Technologies on the move
It is not that the world of technology has remained petrified after the devastating passage of Donald Trump and the growing and harsh criticism of a large part of world public opinion.
The world of technology, which is peristaltic, has moved. He moved in two directions, the only way he knows how to move. That is, thinking that technology solves every problem. There are two trend groups.
On the one hand, those who want to overcome the control over content by major social media with technology, designed around a central control nucleus, a panopticon. Most of these subjects are libertarians, anarcho-capitalists or convinced or vaguely Trumpian republican voters.
On the other hand, there are the same large social media that seek in technology a solution that prevents, or renders useless, the political program of regulation of their entities, something that almost all the parliaments of the world are now preparing to do. With the typical monotheistic thinking of Silicon Valley, one is convinced that the same social networks that created the mess will find the remedy.
And in fact, beyond these imaginative theories, technology can really offer some interesting solutions. And it already exists. Just waiting to be implemented a la Steve Jobs. But perhaps the only technologist who really looks like Jobs deals with something else, cars and space vectors. And Twitter uses it like Trump.
To decentralize or not to decentralize?
On a theoretical level, the solution that would satisfy both tendencies would be that of decentralized social networks, i.e. released from a unified central control. No longer a mainframe, but a widespread and connected network system.
Libertarians would be happy and Dorsey could go to Polynesia or Africa without having to carry any Hamletic doubts about whether or not to keep the troublemakers on board Twitter.
But if this solution pleases libertarians and even the heads of the big social media, it poses enormous problems for the community and its political representatives. Moderation of content that is being sought as the Holy Grail, in this new context, would be very difficult, if not impossible. He would be a freedman.
At present, as is the case with the bitcoin phenomenon from which the technological solution for decentralized social networks would derive, this whole problem is shrouded in the deepest fog, also because the system of checks and balances, the foundation of democratic practice, in the case of social networks decentralized would be ontologically ineffective.
Nathaniel Popper focuses his attention on the theme of decentralized social media, covering finance and technology for the New York Times. Below we report his considerations in the Italian version.
The woes of the young libertarian, Jack Dorsey
Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, has been at the center of an extended debate about Twitter's power following the decision to shut down Donald J. Trump's account. The ex-president had made Twitter his main means of communication, even institutional.
It was a painful decision on the part of Dorsey, 44 years old and with the beard of a Capuchin friar, who had already questioned himself several times whether the solution to the too much power of Twitter, which as a libertarian was beginning to weigh unduly on him, was not in the new technology that it powers Bitcoin, i.e. blockchain technology.
After YouTube and Facebook blocked tens of thousands of Trump supporters and supremacists, many of them flocked to alternative apps like LBRY, Minds and Sessions. What unites these social media facts is that they are built on the technological design of Bitcoin.
The blockchain
This technology is increasingly beloved by a growing movement of technologists, investors, activists and ordinary users because it builds a new asset that is difficult, if not impossible, to control or to dominate by Internet giants like Facebook and Google.
Bitcoins are already a decentralized network capable of escaping any private or public control. In fact, unlike other types of cryptocurrency, Bitcoins are created and transferred not by a central bank or financial institution, but by a vast and sprawling network of mining computers.
It's something like the Wikipedia mechanism that can be changed by anyone who wants to, rather than a group of editors, supervisors, or publishers. The underlying technology of Bitcoins is called blockchain, a clear reference to a shared ledger in which all activities are recorded with a personal key.
The blockchain for social media
A way is now being found to use the blockchain, or a similar technology and in any case derived from it, to create social media networks, to store online content and to host websites without there being any central authority in the field. This makes it very difficult for any government or corporation to ban accounts or delete content.
These experiments are back in vogue after the recent "censorship" initiatives of large technology companies, which have raised many doubts about the excessive power of these organizations.
Facebook and Twitter shut down Trump's account after the Capitol events on January 6, 2021. Trump, by inciting violence, allegedly violated the rules governing the two social media.
On the grounds that they hadn't done enough to limit violent content, Amazon, Apple and Google shut down Parler, a social networking app that had become popular among the far right.
Can it be trusted?
While liberals and Trump's staunch opponents have lauded the initiative, major social media has been grilled by conservatives, First Amendment advocates, and the American Civil Liberties Union on the grounds that there shouldn't be any private entities ( and not even public for certain Republicans) to decide who can stay online and who can't. The concerns of the heads of state of the major countries have been heard from Europe.
"Even if you may agree with certain specific decisions, you don't have to trust for a second the people who are making them," said Jeremy Kauffman, the founder of LBRY, which provides a decentralized streaming service. of videos.
New options for online social activities
This situation prompted to look for new options. Dozens of startups today offer alternatives to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Amazon's web hosting services. All are built-in alternatives to decentralized networks and shared ledgers. Many of these initiatives have gained millions of new users in the last few years, according to SimilarWeb, a data company.
