p2p social media platforms using bloackchain - forgot the name of it!

[remotemass]

Greetings fellow BitcoinTalkers,

I'd like to start a discussion about decentralized social media platforms, and their importance in today's world. With the recent wave of censorship and deplatforming on centralized social media platforms, it's clear that we need a more resilient and censorship-resistant alternative.

There have been several attempts at creating decentralized social media platforms, such as Mastodon, Diaspora, and Steemit. However, these platforms still rely on centralized servers and can still be shut down by governments or corporations.

One interesting solution to this problem is the creation of a truly decentralized social media platform, built on top of blockchain technology. This would allow for the creation of a platform that is completely owned and controlled by its users, with no central point of control.

One such platform that was discussed here on BitcoinTalk a few years ago was a platform called Twister, which was similar to Twitter and Reddit, but completely decentralized. It was built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain and used peer-to-peer networking to ensure that it could not be shut down by any central authority.

However, there have been many other developments in the field of decentralized social media since then, and I would love to hear from others who are working on similar projects. What are the latest programming paradigms being used in the development of decentralized social media? What are the biggest technical challenges that need to be overcome in order to create a truly decentralized platform?

Let's use this thread to have a technical discussion about decentralized social media platforms, and how we can build a more resilient and censorship-resistant future. Together, we can create a platform that is truly owned and controlled by its users, and that cannot be shut down by anyone.

Actually the name of that p2p blogging platform that had the best of twitter reddit and blogger was not twister or voertexlogger. I've been trying to remember the name of a blockchain-based platform that was being developed by a Brazilian researcher a few years ago, and I was wondering if anyone here might be able to help me out.

From what I recall, the platform was designed to be a sort of decentralized social media network that combined elements of Twitter, Reddit, and a blogging platform. It used blockchain technology to ensure that the platform couldn't be censored or shut down, and it was touted as a way to promote free speech and open discussion.

The researcher behind the project was reportedly a physics or nuclear physics researcher who was also an avid outdoor sports enthusiast. I remember being impressed with the idea and thinking it had a lot of potential, but for the life of me, I can't seem to remember the name of the platform!

Does anyone else remember this project or know what happened to it? I'd love to hear more about it and whether it's still being developed.

Thanks in advance for any info you can provide!


- remotemass
#ChatGPT #Help

[Flexystar]

What is so special about that project which makes it so unique and if it was unique then why is it so hard to recall it. Must be tried, tested and forgotten.
As you mentioned, we already have Mastodon, Diaspora, and Steemit. Though not truly decentralized but there are even more projects based on the same idea, however it seems such platforms do have some cons like cyberbullying, political misinformation, and even criminal activity.

After reading your article I was trying to research the project that matches your criteria though I found none, it seems I have found background research study from the Tulane university, School of Professional Advancement.

They have coined the term "fediverse" which is cross linkage between two different social networks or possibility. Amazing technological innovation but still far from reality I guess.

Not sure if such social media are safe considering the cyber attacks these days.

The Fediverse
Decentralized social networks make up the fediverse, a term for a collection of interconnected servers used for social networking and other activities such as blogging and web publishing. An independently hosted federated network can interact with other networks in the fediverse.

This is one of the primary differences between decentralized social networks and popular social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. For example, Twitter only allows users to send and receive messages to other people with Twitter accounts (e.g., Twitter users can’t send messages to Facebook accounts because there is no cross-platform alignment). Federated networks, on the other hand, allow users to engage across platforms.

Email offers an example of how federated social networks work. Take, for example, Google and Yahoo. Each company sets email rules for its users. Google does not impose regulations on Yahoo’s users. Yet, Google users can send emails to and receive emails from Yahoo users and vice versa. Federated networks work similarly.

Pros and Cons of Decentralized Networks
Social media promotes connectivity, community building, and knowledge sharing. People can use social media to drive social and political change, bring awareness to important issues, raise funds for those in need, and promote their businesses. However, social media’s ugly side can include cyberbullying, political misinformation, and even criminal activity. Because decentralized social networks are largely unmoderated, both the positive and negative outcomes become more extreme.

