The field
of social media on the Internet has witnessed a widespread since the beginning
of the millennium, as many new platforms appeared and many of them disappeared
as well, but the result was, in the end, the domination of some companies and big
names over this field significantly, as the term “social communication” is now
associated with names Such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and some other
platforms, and today the negative consequences of this reality are clear to
hundreds of millions of users.
Recent
years have witnessed the emergence of a new trend towards what is known as
Decentralized Social Networks, which many today hope has an opportunity to
become the future of communication platforms, depending on the many features
offered by blockchain technology, as it may be able to solve Many of the
problems that the central platforms suffer from, and in this article, we will
talk about these platforms with some examples of them, so follow us to learn
about them.
What
are decentralized social media platforms?
There is no
clear definition that can describe all decentralized social media platforms,
but in general, they are in the form of a communication platform similar to
Facebook and Twitter, but without a central authority that manages and controls
it, meaning that decisions about how to publish content and deal with data will
not be in the hands of some executives within a company. The servers
responsible for it will be distributed all over the world and work
independently, so that no party will have the full authority to dispose of them
as they wish.
In order
for decentralized communication platforms to function, blockchain technology
must be adopted and take advantage of its many advantages in this field, so
that the privacy and security of users' data can be guaranteed in addition to
their right to know how their data is used as well.
In recent
years, some of these platforms have begun to achieve a slight spread, with some
exceeding the one million monthly active users barrier, and given the many problems
and criticisms faced by major communication platforms such as Facebook, there
may be an opportunity for decentralized platforms to benefit from this and
attract a greater number of users.
How
do decentralized communication platforms work?
There are
many methods that decentralized communication platforms can adopt, but the most
popular method today is through what is known as Fediverse, which is a term
that combines the words Federation and Universe, meaning space or the federal
universe, which is a group of servers and independent networks connected with
Some of them at the same time, so that they are suitable for social media
activities including blogging, messaging, content publishing, and many more as
well.
Within the
federal universe, different networks can establish communication with each
other without the restrictions imposed by the central platforms, so if you use
an account for Platform X, you will be able to communicate with another user
from Platform Y directly without the need to create an account on it, unlike
central platforms such as Facebook and Twitter where The user of each one is
forced to create a completely different and independent account from the other.
How these
networks work is somewhat similar to e-mail services, where a user of Gmail,
for example, can communicate with another user of Yahoo Mail or Outlook easily
without the need to create new mail on the other platform.
What
are the pros and cons of decentralized communication platforms?
Decentralized
social media platforms may seem a solution to all the problems that users face
in this field, but in reality, there are negative aspects in addition to the
positives that these platforms are supposed to provide:
Positives
Given the
many negatives that have become characteristic of many central communication
platforms, the mere absence of these negatives within the decentralized
platforms using blockchain is sufficient to consider them worthy of experience,
as sites such as Facebook, for example, monitor the content that is published
with the suppression and deletion of many comments and posts. By mistake, as a
result, users were always being banned for days and weeks without a rationale.
During the
Corona pandemic, it became clear to many that these platforms are unable to
effectively control misleading and wrong information about the pandemic, and
that day has become a real problem that may lead to many consequences if it is
not dealt with properly, in addition to the many problems related to data
leakage. And how companies deal with user information to display targeted ads,
Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal, and much more as well.
Decentralized
communication platforms with blockchain can give users the right to complete
control over their data and some platforms may be able to work without the
need to display ads if the necessary funding is available, of course, and for
content creators, they will have more freedom to publish and make profits from
their content with the possibility of providing a profit rate Small for users
as an incentive for them to use the decentralized platforms as well.
Negatives
When users
are provided with complete freedom to post on decentralized communication
platforms without any censorship or power to delete or control their content or
even ask them to use their real names, this may in fact lead to many new
problems, as these platforms will become the destination of many extremist
groups and a platform for spreading hate speech. Given that there is no
censorship on them, and although the option to block these groups will be
available to any user, the mere presence of this type of content is considered
a negative overall.
There are
many problems that may arise due to the lack of censorship on the content as
well, as criminal and illegal activities of all kinds will begin to adopt
decentralized communication platforms to promote their products or businesses.
As for the
effectiveness of decentralized social media platforms, it is the focus of some
questions as well, as relying on independent and distributed servers all over
the world may expose it to many potential problems, which include the network
stopping work or the loss of user data that is supposed to only have a copy.
one only.
Examples
of the decentralized communication platforms available today
Both
Steemit and Minds are among the most popular decentralized communication
platforms available today, and despite the fact that the number of users of
each one is still within the range of only one million active users, it is a
good starting point for attracting more users for this type of platform, as it
provides incentives for participants. By giving bonuses in the form of digital
currencies.
There is
also a new platform in its experimental phase called Voice, which was designed
based on the famous blockchain network EOS, and as with other platforms it uses
the method of motivating users by offering digital currencies as rewards for
their participation, in addition to some other platforms available today such
as DTube And Mastodon and Sapien, as they all rely on different blockchain
networks to operate and offer lots of useful features.
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