This election has proven the efficiency of self-media driven social media platforms represented by X in information dissemination and public opinion guidance.

Author: @Web3Mario

Abstract: The U.S. election has concluded, with Trump making a strong comeback, sweeping across America with overwhelming momentum. In my previous articles, I have thoroughly discussed the political and economic plans of both sides and their impact on the future cryptocurrency market, and many articles have elaborated on related viewpoints, so I will not repeat them here. During this time, in addition to focusing on the election dynamics, I have also felt and observed a relatively micro phenomenon that I find interesting, which I would like to summarize and share with you. Overall, this U.S. election has shown that the "media war" between both sides will greatly weaken the credibility of mainstream media and X social media, while Web3 social media platforms may welcome new development opportunities. On one hand, this stems from the need for Democratic followers to cultivate new and self-controllable propaganda channels, which brings convenience to related competitors in terms of financing channels. On the other hand, under Musk's leadership, X is becoming increasingly dictatorial, and this "Dark MAGA" will inevitably lean towards conservatism on many cultural issues, such as abortion, immigration, and LGBTQ multiculturalism. The preferences of a dictator will greatly influence the logic of X's recommendation algorithms, making the trend of user loss on the opposing side unavoidable. Furthermore, X's self-sabotage will benefit related competitors in reshaping more competitive product differentiation, thus reducing promotion difficulties.

Poll results are greatly distorted, and the mainstream media's credibility in handling Harris's indecisiveness has been severely damaged; the Democratic Party needs to find new propaganda positions

In the period leading up to the election, I believe everyone has had some uncertainty about the election results, especially in the days close to the election when Harris's campaign seemed to surpass Trump's. I was no exception; in my previous article, I predicted that this election would be an exceptionally tense process, and thus the results might only be confirmed after the last batch of votes was counted, meaning the entire cycle could last for a while. However, in reality, Trump's campaign can be described as overwhelming, as he almost swept all the swing states and maintained a lead throughout the vote counting process.

So how did this wavering occur? The main reason comes from the final push of the so-called "mainstream media" in the U.S. We know that for a long time, mainstream media has been the traditional propaganda base of the Democratic Party and the American 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 of them 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 to be neutral, but they seem to have reached a consensus on "anti-Trump." The only mainstream media that truly stands with Trump is represented by Fox News and The Wall Street Journal.

In the days leading up to the election, the content you could see from these media channels was mostly biased 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 naturally influenced the judgments of these mainstream media subscribers, leading them to believe that there was a possibility of a reversal in the election situation. However, the actual results were quite different. Additionally, regarding 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 campaign plummeted. At that time, before prominent figures like Obama and Pelosi made clear statements, mainstream media had many reservations about Harris taking over the election, including doubts about her past achievements. However, after successful internal consolidation within the party, all questioning voices completely disappeared, and they fully supported Harris. 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 media, serving more the interests of behind-the-scenes stakeholders. Therefore, the final election results clearly indicate that the American public has developed a distaste for this and is not swayed, leading me to believe that 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 influencing potential voters' ideologies through information echo chambers but also using Fake News to smear political opponents or interfere with policy implementation. Against the backdrop of declining credibility of mainstream media in the U.S., the Democratic Party, representing the American establishment, urgently needs to find a "Plan B" to compensate for its shortcomings in internal propaganda. Among the interest groups behind the Democratic Party, there are many related to technology and globalization, so supporting a social media platform that they can control and that is beneficial to them is relatively convenient, which also brings convenience in financing and resource acquisition for related products.

With the privatization of Twitter, Musk has effectively become the "dictator" of X, and his ideology will inevitably raise questions about X's neutrality among users

This election has proven the efficiency of self-media driven social media platforms represented by X in information dissemination and public opinion guidance, but in fact, in this media war, X is also a loser. Throughout the election process, X's recommendation algorithms have woven information echo chambers for users, greatly influencing their political preferences, and its fairness will inevitably face greater scrutiny after this election.

We know that the reason Trump was able to successfully campaign during his first term, aside from the self-inflicted "Email Gate" scandal of Democratic candidate Hillary, was due to his influence on Twitter, where he posted over 36,000 tweets and had 88 million followers in four years. However, after the January 6th 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 platforms; major tech companies like Google, Apple, and Amazon removed the widely used app Parler by Trump supporters and ceased providing related network services to Parler.

