Cherish

As part of its ongoing Creator Outreach Initiative, the Cherish team have had many insightful discussions with a wide range of artists and creatives about where social media platforms are now and the direction they’re heading in. The feedback has been compelling: Creators feel that social media platforms have become too big, too centralized, too intrusive, and too distracting. In the pursuit of growth and expansion, it’s their users that have been left behind. <img src="https://academy-public.coinmarketcap.com/srd-optimized-uploads/fbd573cabcc24920991ae1667c71bf1b.png" /> At its heart, social media should evoke a feeling of seamless connection between people, ideas, and creativity. Recently, however, rather than connecting, there has been a shift towards a feeling of your every move being tracked, from the interactions you make on a platform to your real-world location. You find yourself inundated with ads that seem strangely familiar, weren’t you just talking about that product? You’re unsure whether many profiles are even real people or not. And as increasingly complex algorithms make your feeds more personalized, they somehow feel less personal.The days of ‘Old Instagram’ and 2014 Tumblr are long gone. Instead of holding onto the past, we must now look forward to new ideas and a new vision for the future of social media. Cherish is dedicated to placing itself at the cutting edge of this movement, but how does Cherish stack up against some of the already-established names in the space?AdsIf you’re a regular social media user, you’ll undoubtedly be familiar with the level of advertisements that over the past few years have become a staple of every major platform. They’re everywhere, leaving users to toil through mountains of sponsored posts and suggested content just to find what they want to see. If you sometimes feel like this, you’re not alone. <a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/74-of-people-are-tired-of-social-media-ads-but-theyre-effective/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Studies show</a> that 74% of people think that there are too many ads on social media platforms.Cherish is committed to providing users with an ad-free experience. The platform will never force ads onto your feed, ensuring that you’re always able to see and interact with the content that matters to you most.AlgorithmsMainstream social media platforms rely heavily on complicated algorithms to rank and recommend content to their users. These algorithms, backed by AI technology, often lack transparency and have been <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/39d69f80-5266-4e22-965f-efbc19d2e776" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">widely criticized</a> for their role in promoting divisive and potentially harmful content. Many people have speculated that this is because controversial posts generate more ad revenue for social media platforms.Cherish is diametrically opposed to this position and believes that users deserve the freedom to curate and personalize their own experiences on social media. The platform does not use manipulative or invasive algorithms, guaranteeing full control over your feed.CensorshipAnother much-discussed issue in the social media world is censorship. Although they may make denials and cite <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/04/social-media-shadowbans-tiktok-twitter/629702/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">technical glitches</a>, every major social media platform has faced accusations of widespread censorship and shadow-banning from a broad range of people and groups. This has led to serious questions being raised about the power and influence these companies hold as well as their impact on freedom of expression and democracy around the world.Cherish firmly stands for the freedom to create, no matter who you are, where you’re from, or where you’re going. It is Cherish’s tenet that this freedom provides an essential foundation for true expression and creativity.Sharing User DataA significant focus of the business model employed by social media platforms revolves around the tracking, harvesting, and monetization of user data through measures that are often intrusive. To use a cliché, this has led to their customers becoming the product. <a href="https://cybernews.com/privacy/instagram-is-sharing-79-of-your-personal-data-with-third-parties/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Cybersecurity studies</a> have found that many mainstream platforms are sharing user data with third parties. This can involve anything from logging your likes, your comments, the profiles you view and interact with to your browsing and purchase history, your contacts and even your real-world location.Cherish takes user privacy seriously. The content and data you choose to share on our platform belongs first and foremost to you. As a result, there is no sharing of sensitive user data with third parties and there never will be.Content OwnershipOne of the less clear-cut aspects of social media is content ownership. When you post something online, who owns it? If you delve into the terms and conditions of mainstream platforms, you will find that most of the time, they do not claim ownership of user content. Sounds great, right? Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that. If you read further, you will find the terms include a licensing agreement that allows platforms to use and even profit from any content posted on their platform. This has created somewhat of a <a href="https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/who-owns-your-content-online" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">grey area</a> whereby platforms do not own user content per-se, but retain the right to use it in any way they see fit.Cherish takes a principled stand on content ownership. The platform’s Creators constitute the central and most important element of the platform; it is only through them that the Cherish vision can become a reality. Therefore, Cherish fully recognizes and accepts the right of Creators to full ownership and control over their content, without any ifs, ands, or buts.So where do we go from here? From our perspective, the fate of the digital world is currently at a crossroads. On the one side stands some of the biggest multinational corporations in the world, with their ever-encroaching pursuit of profit, power and control. On the other side, Web3, although still in its infancy, has provided hope for a fairer, safer and freer internet.If you are to take anything from this article, it should be that despite the currently prevailing winds, it doesn’t have to be this way. The future remains unwritten, and if we truly want to realize this vision, then all of us, big and small, will have a part to play.

How does Cherish stack up against existing platforms.

Marvin Nyanteh

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