Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey aspires to develop a decentralized social media standard

By Emma 12/12/19 5:38 AM

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has stated that the platform will fund a small team to develop a decentralized standard for social media.

On December 11, Dorsey tweeted that Twitter plans to sponsor a small group, called Blue Sky, with up to five architects, engineers, and designers and open-source designers. This new group will be completely independent of Twitter.

Twitter is funding a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media. The goal is for Twitter to ultimately be a client of this standard. ?

— jack ??? (@jack) December 11, 2019

The ultimate goal is to create a new decentralized standard that will probably be available to all social media. Twitter will give full support for the project and, if successful, will adopt this standard someday.

From the outset, Twitter is very open and many see its potential as a decentralized internet standard like SMTP (email protocol). However, due to recent commitments, it has become more focused. Dorsey doesn’t argue that these changes are necessary – but he believes that now is the time to return to the roots of Twitter.

Dorsey’s thinking on this topic seems to be drawn to the title “Protocols, Not Platforms” and it will all be open source.

Recently we came across @mmasnick’s article “Protocols, Not Platforms” which captures a number of the challenges and solutions. But more importantly, it reminded us of a credible path forward: hire folks to develop a standard in the open. https://t.co/1kH7UcaNKO

— jack ??? (@jack) December 11, 2019

Support the ambition of Jack Dorsey

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson expressed his support by replying to Jack’s original tweet: “I’m in Jack. Just let me know what you need”.

I’m in Jack. Just let me know what you need

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) December 11, 2019

So far, Dorsey’s ambitious project is still in its infancy. Besides Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s technical director, who will be tasked with finding potential clients for the project, no one has been hired to work for Blue Sky. According to Agrawal, the ideal candidate for the position of leader of Blue Sky is an experienced blockchain veteran with a knack for social media.

Despite these hurdles, we believe that there is the potential for massive positive impact for Twitter and for society. If you agree, and are as excited to confront these challenges as we are, please reach out by DMing @bluesky. I look forward to meeting you and learning from you.

— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) December 11, 2019

Love for Bitcoin

Many in the cryptocurrency community responded positively to the news and saw it as an extension of Dorsey’s love for Bitcoin. In a statement released in June, he said that Bitcoin’s principles, brands, and resilience are to make it the ideal currency of the Internet.

Throughout 2019, Dorsey is one of Bitcoin’s biggest backers. Last month, Twitter CEO will go to Ghana to join a Bitcoin meetup. Dorsey is also the CEO of Square, which supports Bitcoin through the Cash App. In October, Square asked designers to help make Bitcoin a mainstream trend.