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Bitcoin Social Networks Privacy The Internet

Inside BitClout, the Dystopian Social Network With Big Backers and Vocal Critics (decrypt.co) 49

Posted by BeauHD from the decentralized-social-network dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report from Decrypt about BitClout, an ambitious decentralized social network that tokenizes Twitter personalities. Here's an excerpt from the report: At first glance, BitClout looks and feels like primitive mashup of Twitter and Robinhood, including a stream of messages and buttons to like or share what other people post. Anyone can create a profile and begin participating in the network by providing a phone number. But BitClout has already created 15,000 profiles based on popular Twitter personalities, including ones for Elon Musk and influencers in the cryptocurrency world -- all without asking anyone's permission. Diamondhands [the man behind BitClout who asked for anonymity even though his real identity is well known] says BitClout created the profiles to prevent impostors from creating fake accounts and squatting on them.

Every BitClout account is also tied to a "coin" that rises and falls in value depending on how many people use it. Anyone can follow a given account -- as they would on Twitter or Instagram -- but the coin means they can also own an asset that is hypothetically tied to the person's public reputation. "What you get to do is monetize yourself," says Diamondhands. "All the positive things you put out in the world will cause people to like you and buy your coin. You can monetize pent up enthusiasm for you, and let fans ride the rocket ship with you." BitClout users who feel inclined to being bought and sold in this way can create a profile to earn a portion of the coins associated with their image. In the case of those Twitter personalities whom BitClout already added to the platform, they can claim their profile (and a portion of the coins associated with it) by tweeting that they have joined the network -- a requirement that conveniently provides free marketing for BitClout. [...] A tracking site called BitClout Pulse has already sprung up to track the value of more popular coins.

BitClout's unusual twist on social networking extends beyond adding people without their permission. The project also stands out for its technical operations, which rely on dozens of autonomous blockchain-based nodes scattered around the world -- a very different architecture than Facebook or Twitter, which rely on centralized servers to keep their networks running. Every message or transaction is recorded to BitClout's blockchain, which Diamondhands describes vaguely as custom-built software similar to Bitcoin's, but with greater capacity for social networking functions. He says BitClout's code is open source and the team will soon publish it. All of this, says Diamondhands, will eventually lead to brand-name organizations hosting BitClout nodes that will display feeds tailored to various interests. For instance, he says, ESPN could run a node that displays a feed heavily populated with sports figures, while Politico might do the same with a focus on political leaders. But Bitclout's node structure also means it will lack centralized moderation policies like those found on platforms like Twitter or Facebook. Yes, we're on BitClout: bitclout.com/u/slashdotorg
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Inside BitClout, the Dystopian Social Network With Big Backers and Vocal Critics More

Inside BitClout, the Dystopian Social Network With Big Backers and Vocal Critics

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  • Shitcoins: BitClout is only one example (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A shitcoin is anything promoted as a form of money whose supply is easy to increase. In other words, anything other than gold or bitcoin.

    • Bitcoin Maximalist (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Bitcoin Maximalist [urbandictionary.com]

      A low IQ, low energy Bitcoin-loving bigot who thinks that any coin that has not been approved by the maxis ("shorthand for Bitcoin Maximalist"), should be thought of and labeled as a shit-coin. They are considered to be narcissistic, heavily opinionated and ill-mannered. A bitcoin maximalist will come in hot in almost any discussion but will not answer coherently, especially when their views are debunked.

      Some refer to bitcoin maximalists as crypto-thought police, as they often dictate

  • Interesting idea, but I don't see it hitting the critical mass needed to be useful.

    • Critical mass is the one thing they have best chances of delivering. That "open source" code that they "soon" will publish is another matter. It's one of those ideas which is so "great", you have to rush it out the door... can't delay it until it actually works, fake it till you make it!

    • I'm interested in hearing how you could see this being used if it did hit critical mass. I can't figure it out, and the summary/article didn't help.

      • Imagine an ad-free, "subscription" based social network.

        If you produce content, your coins are desirable and go up in value. Those can then be sold back to the community for cash or other token.

        If you consume content, you buy tokens to access the content produced by others.

        No central server. No middlemen. No ads. Just content producers and consumers generating and monetizing popular networks.

        • If you consume content, you buy tokens to access the content produced by others.

          Hopefully no paywalls involved. ;-)

    • Technology trying to solve social problems. In other words people are going to behave like people no matter the means how they interact. Some of the same issues the big names deal with will afflict this BitClout.

    • I went on a deep dive of antivaxer groups on Monday night. Guess where most of the videos were now posted? Bitclout. So apparently it's already hit critical mass on the "Vaccines mutate your DNA!!" crowd.

  • Slashdot. (Score:4, Funny)

    by waspleg ( 316038 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @04:28PM (#61218572) Journal

    Refers to this as dystopian ... Immediately endorses it by signing up.

    This is just a direct attempt tofurther monetize popularity for the sake of being popular.

  • Pyramid (Score:3)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @04:31PM (#61218580) Journal

    Is this a combination between a crypto-currency and a network marketing pyramid scheme? I'm surprised no one has done that yet.

    It's a very pure form of a network marketing scheme, though. My friends don't have to buy my tupperware, they can buy my money directly.

  • Popularity is good (Score:3)

    by mjm1231 ( 751545 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @04:35PM (#61218596)

    It's a great idea, because no bad person or idea has ever become popular.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 )

      And no harm has ever been inflicted while repressing popular people or ideas, because authorities always know best.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjm1231 ( 751545 )

        I think you may have replied to the wrong post. No mention of repressing ideas, popular or otherwise, can be inferred from the post you replied to.

