Dr. Craig Wright is sick of the trolls on social media, and he’s been working on a solution to them for quite some time now. In his most recent Medium article, titled simply “Trolls and bullies,” Wright addresses how with the Metanet, powered by Bitcoin SV (BSV), attention-seeking bad actors will be a thing of the past.
The problems with social media, and the Internet in general, is the anonymity it affords those who least deserve it, and easy access to victims. Because trolls can operate without restraints, we are all worse off for it. Wright notes:
“The damage that social media has released upon society comes from the typical tragedy of the commons that all free systems or seemingly free systems release. With the Internet, the inability to charge access based on use leads to abuse.”
What he proposes with the Metanet is a system that protects against abuse by imposing a real cost. “With the introduction of small micropayments, individuals will be able to incrementally select the amount that an individual has to pay to communicate with them,” he writes. For close friends and family, the cost can be removed, while for advertisers, strangers, and potentially trolls, costs can be set accordingly.
“When taken together, we alter the incentives and make it less profitable in every way for the Internet troll and bully,” Wright notes. “Rather than having free reign to gratify their minuscule worth through ego stroking, the necessity to pay for access means that they will have to start acting within social bounds.”
With such a system, Wright would never have to suffer the attacks he has, because he can impose a cost on access, or demand to know identities in advance. That’s the opposite of what has recently happened between Wright and anonymous Twitter user @Holdonaut, for whom Wright has had to take legal action after a spat of social media harassment.
By removing the ad-driven model, which sites like Facebook and Twitter use, and creating a pay-for-access system like Metanet, the race to the bottom is removed. The cries for attention, which is all trolls really have, become prohibitively costly. Wright concludes, “As the Metanet replaces the Internet, trolls will slowly become extinct.”
New to blockchain? Check out CoinGeek’s Blockchain for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about blockchain technology.
