Decentralized social networks are a relatively new idea. Conceptually, they highlight many underlying issues with the current way social media is built, and provide solutions to create an environment that benefits the user primarily.
The issues with the current state of social media
Centralized social media has several major issues. The first is censorship, such as Twitter bans or YouTube strikes, which frustrate content creators and users alike. Often these censorship measures are unwarranted and blatantly biased. The result of a centralized board of executives leads to a specific world view and agenda of the platform. In turn, this creates an environment where anything contrary or indifferent to the platform’s agenda is seen as hostile towards the platform, and therefore penalized.
Social media in its current state is not really built for user experience, but rather to keep people using their platform. Put simply, this makes the platform money, mostly without rewarding the users and creators who spend their time and effort on the platform. While users give up their privacy and personal information, the platform sells it.
Mainstream social media is currently not interoperable. Data, information, and content is rarely transferable to other platforms, neither can you send messages or interact cross-platform, such as between TikTok and YouTube, or Twitter Instagram. Imagine if Gmail and Yahoo users were incapable of emailing each other because they are using different email providers? It would be quite frustrating to create a new email address with a different email provider each time you wanted send an email to someone on a separate network. This is the current state of social media.
The power of decentralization
Freedom of speech is certainly a difficult topic. There is a need for some degree of moderation in extreme circumstances such as violent or intense media being presented without consent, which may deter users from the platform. Decentralization provides a new opportunity to moderate media fairly in a mechanical way while maintaining free speech. This could be a randomized consensus, or certain spaces where sector rules apply and are enforced by smart contracts. This could also apply to legitimate fact checking (a practice that has been abused in recent times) by sourcing oracles for definite information.
Decentralized social media empowers the user. Not only are you in control and hold ownership of your own content, but you’re also incentivized to create content and spend time on the platform by earning tokens or rewards.
Interoperability – being able to interact with friends, family, and other users across any social network without the need to actually use or sign up to the platforms. Interoperability through blockchain technology allows the free movement of data, videos, updates, images, and personal content across each network, also giving you access to all your content in one place.
If decentralized social media replaced the current options, governments and big companies would have an impossible time censoring social media altogether, as the content and activity would be spread throughout a blockchain network.
The challenges decentralized social media faces
Attracting users is the primary issue. It’s hard to explain to a mass audience how decentralized social media is any different from current social media options. Therefore, it has to be engaging and seen clearly as a new competitive platform that offers something different that users won’t experience elsewhere.
Building a social media platform is also extremely difficult, and takes time to develop and adapt to even become a competitive platform.
Current leading decentralized social networks
There has been a steady increase in decentralized social media over the past year, but as of right now, these two have led the pack in both users and innovation.
Theta – An open source video-sharing network that gives full control over monetization and content to the creator. Theta is additionally a creator hub for social media engineers, and has birthed several successful platforms such as the popular Esports streaming service “SLIVER.tv”.
Minds – Reminiscent of Facebook but with a simplistic and tidy layout, Minds pays users for their time and contribution to the network. This network is built around user experience, and has community backing available similar to Patreon. While social status, updates, feeds, and creation are the primary features that appeal to a general audience, the network offers a new way of moderating these. Minds encourages civil discourse around flagged content and rewards it, often deradicalizing extremist views and creating a healthy and educated social media environment. When content or interactions are excessively flagged, a randomly selected jury of 12 users is summoned to vote upon removing or keeping the content on the network, rewarding the jury for participating in the process. The content is then either irreversibly taken down or is given approval.