Twitter Plans to Fight off Scams Using Blockchain, Media Not Paying Much Heed

Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey was recently scheduled to be present at the Senate hearing on election meddling since the 2018 midterm elections are approaching.

As Dorsey faced a Congressional committee a few days ago, he said that his social media company is currently in the process of exploring blockchain solutions that could help fight online scams.

He explained during the hearing the blockchain initiative of Twitter when California Representative Doris Matsui asked him a question on the utility of blockchain. Matsui asked, “You previously expressed interest in the broad applications of blockchain technology, including potentially in an effort to verify identity to fight misinformation and scams. What potential applications do you see for blockchain?”

Dorsey answered, “First and foremost we need to start with the problems that we’re trying to solve and the problems we’re solving for our customers and look at all available technology in order to understand if it could help us accelerate or make those outcomes much better,” explaining that blockchain offers huge untapped potential, particularly with its distributed enforcement and trust methodology.

Dorsey admitted that they haven’t explored all aspects of blockchain to see how it can help in the problems that Twitter is facing.

Media Stays Ignorant of Twitter’s Blockchain Endeavors

While the founder of Square and Twitter has often expressed his faith in cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin, and is taking enough actions to back his love for these technologies, his companies do not get the attention they rightly deserve.

Some stories about blockchain and Twitter do receive basic coverage from financial, technical, and other publications, but they are often forgotten in just a day. There are many reasons behind this lack of coverage.

• Twitter has had the image of a “little brother” among the elites of Silicon Valley. There are several reasons behind this. For example, Twitter faced a lot of struggle to find a sustainable revenue model. This is why it is still not considered among the “big boys” of the Silicon Valley.
• There are reports of users getting scammed on Twitter by crypto hackers. While Twitter is not the only social media platform facing this challenge, such reports divert media attention from Twitter’s Bitcoin endeavors.
• Twitter had to deal with several negative stories recently. For example, there were some reports on Russian involvement during the 2016 Donald Trump presidential campaign. According to the testimony given by Dorsey to Congress this week, they have identified and removed over 50,000 bot accounts that were linked to Russia and were used to tweet content related to the elections. As the midterm elections approach, people want to know whether these activities will be repeated.

While there are some well-publicized reports on big brands like Facebook and Google stepping into the world of blockchain, the coverage on Twitter’s love for blockchain seems considerably small.

Keeping in mind that both Google and Facebook have business models based on the accumulation of user data and targeted advertising, if they adopt blockchain, it will be a threat to their huge profits. Blockchain will not be a good option for both these companies because with blockchain, these companies will know less about their users or they’ll have to pay more to receive the same insights they now get.

While Twitter also relies on advertising, it started at a much weaker position than other big brands of the digital world. For example, the 2017 profit of Facebook was $15 billion and that of Alphabet was $12.6 billion. However, Twitter has always struggled for profitability.

These deficits allow Twitter to get more freedom and be able to experiment with new technologies including blockchain that can drive not just profits but also trust among users.

With all this said, the result of Twitter’s venture into the crypto world is still to be seen. But with the competitive profile this social media company has, mixed with the modern CEO with the right level of motivation, can help in leveraging crypto technologies and using them for everyone’s advantage.