Ethereum), our use of social media will evolve to align the interests of the users with the function and form of the network.
If I put on my asset allocator hat, I still see Facebook as an amazing investment. Their move into virtual and augmented reality is going to put them in a leadership position for monetizing the Metaverse for years to come.
I also cannot repeat myself enough that nobody owns enough Ethereum. The risk to reward on ETH the asset is one of the best that many of us might ever see in our lifetimes.
Our world (whether we want it or not) is becoming more and more digital. And Ethereum (ETH) is in the lead to become the base layer of the new, decentralized, and digital world with a potential total market value in the trillions of dollars.