Too many people are pointing to Twitter‘s roll-out of verified accounts (for all who are willing to pay) as the problem.

It’s not the problem.
We are the problem.
If you see a tweet, and it causes a collapse of a stock price, and think it’s because of Twitter… I have some news for you…

This is April Fool’s Day and we’re letting the trolls make us fools… again and again.

Look at the Twitter username on these accounts… look at the profile… look at the previous content that has been created by these spoof accounts.
If you’re not media literate, you can’t blame the media (or Twitter) for that.
True, Twitter has made the blue checkmark some kind of Pavlovian reaction for us to blindly trust these profiles, but still… in a world where everyone knows that anyone can buy verification, how embarrassingly dumb can we all be?
And, if that kind of troll tweet can crash the stock market… what does that say about investors… the stock market… capitalism… your investments (if you’re even lucky enough to have those), and our entire economy?
Don’t the investment “experts” do their own and thorough research?

This just proves one thing: We are bankrupt.

We are media bankrupt.
We are research bankrupt.
We are trust bankrupt.
We are attention bankrupt.
We are intellectually bankrupt.
We are digitally bankrupt.

You would think that a global pandemic would give us a moment (or close to three years) to give pause.

You would think that a global pandemic might make us come together… and – gasp! – accept our differences and co-exist.
You would think that a global pandemic would give us more time and space to think – for ourselves and about others.
You would think that a global pandemic would make us more understanding of others (who don’t think or believe the same things that we do).

We are all just digital rubberneckers.

Slowing down on the information superhighway to look at the bloody digital car crashes.
We are celebrating individuals as great disruptors.
We believe that fame from a strong personal brand is the future (we call it “The Creator Economy” now).

Have we considered that fame through online influencers may be one of the worst indicators we’ve ever used to define “success”?

Beyond influencers, the “great disruptors” of our time now seem responsible for the biggest imbalance of wealth, power and innovation that the world has ever known.
And, this is saying a lot in a world where many of these disruptors are also giving away their wealth, or are more philanthropic than 99% of the population.
We are celebrating fake tweets that collapses our belief in others (individuals and businesses) as if it’s all just a funny meme.

This is not the path forward.

This is not the way we use technology to make us better – as a society.
We are way too focused on individuals and ourselves.
We are way too focused on how much volume, followers, likes and shares individuals have.

Here’s the newsflash:

Innovation and disruption is a team sport.
This team sport requires the highest level of inclusion (think diversity).
It’s not about who makes the loudest tweet.
It’s about how teams (re: people) come together to create something better than what we had before.
It’s not about new, disruptive or innovative.

It’s about “better”.

It’s about “better” for everyone… not just a small segment of our population.
If Web3, crypto and blockchain is the future, because it equalizes everyone and makes it easy to trace who has bought and shared something – including the ‘what’ and the ‘when’ – then why is it so hard to find billions of stolen dollars?
More importantly, if this decentralized system is better for all of society, why must we use all of our centralized systems (from banking to legal and beyond) to fix every decentralized issue?

We deserve better than this.

The problem is that we can’t demand better of others.
We need to demand better of ourselves first.
We need to create this future for ourselves…

For everyone.