X marks the spot

Could X be a dystopian nightmare like WeChat

"I was talking to both Elon and Mark last night, Both guys are absolutely dead serious about this." - Dana White | President of Ultimate Fighting Championship

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When I read Elon Musk’s autobiography by Ashlee Vance, there was mention that one of his favorite books is “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams. When I finished reading Elon Musk’s autobiography, I subsequently checked out the first book of the The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series at my local library. What a goofy book to read! Not in a bad way, it has a way of jump-starting your imagination so that you start to think that all sorts of wild things are possible. In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Rats and Dolphins are the real master race on Earth. It’s easy to trace Elon’s disdain for “bureaucrats” because the main villains of the story are space bureaucrats that want to blow up the Earth to make way for a space highway. The Vogons are so bogged down by bureaucracy that they, "wouldn’t lift a finger to save their grandmother from the ravenous bug bladder beast of Thrall, without orders signed and notarized, sent in and sent back, queried, lost and found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, buried in soft peat for 3 months, then recycled as firelighters." Never allow a Vogon to read poetry to you. They can’t think, they can’t imagine, most of them can’t even spell… they just run things. Remember to like, comment, and subscribe to help Medallion XLN create the new internet.

Vogons - The Most Feared Intergalactic Bureaucrats in the Galaxy

We are approaching the anniversary of Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter. Those following this process were not surprised by the rebranding of Twitter to X. Elon's stated goals were always to transform the former social media service into an application that resembles WeChat in China. Critics of Elon, like to dismiss him as a fraud because of his late-stage acquisition of Tesla and not being an actual Rocket Scientist at SpaceX, but I disagree with them. A successful business is more than the idea and the quality of employees, leadership plays a significant role in a company's success. Elon Musk is undoubtedly a great leader. Anyone who can simultaneously take a Rocket ship company and an Electric car company to the heights that they are today deserves the benefit of the doubt. Twitter is a completely different beast but given the fact that this is only the first year of his leadership, there is still a runway for success. What is different about Elon's Twitter run is that he is building in real time on an app that everyone uses. If he changes the logo, everyone notices...any change big or small is instantly noticed on an app built to share thoughts. "The News" is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as, "newly received or noteworthy information, especially about recent or important events." Twitter is the news! The point is that I don't doubt that X ( formerly Twitter) will eventually find its groove and become successful. My concern is whether a global WeChat-like app is the definition of the Dystopian future we all fear.

Twitter has been X’ed

Exploring WeChat in China to give more of an insight about X ... the everything app. WeChat started as a simple messaging app but is now used as the one-stop shop for everything. China's super app boasts 1.67 billion monthly active users with a valuation of $67 billion. It is currently the world's 5th most popular app. The app serves multiple functions such as the ability to chat with friends, send money to others, post pictures and videos similar to Instagram, and engage with merchants amongst other things. WeChat has a business version called WeChat Work, whose stated goals are to "improve communication in companies, but also to optimize the relationship with customers." Available for Chinese businesses, it is a mixture of LinkedIn, Slack, and Stripe used for partner and customer management. WeChat Work was created to separate personal from professional life and is expected to reach 102 million users by the end of 2023.

The Chinese Powerhouse application is the inspiration for X

Although WeChat wields impressive stats, they are criticized for being controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. Every like, comment, browsing, and search item are stored on servers controlled by the communist government. The Chinese government is well known for banning all references to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, where the government sent in the military with tanks to murder college students protesting for Democracy. The CCP requires that any company that does business in China does not refer to that event. According to Radio Free China, "U.S.-based legal scholar Teng Biao said WeChat's parent company Tencent is already required under China's Cybersecurity Law to assist the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with any data it says it needs, as are all the other internet service providers and social media platforms in China." The CCP uses WeChat in China to control society and censor speech, which is an implementation of totalitarian control in technology.

Censorship resistance is a principal stance because of the Tiananmen Square protests

My concerns with a Western version of WeChat are about potentially supercharging censorship. There exist many data and privacy concerns in the United States. The Twitter Files revealed the great extent that the US government would go to get items they deem embarrassing removed from social media. Meta has a portal built for law enforcement to easily submit their requests. Facebook was ordered to suppress posts discussing the Covid 19 Lab Leak theory by the Biden Administration. Now imagine a worldwide super app that has every aspect of our personal information in one single application. X could be different if it embraces decentralization. The design system fulfills many of the roadblocks, X has been attempting to overcome. The first is monetization, a multi-use token system could be used to tip posts and creators that align with users’ interests. Similar to WeChat, X could integrate businesses with a way to buy and sell products to raise money, and receive customer engagement. A decentralized system solves the issue of engineers because many developers from all over the world are building the technology nonstop. Most importantly, it is censorship resistant. No government can manipulate weak points in an organization to block information from spreading, such as the Hunter Biden corruption scandal. I would love if my friends defended me like the mainstream media defends Joe Biden.

The Dolphins have actually been warning us about our impending Doom this whole time

Join Medallion XLN and be a part of our mission to develop the next era of technology. XR, Blockchain, and AI will harness the power of decentralization, empowering us to reclaim control over our digital independence. Let’s chat admin@medallionxln.io or @medallionxln on social media. So long, and thanks for all the fish!