Zuckerberg says 2018 is the year he will fix Facebook in his anual New Year's post on Facebook. He says people have “lost faith” in the promise of technology being a “decentralizing force”. He goes on to state,
“With the rise of a small number of big tech companies – and governments using technology to watch their citizens – many people now believe technology only centralizes power rather than decentralizes it”.
Seems that Mr. Zuckerberg has been watching the progress here on Steemit and in regards to people losing faith in the assumption that technology is decentralizing said,
“There are counter-trends to this – like encryption and cryptocurrency – that take power from the centralized systems and put it back into the people’s hands”.
During our most recent political shenanigans in America, it was exceedingly obvious that Zuckerberg and Co. were quite adamant about censoring what they determined to be “fake or offensive news”. Which really was just a way for them to censor any content or opinion they, being Silicon Valley, personally didn’t agree with. I recall many legitimate right-wing content creators being censored, and when they would try to ascertain as to why they were being censored they never received a clear answer, only that their content didn’t meet Facebook’s Terms of Service.
We also know that Facebook has for years been attempting to cozy up to China in order to get Facebook legalized there. Zuckerberg even made his 2013 New Year’s goal to learn Mandarin – and apparently, he has done just that. The problem is that we also know the only way Chinese officials would allow such a platform would be if they had complete control over it’s content, which is the exact oposite of "decentralization". Makes me question what concessions Zuckerberg would be willing to accept in order to gain access to the billions of dollars worth of potential Chinese Facebook advertising.
Personally, being anti-Facebook, I hate that this twit who has made a fortune off someone else's idea to begin with, very well could attempt to overshadow the entire Steemit community by turning Facebook, the most common household tech name in the world besides Google, into a platform similar to Steemit in order to stay relevant.
However, Facebook is a publicly traded company with shareholders who expect profits from their investment. I cannot foresee Facebook shareholders being okay with STEEM as profit shares, and especially not okay with the majority of their profits being put back into the hands of content creators. Those type of investors thrive in the fiat system centered around Wall Street, and want to keep it that way because that is where they have control.
Also, as Zuckerberg himself said,
But they (encryption and cryptocurrency) come with the risk of being harder to control.
And I do not see him and his shareholders relinquishing that control.
Below is a screenshot of his entire New Years post via Facebook.com. Let me know in the comments if you’re worried about Facebook stealing the spotlight from Steemit, or do you think they're too late in the game to make a difference?