        Unless somehow you think failing to promote popularity for the sake of popularity is a form of repression. (In which case you are either repressing me, or doing a really really poor job of promoting my popularity.)

  • It's decentralized and because messages are stored on the blockchain it's censorship proof. Seems perfect. If this is dystopian then what is Twitter? Hellish?

  • EU General Data Protection Regulation (Score:3)

    by Koen Lefever ( 2543028 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @05:06PM (#61218678)

    BitClout has already created 15,000 profiles based on popular Twitter personalities [...] -- all without asking anyone's permission.

    It seems most likely illegal if they would do this to EU citizens due to the GDPR [europa.eu].

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      If they are just reserved names based on the top 15,000 Twitter accounts then probably not.

      If GDPR forbid that it would be impossible to publish many news articles or things like top sports player lists.

      If they copied profiles, images or anything like that it would be an issue, but if they are just reserved names then no problem.

  • Plain vanilla peer to peer meshes not good enough?

  • This is a Good Thing®, right? The less centralized the better. But I still like the idea of regular P2P mesh, mentioned above, even better.

  • digital fiddling (Score:2, Insightful)

    by swell ( 195815 )

    Before the invention of bureaucracy, investors and lawyers, there was a time when humans were rewarded for doing useful work. Each individual contributed in a practical way by growing food, building homes, creating clothing, teaching and caring for children and the elderly.

    Today few people contribute anything useful along these lines. We are a world of middlemen and schemers who manipulate documents, currency, and digital bits in meaningless manners. Who among us grows food for his community? Who among us s

    • ... a world of middlemen and schemers ...

      The rise of science and technology means we can do those original 7 jobs cheaply, and while many more of us should be "teaching and caring" than currently do, the rest of us have to do something else. Nothing can fix this.

      ... to look back on and be proud of?

      Humans have always been selfish, it's why we have greed-driven capitialism instead of feudalism (where only the rich can be greedy) or self-sacrficing communism. It's why entire countries are controlled by tribalism and kleptocracy (via kickbacks or corporate welfare).

    • Before the invention of bureaucracy, investors and lawyers, there was a time when humans were rewarded for doing useful work. Each individual contributed in a practical way by growing food, building homes, creating clothing, teaching and caring for children and the elderly.

      Today few people contribute anything useful along these lines. We are a world of middlemen and schemers who manipulate documents, currency, and digital bits in meaningless manners. Who among us grows food for his community? Who among us sweats, toils, gets dirty to earn his way in the world? Who does anything to benefit her neighbor?

      Digital fiddling for entertainment or fantasy investment seems to be the order of the day as we sit on our asses and contribute nothing of value to anyone around us. On our deathbed, after a long and comfortable life, will we have something to look back on and be proud of?

      If you think bureocrats (which you need to run anything above a small band of hunter-gatherers), investors (which have existed since Ur times and lawyers (who coordinate litigation and contracts between parties), oh boy, your sense of "useful work" is rather... pedestrian.

  • This reminds me of that Orville episode, 'Majority Rule,' [fandom.com] about the planet where are prosecuted for what are essentially social media dislikes.

  • 100 companies worldwide clone BitClout (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rapjr ( 732628 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @11:24PM (#61219540)
    and then all cloutful users now have 100 accounts in their name without their permission with their reputation subsidizing a coin market. Senators, government agencies, movie stars, musicians, CEOs, hedge funds, stock market exchanges, leading news sources, etc. Looks to me like an attempt to monetize other peoples and groups reputations by creating social discussion groups with attached reputation casinos where the house gets a cut of everything. The decentralization is to try to avoid legal liability when reputations are destroyed (and money lost) or when false comments affect reputation? What protections are there against manipulators who try to intentionally build or destroy reputations for monetary reasons and how might that affect a person or groups real reputation? This does not seem well thought through and I'd guess many lawsuits will result from those who do not want their reputation monetized or who are harmed by reputation manipulation. Seems like all the bad parts of CDOs and derivatives with no oversight. If I started selling Star Wars merchandise I would be shut down quickly; why is selling Star Wars virtual reputation coins any different?

    At the very least I think they would need a policy where they automatically reserve an account but no coin activity can take place without the cloutful persons/groups permission. Which would probably make the whole thing unworkable since there would be no bootstrapping off those reputations.

  • Online user != real person. Ever.
    And if you do not like something, *do not use it*!
    It is not anybody else's job. Let alone to rule the entire net, for everyone else too, according to your personal wishes.

    The dystopian thing is that you clueless Eternal September morons come on the Internet, and then have the audacity to think you can tell us how to run the show!
    *You don't even know what the show IS*!

    • The BitClout people clearly are of the Eternal September type too. Just the Silicon Valley cargo-cult-fake-techie libertarian nutjob type.

  • "What you get to do is monetize yourself," says Diamondhands...

    Definition of prostitution (secondary):

    A person who misuses their talents or who sacrifices their self-respect for the sake of personal or financial gain.

    Sounds kind of like monetizing one's self...

  • There is English (Score:3)

    by IWantMoreSpamPlease ( 571972 ) on Wednesday March 31, 2021 @07:26AM (#61220202) Homepage Journal

    And then there is this:
    "...an ambitious decentralized social network that tokenizes Twitter personalities..."

    WTF does that even mean??

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