The problem with social media is that it is centralized. Centralization empowers massive corporations and governments to steal our privacy and restrict our speech and autonomy.
What should exist are neutral, technical standards and protocols, like the standards and protocols for blogs, email and the web. Indeed, many proposed standards already do exist, but none has emerged as a common, dominant standard. 

Blockchain technology—the technology of decentralization—is perfect for this, but not strictly necessary. Common protocols would enable us to follow public feeds no matter where they are published. We would eventually have our pick of many different apps to view these feeds. We would choose our own terms, not Facebook’s or Twitter’s, for both publishing and reading.

Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.