Taking a look at the sad state of Twitter today, reminded me of the future we have with Project Blank. I've been on the social media site for quite awhile now, and was discussing with a friend, the bumpy road that new members have to face while navigating its twists and turns. Our conversation took me back when things began to change for me on Twitter.

I'd been on the platform for about six years in 2016, in which I'd enjoyed low but steady growth. Election season heats up, and of course being independent-minded, I fail to support the corporate candidate.



My followers list was increasing at a reliable rate, with a certain amount of retweets, likes, and mentions. As with others, I pointed out the differences the candidate that I backed had with their establishment-friendly opponent. Nothing crazy, just issues pointed out in 'the paper of record' and other common sources.

That's when things began to change...

On track to cross 12K followers, growth suddenly slowed, then seemed to cease altogether. Instead, the account began to trickle down every single week as if a firehose had been shut off.

Weird things started happening whenever I would share an effective tweet about the corporate candidate such as my 'following' list going from over 11K to 0 for a day, before returning to normal. After sending out a tweet, I'd check with my regular followers who said they hadn't seen it. In effect, people like me were being shadowbanned.

If you ever get the chance to watch Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast, you'll find it illuminating as Joe presses him on the issue of censorship. Jack explained that one of the ways they deal with people they don't like is not necessarily to delete the tweet, but to speed up the velocity with which the tweet falls down the timeline. Sneaky huh? You send your tweet out, and it flies by so quickly that almost no one sees it. It explains a lot.

People have built their lives and businesses around legacy social media, and it's time for a change. This is why I'm glad we're rolling our own solution to the control that they have with the upcoming 'Project Blank' microblogging platform. It will siphon off some of the time I spend at places like Twitter, while increasing engagement on our little corner of the blockchain. Are you ready for the future?