“This is the biggest wave we've ever seen,” said Emmi Bevensee, author of The Decentralized Web of Hate, an essay on right-wing groups' adoption of decentralized technology.
"Until now it has been a niche phenomenon, but now we are seeing a broader interest in how emerging technologies can serve to unleash a profound impact on our society."
Descent and ascent of Bitcoins
Bitcoin began to be talked about in 2009. Its creator, a shadowy figure known as Satoshi Nakamoto, said its purpose was to allow anyone to open a digital bank account and manage their money in a way that no one else can. government could control or regulate.
For several years, Bitcoin had little following beyond a small group of online users and people who wanted to buy illegal drugs. But as the value of Bitcoin soared, more and more people in Silicon Valley began to realize the unique technical qualities of the cryptocurrency. Some were convinced that such a technology could be used to reengineer everything from product tracking to online games to journalism to books.
This clamor has subsided over the years as the technology underlying the Bitcoin world has proven to be slow, error-prone, and not easily accessible to the general public. But in recent times, investments in the sector and the commitment of some start-ups have begun to produce software, powered by a blockchian engine, which is very accessible.
The new social media
In 2020, Arweave, a blockchain-based project to store and permanently display websites, provided an archive of data and filmed documents about the Hong Kong protests. An initiative that has sent the Chinese government to a boil.
Minds, a blockchain-based clone of Facebook founded in 2015, has become the home online for some right-wing personalities and some neo-Nazis who had been kicked out of traditional social networks, along with extremist fringes who, in other countries, had been targeted by their governments.
Minds and other startups of a similar nature are funded by major venture capital firms such as Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures.
Dorsey's new plan
One of the major promoters of decentralized social networks is Jack Dorsey. Dorsey has spoken repeatedly about the potential of such decentralized social networks. With the other company he leads, Square — an online payment and transaction service — he promoted Bitcoin, without much hesitation.
His public endorsement of Bitcoin and blockchain-related projects dates back to 2017. In late 2019, Dorsey announced the start of Blue Sky, a project to develop technology to give Twitter less discretion in deciding who can and can't use the service.
After shutting down Trump's account, Dorsey said he would give the Blue Sky team the power to decide who should and shouldn't be on Twitter. Blue Sky has released the results of the work of a task force that has begun examining potential projects.
The alternative to blockchains
Blockchains aren't the only solution for those who are looking for alternatives to the dominance of Big Tech. Many people have recently migrated to encrypted messaging apps like Signal and Telegram, which don't need a blockchain. Moxie Marlinspike, the creator of Signal, said decentralization makes it difficult to build good software.
However, the experimentation of decentralized systems has increased in the last period. Brave, a new browser, announced that it would begin implementing a blockchain-based system, known as IPFS, within its existing software. The purpose of IPFS is to make the web more reliable and generally accessible in case the big service providers go down or try to ban content.
“The IPFS network also gives access to content that has been censored by corporations and nation states,” said Brian Bondy, co-founder of Brave.
LBRY
Since December 2020, the number of people signing up for LBRY, the blockchain-based alternative to YouTube, has increased by 250 percent every day, according to data released by the company. The newcomers appear to come largely from the motley crew of Trump fans, white supremacists, and gun-rights advocates who, typically, have stumbled upon YouTube being banned for violating the code of conduct.
When YouTube removed the latest clips of white supremacist video blogger Way of the World, he tweeted: “Why are we wasting our time on this globalist shit? Come to LBRY to see all my videos in HD quality, uncensored!”.
Megan Squires, an Elon University professor who studies new computer networks, said blockchain-based social networks are problematic because the underlying technology has made it difficult to exert any control over content.
The risks of blockchain-powered social networks
"As a technology it's very cool, but you can't just sit there and think that all information will, regardless, be free," Squires said. “There will be racists, there will be people who want to shoot other people, there will be lunatics. In short, there will be the complete package”.
Kauffman said LBRY is prepared to deal with these situations. Anyone will be able to create an account and post content on the LBRY blockchain without the company being able to get involved. This is all similar to the way anyone can create an e-mail address and send a mail message. But, fortunately, there is a big "but" and it is adversarial.
And this but is that people will have access to the posted content through a traditional web page. This will allow LBRY to apply the necessary moderation policies, just like Google can filter spam and illegal content in emails.
Even with this restriction, Kauffman said no one would be deprived of the ability to participate in the conversation taking place online.
“I would be proud to give space on LBRY to every marginalized voice, no matter how much I disagree or agree with it,” Kauffman said proudly.
A nous la liberté! A vous les problems!
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Nathaniel Popper covers finance and technology on behalf of the "New York Times". He is the author of Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money. Before joining The New York Times, he worked at the Los Angeles Times and Forward.
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Source: They Found a Way to Limit Big Tech's Power: Using the Design of Bitcoin. Companies inspired by the cryptocurrency are creating social networks, storing online content and hosting websites without any central authority, The New York Times, January 26, 2021.
