50 million dislikes for Facebook founder

Facebook is in serious trouble. The company's shares have been falling in price, and yesterday, after the Massachusetts Attorney General and Eurojust launched an investigation into the largest social network, their price fell another 6.7%. Representatives of legislative bodies demand that the leaders of the social network explain themselves.

The American law firm Levi & Korsinsky clearly smelled blood and money and, having decided to finish off Facebook, announced yesterday that it was “investigating the company for a number of violations of federal securities laws.” 

The bad situation for Facebook is also aggravated by high-profile revealing articles in the newspapers New York Times and  The Observertelling how the management of the social network gave the go-ahead to the analytical company Cambridge Analytica tocollect information on 50 million users, of course, without their knowledge. 

The main problem with Facebook is the centralization of the company and, judging by all the signs, the days of centralized companies are numbered. 

At this time, Mark Zuckerberg, the company's CEO, assures everyone that he has found an innovative way that will help “fix Facebook.” This is not a problem, he claims, sharing his plans for 2018, because he has already found a solution - data encryption and blockchain technology. If you haven't yet experienced the depths of his wisdom, here's how he describes it:

"In combating this trend, I will be helped by important counter-trends - data encryption and cryptocurrencies - which are gaining influence through decentralized systems, which in turn put them back in the hands of the people. The only risk is that cryptocurrencies are difficult to control. I intend to go further - to begin to study the positive and negative sides of technology and figure out how best to apply them in our project” 

(Editor's note. Andit is interesting how this formulation of the question correlates with the ban on advertising of cryptocurrencies and blockchain on the site of this very project? Apparently there is a special logic in this, inaccessible to ordinary users and advertisers)

The problem associated with centralized systems, as indicated in almost all white papers of the cryptocurrency economy, it is that the user is the product. Your personal data is sold at one level or another to the highest bidder, regardless of your privacy settings..This is a one-way game - you post content that is interesting to other people with whom they want to interact, but all the profit from this interaction is received by a centralized company.

Centralized Robber Barons

So, the main problem with Facebook is the centralization of the system. However, another big problem for the company, surprisingly, is that it has been dominant in the sector for a long time. Success breeds arrogance, quasi-monopoly dominance develops inertia. Large corporations, reacting to the danger, completely destroy a competitor, pushing him out of the market, or buying his company. 

Facebook, as well as JPMorgan, tend to either create insurmountable barriers to entry or neutralize ambitious projects. The company was successful in acquiring Instagram, and after its offer to acquire Snapchat was rejected, it was equally successful in stealing some interesting ideas from them. 

The management of Facebook, which, according to Cambridge Analytica, has been selling user data for two years, is now sending its sixes to explain themselves for them at public meetings and court hearings. They want to get an injunction instead of opening a transparent dialogue. In short, they act as if they are the law. 

To reassure its own employees, Facebook management decided to hold a closed meeting with them. However, according to The Daily Beast, neither Mark Zuckerberg nor Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg attended the event; they were represented by lawyer Paul Grewal.

When a company gets a bad reputation, it can be difficult to cleanse it. 

Every day of silence from the “management team” - Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg - causes irreparable damage to the company's reputation and opens a window of opportunity for blockchain startups with more attractive characteristics. 

Taking control back into your hands

The truth is that few of us want to share our personal information, but as our online activities evolve, we are becoming aware of how much information about us is available to third parties... Targeted advertising is becoming more precise every day as Facebook learns more and more information about us. Many are beginning to realize that their activities on the Internet do not remain without a trace, some even feel that they are being monitored.

We must be able to decide what information to publish and what to leave confidential, the way to this is social networks based on blockchain technology, where the user has full control over all personal data. 

Facebook's problems therefore became a great opportunity for others.

The pioneers were Civic, a digital identity management platform, and their direct European competitors ValiD. The most popular at the moment is a project of the Canadian messenger Kik called Steem, which pays the user when he posts, shares the post of others, votes, and so on. 

Perhaps Facebook will come up with something really worthy, for example, it will announce the creation of a second generation Facebook based on blockchain technology, which will significantly expand the rights and opportunities of users. Perhaps management will decide to wait for someone else to develop an interesting project and then buy it - a proven strategy that works. Who knows? 

One thing is certain - while Facebook is busy digging its own grave, there are already fully viable projects on the market ready to seize the opportunity.

According to https://ethereumworldnews.com