Dr. Craig Wright: Social media can be improved by Bitcoin SV

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The era of social media giants unilaterally deciding to sell user data to the highest bidder could be coming to an end. So says Dr. Craig Wright in his latest Medium essay, titled Profiting from Privacy.

That prediction is based on the potential of the Bitcoin SV (BSV) blockchain to provide a better system of privacy to end users. That privacy is sorely needed, and Wright proposes it could come in the form of integration with existing services, like Facebook. He writes:

‘In time, we could likely expect to see far more with the integration not only of Facebook but across a wide swath of services and devices, allowing users to seamlessly integrate everything from the calendar and messaging to their entertainment and the control of devices around their home. Interestingly, all of it can be done in a way that is extremely secure.”

With the BSV blockchain, Wright notes, users would be able to look at an audit trail and determine who accessed what information. More importantly, it provides the ability for users to control access. That’s crucial to building a sense of community, which is really what matters in social media. Wright explains:

It is not open platforms people seek but rather closed personal groups and communication with people in a way that allows them to build trust over time. People need to be able to decide what they will consider public, private, or even somewhere in between. Importantly, such a system would include a means to attribute information to a source and stop the widespread misinformation campaigns that have been occurring.

That attribution of information is so important. If Facebook had that in 2016, Russian trolls could have been identified immediately by end users, and any attempts to sway the U.S. elections could have been thwarted before they gained any traction.

Importantly though, Wright makes clear that we need a system that affords privacy, but not anonymity. It’s impossible to build trust with an anonymous correspondent. Ultimately, anonymity only serves those looking to exploit and commit crime.

That’s why BSV technology is working towards a secure and private blockchain. With the BSV blockchain, applications can be built that will provide users confidence that their data is being used in only the way they agree to.