Mirror Worlds author wants blockchain social media, like Metanet

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

David Gelernter, author of Mirror Worlds, gets a lot of credit for helping to predict and shape what the Internet would become. In his latest Medium post, titled “Manifesto,” he tries to do the same thing for social media with the announcement of his new blockchain company, Revolution Populi. He’s a little bit late though, as the Metanet has beaten him to the punch.

Gelerneter has three problems with Facebook, specifically. Facebook has taken away the right of the public to their own digital property, he begins. They’ve privatized what should be a free and public internet, secondly. And finally, he sees Facebook’s alleged censorship against the politics he prefers an affront to free speech.

In his manifesto, Gelernter lays out the alternative he wants to modern social media. Much of it sounds very familiar:

“And it must be built on a database that belongs to the public. Anyone who wants to buy information about you must buy it from you. If advertisers are willing to pay for access to people who are attracted by the information you have posted, they must pay you. And our social network will be closer to a real public square than Facebook: it will allow buying and selling. (Was there ever a real public square without buying and selling?)”

The reason much of this is familiar is because this is exactly what Dr. Craig Wright has been building with the Metanet, just for slightly different reasons. Available only for Bitcoin SV (BSV) due to its ability to massively scale the blockchain, the Metanet will allow for social media sites that are interconnected with the best version of a digital currency, the original Bitcoin. Not only would this allow for the same type of social media that Gelernter is asking for, but it’s already proving to be a viable business model for many other enterprises, making it an all-around more sustainable, and ambitious, system.

The only difference between the two appears to be motivations. Dr. Wright wants to build a new internet where everyone is fairly compensated for their work, and on a better technology overall that can support the economy of the world. Gelernter appears to also want some of that, but also a platform where his favorite right wing extremist friends don’t get banned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBb9FSxfyVs