Source of article repost: Mario Looks at Web3
Author: @Web3Mario
Summary: The American election has concluded, with Trump making a powerful comeback. In my previous articles, I have thoroughly discussed both sides’ political and economic proposals and their impact on the future cryptocurrency market, and many articles express related viewpoints, so I will not repeat them here. During this time, aside from focusing on the election dynamics, I also felt and observed a relatively micro phenomenon that I found interesting, so I summarize it to share with you all. Overall, this American election's 'media war' will greatly weaken the credibility of mainstream media and X social media, while Web3 social media platforms may welcome new development opportunities, partly due to the need for Democratic Party followers to cultivate new and self-controlled propaganda channels, which brings convenience to related competitors in financing. Additionally, under Musk's governance, X will increasingly become dictatorial, and this 'Dark MAGA' is bound to lean towards conservatism on various cultural issues, such as abortion, immigration, and LGBTQ multiculturalism. The preferences of a dictator will greatly impact the logic of recommendation algorithms on X, so the trend of user loss standing in opposition is inevitable, and X's self-sabotage will benefit related competitors in reshaping more competitive product differentiation, thus reducing promotional difficulties.
Poll results are greatly distorted; the American mainstream media's credibility has been severely damaged in response to Harris's indecisiveness, and the Democratic Party needs to find new propaganda positions
In the period leading up to the election, I believe everyone has experienced some uncertainty regarding the election results to varying degrees, especially in the days leading up to the election when Harris's polling seemed to surpass Trump's. I was no exception; in my previous article, I predicted that this election would be an exceptionally close process, so the results might only be confirmed after the last batch of votes was counted, and thus the entire cycle could last for a while. However, in reality, Trump's polling can be described as overwhelming, nearly sweeping all swing states, and consistently maintaining a lead throughout the voting process.
So how does this shake-up occur? The main reason comes from the final efforts of the so-called 'mainstream media' in the U.S. We know that for a long time, mainstream media has traditionally been the propaganda front for the Democratic Party and the U.S. establishment. These so-called 'mainstream media' encompass various forms such as television, newspapers, and online platforms. They often play a key role in guiding public opinion on major domestic and international events. However, these media do not actually possess neutrality in political preferences; most are staunch supporters of the Democratic Party, such as CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS, ABC, NBC, Yahoo News, Google News, etc. Some of these media claim neutrality, but they seem to have reached a consensus on 'anti-Trump.' The mainstream media that genuinely stands on Trump's side is represented only by Fox News and The Wall Street Journal.
In the days leading up to the election, most of the content you could see from these media channels leaned towards Harris, including descriptions of sudden small events during the campaign and dynamic polling results, even creating an impression of Harris having an advantage in early voting. This information will naturally influence the judgment of these mainstream media subscribers, leading them to believe there may be a reversal in the election situation. However, the actual results were quite different. In addition, regarding the support for Harris's campaign, mainstream media underwent a readjustment. We know that in this election, the Democratic Party experienced a change in leadership. After the Trump shooting incident, Biden's poll numbers plummeted, and at that time, before Obama, Pelosi, and other bigwigs made clear statements, mainstream media had many reservations about Harris taking over the election, including doubts about her past achievements, etc. However, after successful internal consolidation, all doubts disappeared, and the support for Harris was fully unleashed. From an electoral perspective, this is naturally beneficial for the Democratic Party, but it also reflects that the so-called mainstream media has completely abandoned its neutrality and fairness as a media outlet, serving more the interests of behind-the-scenes beneficiaries. Therefore, the final election result clearly indicates that the American public has developed aversion to this and is not swayed, so I believe the credibility of mainstream media has been severely damaged in this election.
We know that in elected politics, whoever controls the media holds the initiative, not only can influence potential voters' ideologies by weaving information cocoons, but also can use Fake News to smear opponents or interfere with the implementation of policies. Against the backdrop of declining credibility in American mainstream media, the Democratic Party, representing the U.S. establishment, urgently needs to find a 'Plan B' to make up for its deficiencies in internal propaganda. Among the interest groups behind the Democratic Party are many related to technology and globalization businesses, so supporting a social media platform that they can control and is beneficial to themselves is relatively convenient, which also brings convenience for related products in financing and resource acquisition.
With Twitter's privatization, Musk has effectively become X's 'dictator,' and his ideology is bound to raise questions about X's neutrality among users.
This election has proven that social media platforms driven by self-media, represented by X, are highly effective in information dissemination and public opinion guidance. However, in fact, in this media war, X is also a loser because throughout the election process, the information bubble woven for users through recommendation algorithms significantly influenced users' political preferences, and its fairness is bound to be questioned even more after this election.
We know that Trump's first term was able to successfully run for election, aside from the Democratic candidate Hillary's 'Email Gate' self-explosion, it benefited from his influence on Twitter, where he posted over 36,000 tweets in four years and had 88 million followers. However, after the Capitol incident in 2021, Twitter announced a 'permanent ban' on Trump, effectively silencing him. Following Twitter, Facebook and YouTube also took measures to prohibit Trump from speaking on their social platforms; tech giants Google, Apple, and Amazon removed the app Parler, which was widely used by Trump's supporters, and ceased providing related internet services.
