Social networks, which were once a fun and new way of communicating with friends and interests on the network, have become much more depressing for many users in recent years. Twitter and Facebook have become monolithic giants that greatly influence how we consume information and interact on the web.
Could decentralized technologies be the key to disrupting their impact on our social online lives while better connecting us to our interests and communities and protecting our data? Several competing networks are already using decentralized approaches – and even Twitter, believe it or not, is investing in a potential decentralized future.
Here's a look at some of the existing platforms and future offers, as well as the potential advantages and disadvantages of each of them.
Exploring the Mastodon Universe
MastodonPerhaps the most famous of the whole group, since the decentralized social network has an appearance created in the style of Twitter, although with 500 characters in the “toot” (post). However, the differences are significant. Not only does a central company or group not set standards, control content or collect data, Mastodon is also not designed as one huge, fully connected network.
Instead, Mastodon acts as a federation of thousands of user instances (“fediverse”), each of which serves as a separate community. Some of them are much larger than others, but they are all managed by each user group independently. Each instance has the ability to connect with others, plus Mastodon itself will only communicate with servers that agree to follow certain rules, such as mitigating hate speech and three months' notice of the upcoming closure.
With over 4,4 million users, the Mastodon network continues to grow. However, the decentralized approach also creates problems. Last year, Gab — a social media site known for its connections to white supremacists — created a fork of Mastodon and became its most populous example. Being a decentralized network, Mastodon couldn't be hard on the move, but individual instances could block and therefore further isolate the server. There is no central force driving moderation throughout the network, but obscene mastodon communities may have to live in the shadows.
Decentralized Social Networking Platforms
There are other approaches for decentralized communication on social networks. Peepeth is another current example and it uses a smart contract on the blockchain Ethereumto keep track of all activity. Your real interactions do not take place directly on the blockchain, but rather in other places and remain out of the chain up to a certain amount until you send them to Ethereum for a small fee. Veteran users can avoid some fees after reaching a certain threshold.
Minds offers a convincing offer, allowing users to earn tokens for using the platform and forcing people to view their content. You can also give advice to other users with the help of tokens, as well as pay for increasing the views of your content, if you want. Instead of some centralized company making money on your interactions, Minds allows users to earn and distribute that money.
Inrupt also noteworthy, but potentially it is much more than a simple social network. Co-founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the World Wide Web, Inrupt represents a decentralized, open-source future in which everyone creates and manages a personal online data warehouse (POD) that has many uses. This can be, for example, a profile on a social network or a resume, or a simpler form of age verification for websites. With the new “solid” platform, people will be able to control their data and more easily use it on the Internet.
Is Twitter going to decentralize?
Surprisingly, Twitter itself may end up using a decentralized approach in the future, as far-fetched as it may seem. In December, the company announced it would be funding an initiative called Bluesky, which Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said would consist of an independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers and designers, with a brief to "develop an open source and decentralized standard for social media.” The goal for Twitter is "to eventually become a client of this standard," he tweeted.
In a tweet, he explained that Twitter was initially very open in its early stages, but eventually became much more centralized, and the scale of support for such a centralized network in the future may prove unsustainable. “Blockchain points to a series of decentralized solutions for open and secure hosting, governance and even monetization,” he added. "There's a lot more to be done, but the basics are there."
Twitter is funding a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media. The goal is for Twitter to ultimately be a client of this standard. 🇧🇷
- jack 🌍🌏🌎 (@jack) December 11, 2019
According to Dorsey, the only Twitter direction for the team will be that he should either use and improve the existing approach to decentralized social networks, or create a new one from scratch.