Resource Extraction, Social Media Monetization and Real World Connections

The Story: Esteemed science journal Nature published a paper all about the coming wave of decentralized social media, or DeSo, and the implications of “tokenizing” user engagements. Authors ​​Meysam Alizadeh, Emma Hoes and Fabrizio Gilardi argue that social media companies like Streemit, Reddit and Twitter are announcing plans to help users monetize their activity,  which would bring financial and reputational incentives for engagement that “might lead users to post more objectionable content.”