What You Need to Know About Decentralized Social Networks

[ABCbits]

There have been several attempts at creating decentralized social media platforms, such as Mastodon, Diaspora, and Steemit. However, these platforms still rely on centralized servers and can still be shut down by governments or corporations.

Mastadon and Diaspora actually aim to create federated social media. Although IIRC, Mastadon dev/community replace term "federated" with "decentralized" at some point. As for steemit, people no longer consider it decentralized after hostile takeover by TRON foundation and some exchange.

Does anyone else remember this project or know what happened to it? I'd love to hear more about it and whether it's still being developed.

By any chance, do you refer to https://memo.cash/ which use BCH blockchain?

[libert19]

As for steemit, people no longer consider it decentralized after hostile takeover by TRON foundation and some exchange.

After hostile takeover, community forked Steemit to hive.blog, what's your opinion on that?

[pawanjain]

As for steemit, people no longer consider it decentralized after hostile takeover by TRON foundation and some exchange.

After hostile takeover, community forked Steemit to hive.blog, what's your opinion on that?

Steemit was cool. I liked the idea and did followed them for a while and was using it on regular basis for a while.
I got busy with life and left it though. But the idea is great and I wish there was some mainstream site like it.
But again I think it's difficult to create and manage a truly decentralized social media site.

[darkv0rt3x]

We have now a new technology that can have many applications built on it. It's called nostr. I think this might be a very good platform to explore and start woeking on projects using this concept.
I am not using it yet and I don't know much about it but I know it is getting some grip among the community

https://nostr.com/

What you guys think about it?

[pooya87]

Decentralized social media is simply impossible to create.

Think about bitcoin that is decentralized. People running full nodes are downloading, verifying and storing hundreds of gigabytes of data because they have an incentive to do so (they want to use the decentralized currency). There are miners providing a tremendous amount of computing power to secure that network. The chain also doesn't grow that much.

Now think about a social media platform. Facebook stores about 300 petabytes of data (petabyte is 1,000,000 gigabyte). How are you going to convince regular people to run a full node that stores a fraction of that amount? It is not even possible to run such full nodes. That means centralization of full nodes to data centers!
What would be the incentive for miners (or "processors" in a different algorithm) to secure that network? Adding monetary incentive is certainly out of the question because that would mean people have to pay to post and it would also centralized mining/processors very quickly.

This is why we either see very small scale projects with tiny number of users or centralized/semi-centralized projects like steemit using the blockchain technology.

[darkv0rt3x]

Decentralized social media is simply impossible to create.

Think about bitcoin that is decentralized. People running full nodes are downloading, verifying and storing hundreds of gigabytes of data because they have an incentive to do so (they want to use the decentralized currency). There are miners providing a tremendous amount of computing power to secure that network. The chain also doesn't grow that much.

Now think about a social media platform. Facebook stores about 300 petabytes of data (petabyte is 1,000,000 gigabyte). How are you going to convince regular people to run a full node that stores a fraction of that amount? It is not even possible to run such full nodes. That means centralization of full nodes to data centers!
What would be the incentive for miners (or "processors" in a different algorithm) to secure that network? Adding monetary incentive is certainly out of the question because that would mean people have to pay to post and it would also centralized mining/processors very quickly.

This is why we either see very small scale projects with tiny number of users or centralized/semi-centralized projects like steemit using the blockchain technology.

Yeah, good points.
Social media requires tons of storage. But there are other applications / services that could be built on top of decentralised infrastructures no? I'm mostly thinking about platforms such as Github, Gitlab, Bitbucket and many others. I mean, in times that we talk so much about privacy, decentralization, sovereignty, etc, it seems to e a bit contradictory that a project like Bitcoin Core is still hosted in Github and still nothing is being done to create better solutions for decentralized collaborative programming (that I know of)!