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 for the actions of these social media companies is still profit-driven. We know that a significant portion of the emerging "tech oligarchs" originated from Silicon Valley in California, which is a stronghold for the Democratic Party, naturally leading to many related interests. Additionally, since the internet and tech industries typically require support from international markets, they advocate for globalization while funding legislators who favor strong regulatory policies to suppress potential competitors. This aligns with the Democratic Party's "big government" and multilateral cooperation policies, so it is only natural to choose to cooperate in suppressing populist Trump.

However, this was disrupted by Musk, who successfully completed the privatization of Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022 after six months of effort, meaning Musk now holds unparalleled authority over the company. 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, considering the current results, his initial intentions have become quite clear. Under the guise of "maintaining free speech," he navigated through numerous Democratic obstacles, leveraging the momentum of being the world's richest person to complete the acquisition, and after large-scale layoffs for internal restructuring, he openly expressed support for Trump. I believe many users of X must have noticed that during the entire election phase, any post by Musk would easily appear in your recommendation list, which I believe indicates some adjustments made in the recommendation algorithm.

In this political gamble, Musk is undoubtedly a winner. However, on the surface, X did not become more neutral and fair due to this acquisition; it merely shifted from one extreme to another. Moreover, with X being privatized by Musk, this "Dark MAGA" will inevitably lean towards conservatism on many cultural issues, such as abortion, immigration, and LGBTQ multiculturalism. His preferences will greatly influence the logic of X's recommendation algorithms, so I believe that in the coming period, the trend of user loss on the opposing side is unavoidable, and X's self-sabotage will benefit related competitors in reshaping more competitive product differentiation, thus reducing promotion difficulties.

Facing resource and market dividends, how can Web3 social media platforms better capture this opportunity?

We know that in the Web3 industry, there are also some decentralized social media platform products, such as Farcaster and Lens. However, I believe that for a long time, these products have not achieved good results in promotion. The core reason, in my opinion, is that Twitter's enduring monopoly position ensures that it has a scale advantage in the competition for "bulk information," which is the most important competitive strength of social media platforms. Simply put, the information on Twitter is abundant, comprehensive, and interesting, which naturally attracts user attention. The diversity of information also allows the platform to better adapt to the fast-paced changes of real-time hot topics, always having trending topics and maintaining popularity, which further stimulates users' creative desires and keeps the entire UGC ecosystem vibrant.

This monopoly position naturally forces many competitors to choose extremely niche areas to build their differentiation, which inevitably diminishes their status to mere toys of subcultures. The information accumulated on these platforms will also become more focused, greatly reducing the core network effect value of social media platforms. When the hot topics in their respective fields are exhausted, they naturally enter a period of silence, and at this time, the lack of popularity will lead to the loss of the hard-won user attention. We can easily find this phenomenon in Farcaster and Lens.

So, in the face of the inevitable trend of user loss on X, how can Web3 social media platforms better capture this opportunity? I believe they can start from the following key points:

(1) Compete with X in the "bulk information" field with more transparent recommendation algorithms and data storage technology features: In the past, the promotion of related products seemed overly focused on leveraging the wealth effect of cryptocurrencies to attract users, whether through so-called "content monetization" or various reward and airdrop mechanisms. In my view, this is merely scratching the surface. I believe the biggest advantage of Web3 social media platforms over traditional centralized social media platforms is the transparency and fairness of the recommendation algorithms and information storage brought by technological solutions. This is undoubtedly the most compatible with social media platforms that regard free speech as a core value. Therefore, during product promotion, it is essential to always focus on this feature and directly compete with X, rather than first attracting cryptocurrency users and then seeking to break out of that niche. The dictatorial nature of X creates an opportunity for this product operation path. Imagine if the "Prism" incident had not been exposed, would the Bitcoin system have developed to its current state? Such a widespread centralization of credit fragmentation presents a rare breakthrough opportunity 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, and opening up an algorithm market or platform to stimulate user-generated content (UGC), this design that helps users break out of information echo chambers may win users' favor.

(2) Be more aggressive in marketing, seize hot social events, and actively attract the "X vulnerable groups" from the top down: In event marketing, I believe Web3 social media platforms should be more proactive and support "non-MAGA" values in a more prominent way, such as relaxing illegal immigration policies, maintaining LGBTQ rights, advocating for women's rights, human rights, anti-authoritarian politics, supporting abortion, minority rights, and the rights of people of color. By seizing relevant social hot topics, the platform can become a channel for expression, thereby breaking out of its niche. At the same time, during this process, actively adopt a top-down promotion strategy. We know that in this election, many celebrities from the entertainment, arts, and sports sectors clearly supported Harris. Therefore, by integrating resources, attracting a number of big names to migrate from the X platform to this platform will have a significantly positive impact on promotion effectiveness.

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