Social media is breaking free from the shackles of Big Tech

Some individuals get up and don’t know the place they left their telephone the night time earlier than. Then there are individuals who instinctively verify their social media accounts earlier than their eyes are even totally open. For a lot of, this implies scrolling via notifications on Instagram, Fb, X, and TikTok and beginning their day with a digital stock earlier than they even have time to get up.

As we speak, customers have even discovered new methods to work together with social media that transcend conventional use instances. For instance, some have moved away from conventional engines like google equivalent to Google, turn to social media platforms to assist them full each day duties. With the rise of influencers, customers are continuously bombarded with data, product suggestions and sponsored content material form selections and routines.

From private preferences and searching habits to places, all the things customers publish or work together with has become an information level that corporations can monitor, analyze and monetize. Throughout Kamala Harris’ presidential marketing campaign, her group spent greater than $11 million selling advertisements on Instagram and Fb in a quest to succeed in a youthful viewers.

Massive Tech gamers even have the facility to filter the content material customers see. In July, for instance, these had been Fb and Google hit for censoring the tried assassination of President Trump. They could take away content material based mostly on algorithms or exterior strain, whereas customers are sometimes unaware of the standards used to find out which posts are eliminated and that are promoted.

Decentralization is essential

To fight these insidious issues, increasingly more customers are doing so turn in direction of decentralized options that naturally resist censorship and unwarranted management.

By eliminating the intermediary, decentralized social networks provide customers full possession over their content material. Moreover, as a result of decentralized social media is just not managed by a single entity, information is just not saved in a central location that’s sometimes susceptible to hacking or surveillance. The dearth of a centralized authority additionally signifies that nobody can censor user-generated content material.

Integrating the ideas of social media with blockchain know-how gives a web3 strategy to creating, managing, and speaking with on-line social networks.

Lens protocol, For instance, it’s a decentralized Layer 2 infrastructure designed for scalable social areas, permitting customers to take possession of their content material and connections. Conventional web2 platforms equivalent to X, Fb, TikTok and Instagram depend on centralized social graphs to create and handle consumer connections, leveraging management over information. Lens Protocol, however, goals to decentralize this energy construction, giving people possession of their information and content material.

Lens Protocol permits customers to create, share and talk with out counting on centralized authorities. That is completed by letting customers take possession of their profiles, giving them the liberty to maneuver their information throughout totally different platforms.

Avarathe builders of Lens, Aave and Household, just lately accomplished a $31 million funding spherical. The spherical was led by Lightspeed Faction and participation included Alchemy, Avail, Circle, Consensys, DFG, Superscrypt, Re7 and Wintermute Ventures. The funding will likely be used to scale up the community infrastructure forward of the mainnet launch subsequent yr.

Whereas we will not say goodbye to web2 social media simply but, SocialFi gives customers a brand new perspective on how decentralization can present a extra value-driven expertise. This shift units the stage for a future the place customers are compensated for his or her time, creativity, and affect, and their information belongs to them, to not centralized corporations. SocialFi advocates for a fairer taking part in area the place worth is extra pretty distributed amongst those that contribute.