Twitter Funds Team To Build Decentralized Standard For Social Media

Twitter Inc TWTR is seeking to develop a decentralized standard for social media, the company’s chief executive officer Jack Dorsey announced on Wednesday.

The social media giant ultimately hopes to be a client of the decentralized standard, Dorsey said.

Twitter Was Always Expected To Be Decentralized: Dorsey

“[Twitter] was so open early on that many saw its potential to be a decentralized internet standard,” Dorsey said. “For a variety of reasons...we took a different path...But a lot’s changed over the [years.]”

Dorsey said that centralized standards are facing limitations in solving modern-day challenges facing social media, including abuse and false information.

The Twitter CEO noted that the existing centralized solutions would place “far too much burden on people,” when scaled.

Dorsey, who is also CEO of the payments company Square Inc SQ, said that the role of social media has changed from content hosting and removal towards “recommendation algorithms.”

According to Dorsey, new technologies like blockchain make it possible for decentralized platforms to have “open and durable hosting, governance, and even monetization.”

Twitter Bets On Independent Developer Team

Twitter has created an independent project called Bluesky, led by its chief technology officer Parag Agarwal, to develop the standard. Bluesky will try to “find an existing decentralized standard they can help move forward,” or otherwise, “create one from scratch.”

The Twitter CEO mentioned that there’s a lot of work to be done around the project, before Twitter can become a client of the standard.

Dorsey said that he expects Bluesky to build an “open community around it, inclusive of companies & organizations, researchers, [and] civil society leaders.”

The 43-year old has been a long-time supporter of blockchain technology and bitcoin. In October, he invested in startup CoinList to build a new cryptocurrency exchange desk.

Square, where he serves as CEO, also launched a cryptocurrency initiative earlier in March.

Price Action

Twitter’s shares closed 2.35% higher at $30.55 on Wednesday.