Web3 and blockchain won’t fix the problems that ail social media, says internet OG and Tim Berners-Lee confidant Mark Weinstein. But some of the principles embodied in web3 could help break through the monopolies that today control, he says, big tech and big social. And restore the kind of digital social discourse that builds up nations rather than tears them down.
Weinstein is a serial social entrepreneur, having founded SuperFriends back in 1999—when, he joked, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in diapers—along with other social properties like MeWe in 2016. He just published his new book, Restoring Our Sanity Online, and spoke today about fixing social media at Web Summit in Lisbon.
What’s the problem that needs fixing?
“Privacy, mental health, civil discourse, democracy in the crosshairs,” Weinstein says.
Also, simple old-fashioned authenticity. Weinstein argues that our current iteration of social media as delivered by big tech is a distortion of what social media was created for: authentic, personal communication between friends and families.
Usually when we talk about the challenges of social media, we segment based on unique challenges for each network, like mental health for Instagram, disinformation on X, performative hustling on LinkedIn, or privacy and international political challenges on TikTok.
But Weinstein lumps them all together: all tech created and controlled by big tech.
“Big tech has followed the monopolistic path,” he says, adding that monopolies are corrosive to free markets. “Once the free market stops working, capitalism stops working.”
So what’s the solution?
One part of it is to restore the free market. Weinstein notes that Meta owns Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Messenger, and WhatsApp, making it look like something of a monopolist. The FTC actually filed an antitrust lawsuit against what we now call Meta in December of 2020, alleging that Meta engaged in anti-competitive practices by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp. While Meta filed a motion to dismiss the case in 2024, the case remains active to this day.
Which, of course, is another problem that Weinstein points out:
“One of the problems is that the megalopolies have billions to spend on lawyers,” he says.
The Microsoft antitrust case took years to resolve, and most of the issues that were huge and important early on in the case faded in importance later on, as tech evolved and the business world in some ways resolved some of the monopolistic challenges that Microsoft represented. Something similar could occur here, with big tech having deep pockets to appeal decisions they disagree with and tying up action for years if not decades.
Another part of the solution is to take the parts of web3 that are actually workable, in Weinstein’s opinion, and while taking away issues like the potential scalability challenges of blockchain.
The parts to keep in web4 include:
- Profit sharing with users
- Strong child protection protocols
- User ID verification to ensure only real humans engage and that they do so knowing their contributions are tied to them
- Mild moderation with clear rules
- Open source code so anyone can check if certain viewpoints or datapoints are being pushed or limited
- Aggressively limiting bots and trolls
- Stronger data privacy protocols
- Enforcing a timeline order of posts so algorithms don’t control and inevitably influence what we consumer
- Disallowing boosting posts, ensuring natural communication
- Dual data storage: centralized in the cloud as well as local on your own devicea
- Data portability do you can opt out of a social network at any time and not lose your contributions or your community
- Check and balances to give communities a voice on their platforms, not just tech companies
- Pay it forward principles that ensure social companies don’t become monopolies
A lot of these make a lot of sense. The question, of course, is whether there’s any chance, realistically, of something like them being implemented via regulation and legislation in the U.S. and around the world.
That is a much tougher proposition.
In some senses it’s more realistic than blockchain-based and crypto-focused communities—the mainstream social media user has no interest in monetizing their relationships, Weinstein says—but in some ways it’s even further from the opportunity to go mainstream.
But given the role social media has played in our recent elections, perhaps it is time for “an epic reboot,” Weinstein suggests.