During that time, Trump's propaganda channels were scarce, forcing him to launch his own social media platform, Truth Social, to cope with this predicament. The reason many social media companies took such actions is still profit-driven. We know that a large part of the emerging 'tech elite' originated from Silicon Valley in California, which is a stronghold for the Democratic Party, naturally leading to many related interests. Additionally, as the internet and tech industries typically require support from international markets, while advocating for globalization, they fund legislators leaning towards strong regulatory policies to suppress potential competitors. This aligns with the Democratic Party's 'big government' and multilateral cooperative policies. Therefore, under the same interests, it is only logical to choose to cooperate in suppressing populist Trump.
However, this was broken by Musk. In October 2022, after six months, he successfully completed the privatization of the publicly traded company Twitter for $44 billion, which means Musk has unparalleled authority over the company. At that time, after the acquisition was completed, for a long time, the market questioned whether this operation was a failed attempt, as there seemed to be no visible return on investment. However, combined with the current results, his original intention has become quite clear. Under the guise of 'maintaining free speech,' he navigated through numerous Democratic Party obstacles, completed the acquisition with the clout of the world's richest person, and after large-scale layoffs, completed internal integration. He clarified his support for Trump, and I believe many X users noticed that during the entire election phase, any post by Musk would easily appear in your recommendation list, and I believe this must have been processed in the recommendation algorithm.
In this political gamble, Musk is undoubtedly a winner. However, X does not appear to have become more neutral and fair due to this acquisition; it has merely shifted from one extreme to another. Furthermore, as X has been privatized by Musk, this 'Dark MAGA' is bound to lean towards conservatism on many cultural issues, such as abortion, immigration, and LGBTQ multiculturalism. Its preferences will greatly influence the logic of the recommendation algorithm on X, so I believe that in the coming period, the trend of users standing in opposition to it will be inevitable, and X's self-sabotage will benefit related competitors in reshaping more competitive product differentiation, thus reducing promotional difficulties.
In the face of resource dividends and market dividends, how can Web3 social media platforms better capture this opportunity
We know that in the Web3 industry, there are also decentralized social media platform products like Farcaster and Lens, but I believe that for a long time before, these products have not achieved good results in promotion. The core reason, in my opinion, is that Twitter's enduring monopoly position ensured a scale advantage in competing for 'bulk information,' which is the most important competitive advantage of social media platforms. Simply put, the information on Twitter is abundant, complete, and interesting, which naturally attracts user attention, and the diversity of information allows the platform to better adapt to the fast-paced real-time changes in hotspots, always maintaining heat and relevance. This also further stimulates users' creative desires, keeping the entire UGC ecosystem vibrant.
This monopoly position naturally forces many competitors to choose extremely niche areas to build their differentiation, which will naturally reduce them to toys of subcultures. The information deposited on them will inevitably become focused, greatly diminishing the core network effect value of social media platforms. When the hotspots in the lane are exhausted, they naturally enter a period of silence, and at this time, the lack of heat will cause the hard-won user attention to dissipate. We can easily find this phenomenon in Farcaster and Lens.
So how can Web3 social media platforms better capture this opportunity in the face of the inevitable trend of user loss from X? I believe they can start from the following key points:
(1) Boldly compete with X in the realm of 'bulk information' with more transparent recommendation algorithms and data storage technology characteristics: In the past, the promotion of related products seemed too addicted to attracting users through the wealth effect of cryptocurrencies, whether it was the so-called 'content monetization' or various tipping and airdrop logics. In my opinion, these are merely scratching the surface. The greatest advantage of Web3 social media platforms compared to traditional centralized social media platforms is the transparency and fairness of recommendation algorithms and information storage brought by technological solutions, which undoubtedly aligns best with social media platforms whose core value is free speech. Therefore, during the product promotion process, it is necessary to always focus on this feature and directly compete with X, rather than first attracting cryptocurrency users and then seeking to break out of the niche. X's dictatorial nature creates an opportunity for this product operation path. Imagine if the 'Prism Gate' incident had not been exposed, would the Bitcoin system have developed to its current state? Such large-scale centralization credit fragmentation events are rare breakthrough opportunities for Web3 products. Additionally, I believe that in terms of product innovation, combining AI with modular recommendation algorithms is a good direction to consider. By introducing AI features, allowing users to customize recommendation algorithms, while opening up algorithm markets or platforms, stimulating user UGC, this design that helps users break out of information cocoons may win user favor.
(2) More aggressive marketing, seizing hot social events, and actively attracting 'X's disadvantaged groups' from top to bottom: In event marketing, I believe Web3 social media platforms should be more proactive, supporting 'non-MAGA' values in a more unequivocal manner, such as relaxing illegal immigration policies, protecting LGBTQ rights, women's rights, human rights, anti-authoritarian politics, supporting abortion, minority rights, and the rights of people of color. Seizing relevant social hotspots will make the platform a channel for expressing voices, thus breaking out of its niche. At the same time, in this process, actively adopting a top-down promotion strategy, we know that in this election, many celebrities from the entertainment industry, art circles, and sports world clearly supported Harris. Therefore, through resource integration, striving to attract many big names from X platform to this platform will have a significantly positive impact on promotional effectiveness.