Following on from Meta's announcement that users of Instagram can now display and share their NFTs on their newsfeed, the American conglomerate has now expanded the new functionality to Facebook.
By virtue of Meta's update showing off a digital collectible is now a matter of connecting their digital wallets and clicking share for NFT holders.
Meta said in a recent blog post:
As we continue rolling out digital collectibles on Facebook and Instagram, we’ve started giving people the ability to post digital collectibles that they own across both Facebook and Instagram. This will enable people to connect their digital wallets once to either app in order to share their digital collectibles across both.
(Image source: Meta blog post August 29 2022)
With both social media services clocking billions of monthly users each (Facebook presently at 2.9 billion monthly users and Instagram estimated to have over 2 billion monthly users) this development is bound to increase public awareness of this one-of-kind digital asset.
Not everyone is excited by this announcement, with some blockchain enthusiasts voicing concerns on the loss of privacy that will take place if a NFT holder dares to share their digital collectibles online.
One blockchain professional tweeted:
While I'm sure there's some utility in allowing people to 'share' (read: flex) their NFTs on social media platforms, the underlying requirement is to connect whichever wallet holds your NFTs. At which point you are now pairing your public social media profile with your pseudonymous Web3 profile... And now Meta (and any organisation it shares data with: private or public sector) has the ability to track any activities performed with that wallet from public ledger data.
For those NFT enthusiasts who would prefer to have their cake and eat it too i.e. to maintain their privacy but also show off NFTs on FB and or Instagram, perhaps a solution could be a matter of setting up a separate and dedicated wallet for this special purpose.
The further integration of NFTs into social media may annoy some in Web3, but it could also be a valuable bridge between Web2 to Web3, and maybe show Meta/Facebook a way forward and to evolve their business model in the face of falling user numbers.