DSCVR: Is It Possible To Decentralize Social Media
The trend calling to decentralize Big Tech and strip the power of Big Tech owned social media began with the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal, of which millions of Facebook users’ data were used for advertising, business, and to influence key events such as the 2016 presidential campaign and Brexit. As a result, Mark Zuckerberg was brought before the US Congress, spurring an online movement with trending hashtags on Twitter like #DeleteFacebook.
However, these data selling practices by Big Tech are widespread and occur outside the realms of Facebook and inside the walled gardens of Google, Amazon, and really any online advertising, social, and e-commerce businesses that need consumer data.
Moreover, it wasn’t until now where we had the tech to create alternatives to these platforms, if the situation truly got out of control and is no longer feasible to use these services. A fairer ownership structure is just preferred to the status quo. So that’s why crypto, blockchain, and Web3 technologies are so valuable — because they provide the tech, architecture, back end, and front end to compete with Web2. So the race to create a decentralized social media has begun, but who’s in the lead?
DSCRV: Decentralized Social Media (DeSo) On The Internet Computer
DSCVR is a blockchain-based social network built on the Internet Computer. DSCRV recently made the big screens by announcing a $9 million seed round fund led by Polychain Capital, one of the largest VCs in the crypto and Web3 industries. DSCVR has over 100,000 users, so it’s still in the early stages, however, the general trend in decentralized social media is still in its youth. Hence, DSCVR is in a great position to bridge Web2 to Web3.
DSCVR is still in beta, but as development continues, it will reach closer to its goal of being a decentralized social content aggregation platform. DSCVR is different from other platforms because users not only control the content, but they also control the platform itself through governance and other DAO-like features.
As it stands now, the functionality is users can create an account and profile, set an NFT as your profile pictures, verify the NFT, set bios, make a username, create a post, a portal, and pair a wallet. However, DSCVR is unique in that it has its own wallet (used for airdrops), which helps with the complexity and security risks of having to pair third-party wallets.
The two exciting features here are NFTs and DSCVR portals. Bringing NFTs into decentralized social media platforms is a genius idea and application that will solve the issues around ownership because of the blockchain. And secondly, the DSCVR portals provide a hashtag like topic that people can interact specifically with, such as content, photos, news, blogs, art, memes, and NFTs.
Conclusion
Moving forward, DSCVR looks like it has a great product in a great industry that needs true ownership on the blockchain. Decentralized social media is a trend that’s surely to grow, hopefully with more features being released in the coming months and continued development, DSCVR can take the next step. Let’s continue the conversation analyzing the state of social media and how social media will transition to Web3 and the metaverse.
