Perspective by: Leroy Hofer, co-founder and CEO of Teneo Protocol
As the saying goes, no one can tell if you’re a dog on the internet. More often than not, it’s just as difficult to discern if you’re a bot, leading to an unsettling resonance with the theory of a dead internet.
In 2024, the share of bot traffic reached its peak, rising by 2% compared to the previous year, as highlighted in the latest report on bad bots. The bot epidemic is wreaking havoc online, drawing the attention of many, including notable figures like Chanpeng Zhao, who recently called on Elon Musk to take action against bots on X. He isn’t alone in this advocacy within the Web3 community, and justifiably so.
Bots are rapidly overshadowing genuine human interactions, manipulating engagement metrics and facilitating scams at a time when our lives increasingly intertwine with the online realm.
Although platform owners are implementing AI-powered moderation and paywalls to mitigate bot activity, these measures often miss the core issue. Moreover, moderation tools frequently lack transparency and can mislabel valid content without informing users of the reasons behind these decisions.
Additionally, users often must provide personal data to verify that they aren’t bots, raising significant privacy concerns and creating challenges to participation. The situation is only becoming more convoluted, and a decentralized strategy appears to be the only feasible solution.
If unchecked, the proliferation of bots could have consequences that extend far beyond social media. Companies investing in digital marketing might find their budgets squandered on deceptive engagement. One could even envision adversaries using bots to drain a competitor’s finances by generating false impressions—an occurrence that is already reported within the digital advertising sector.
As people grow increasingly distrustful of online interactions, it becomes more challenging for authentic creators and businesses to build credibility. The overall user experience also deteriorates. With automated chatter drowning out valuable conversations, users may ultimately desert social media altogether. Addressing the bot problem is imperative for these reasons and others — it’s essential to tackle this issue once and for all.
The limitations of centralized solutions
Prominent social media platforms have been relying on centralized moderation techniques for quite some time to combat the bot dilemma. AI-based detection systems often serve as the initial defense, but they’re far from flawless. Bots are evolving, frequently outsmarting these systems by emulating human behavior and slipping past safeguards. Additionally, false positives can unjustly penalize genuine users, invoking the notorious banhammer—a tool from a bygone era.
Recent: CZ calls on Elon Musk to eliminate bots on the X platform
Another frequent strategy is the adoption of paywalls, such as X’s verification fees, which mandate users to pay for authentication. While this tactic raises the barrier for bot operators, it also cultivates a two-tier access system that disadvantages those who can’t or choose not to pay. These paywalls are largely ineffective against well-resourced bot farms capable of dismissing such costs. Although well-intentioned, these measures often falter in balancing security with user accessibility.
A decentralized approach
A decentralized framework returns control to users, offering an alternative to having centralized authorities dictate what is real and what is not. By employing blockchain-based decentralized identity (DID) and reputation systems, platforms can authenticate real users without compromising their privacy. Decentralized solutions decrease the reliance on opaque moderation policies, allowing individuals to manage their own digital reputations across various platforms.
DID systems empower users to affirm their authenticity through cryptographic attestations, eliminating the need for intrusive Know Your Customer processes. Reputation systems can bolster resistance to bots by awarding verified users with enhanced social credibility while diminishing the influence of dubious accounts. The real benefit here lies in the transparency of these systems, preventing centralized powers from imposing rules that may prioritize corporate objectives over user rights.
Resolving social media’s bot issue without causing further harm
The bot predicament is more than a nuisance—it poses a fundamental threat to the integrity of social media. The challenge lies in identifying a solution that eliminates bots without infringing on free speech and user autonomy. Centralized methods are failing, and even worse, they introduce new complications under the guise of security. A decentralized, data-driven approach allows individuals to authenticate themselves according to their own terms, making it significantly harder for bots to manipulate the system.
Now is the time to move beyond the current framework and advocate for decentralized solutions that safeguard users while restoring authenticity to social media. For social media to evolve into a space for true human interaction, it must embrace decentralization before bots render it obsolete.
Perspective by: Leroy Hofer, co-founder and CEO of Teneo Protocol.
This content is intended for general informational purposes and should not be construed as legal or investment advice. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any affiliated entities.