We are all waiting for the release of the new social network Solcial on Web3. If you are not on social networks, then you do not exist. This is a joke that reflects the real fact: online platforms are an integral part of our lives. They change us, we change them. And it would be nice to understand where this process is heading.
Any social network that exists here and now has a large amount of information collected for each of us. The platform adjusts the news feed for a person based on his search queries and the links that he clicks on. But in recent years, people have been able to see that social networks have not only clear advantages, but also serious disadvantages.
Internet censorship is becoming more and more of a hot topic as different political forces fight to control the flow of information on the Internet, as it has a huge impact on public opinion.
In practice, there is quite a lot of evidence that most of the activities on the Internet today are tracked. Basically, Google is a huge database of user queries, often tied to Gmail email addresses (which in turn are often tied to phone numbers) and corresponding to user IP addresses. It's no secret that Google, Facebook, and other conglomerates voluntarily provide user data to the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States. At one time, Google even had a separate Dropbox server for the NSA.
Yahoo and Microsoft have also been exposed as cooperating with the NSA and providing it with data on individuals. How much data Google actually transfers to the NSA is not known, but it is safe to assume that the NSA has either direct or indirect access to all of Google's data. It turns out that the NSA conspired with AT&T to intercept the transmission of messages sent around the world (including Skype calls and messages), violating the privacy of not only US citizens, but possibly also citizens of China, Europe, Russia and the Middle East. East.
While this is not Internet censorship in the narrow sense of the term, the fact that activities are monitored is often the first step and an integral part of the censorship process. Thus, the state and Internet monopolies can follow the current trends regarding the beliefs and opinions of the public. This can help them determine what should be censored and to what extent.
Online trends also generate huge revenue as governments and corporations can mine data to gain a better understanding of the market. They can be very accurate in predicting the outcome of electoral processes. In addition, this data may prompt governments to begin to suppress any activity that the government deems contrary to the established ideological concept.
It is difficult to find accurate censorship statistics on the internet. Because this information can be obtained from the internet itself. However, we can see open information on the network and this is what happens:
58% of internet users live in countries where bloggers have been jailed for sharing content about political, social or religious issues.
45% of Internet users live in countries where the publication of satirical texts, cartoons or funny videos can lead to imprisonment (this does not include European countries or the USA, where irony is protected by the constitution).
Iceland and Estonia rank as the countries with the weakest Internet censorship, followed by Canada, Germany, Australia and the United States. China, Syria and Iran are considered the countries with the most severe censorship on the Internet, Turkey may soon join them.
61% of internet users live in countries where criticism of the government/military/ruling family is censored.
38% of users live in countries that blocked social media and messaging apps last year.
64% of citizens worldwide are concerned about government censorship of internet content.
27% of internet users worldwide live in countries where people have been arrested for posting, sharing or even "liking" content on Facebook.
While the internet censorship situation is getting worse, there is a better future ahead than anyone could have expected. With the advent of distributed ledger technology, the Internet itself, as well as social media and news sites, are being decentralized. This means that platforms will be developed that perform the functions of the Internet and social media sites, but are not subject to government censorship. This is possible due to the fact that this platform will be created on the basis of algorithms, will be owned by society and will be located on servers distributed around the world.
One of them - Solcial - is a decentralized social network that allows users to receive fair remuneration for their work. Solcial promotes freedom of speech by allowing users to interact without fear of being banned or censored. As the developers promise - our main goal is to create a more open, inclusive social network that promotes freedom of speech and helps citizens express their opinions in a civil way, without government interference or fear of being banned or persecuted.
The rules for publishing content, its ranking, as well as the right to make a profit will belong to the community, and not to the conditional owner of the server, as is implemented in the usual social networks. The lack of a center also eliminates the technical possibility of deleting posts or accounts. Moderation is transferred to the hands of the community, however, even there the rules are recorded in the blockchain, which means that they cannot be interpreted by the moderator in two ways.
The advantages of Solcial, which stem from the idea of decentralization:
Decentralized, does not depend on the central infrastructure. All user content is stored in IPFS and is available through the P2P layer.
Counterfeit-proof account - encryption / signature keys, blockchain data storage.
Everything is encrypted, with no backdoors reading your private messages. You can create an anonymous account and use it however you like.
The ability to monetize your presence on the network, both for application operators and for the users themselves.
So, the Internet, despite its humble, decentralized origins, has been moving towards centralization for decades. The resurgence of decentralized technologies and the massive grassroots movement that supports them have given us hope to quell further centralization of the internet. A return to basics would mean a decentralized, open and accessible Internet, free from the control of both governments and tech giants. This is a vision worth pursuing and is the reason why so many engineers are working towards this goal today. And I believe that while Solcial is clearly in its early stages, that doesn't stop it from matching, and even fitting perfectly into, the changing preferences of today's Internet users.
@solcialofficial #solcial #nocensorship $slcl #scout #solana #socialnetwork #privacy #freedom #decentralized #web3
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Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/solcial
Site: https://solcial.io