6 Ways the Blockchain is Revolutionizing Social Networking
For more than a year, social networking has taken over net customers' lives, with social networking apps being the favored entry factor for content as well as involvement. According to research studies, young adults invest at least nine hours each day on social media networks, with the majority of this being done via smartphones. The very same data states that individuals invest much more time on social media sites than actual interacting socially.
There is a downside, naturally, which is personal privacy. As the saying goes, if the item is complimentary, after that chances are that you are the product. Facebook, Twitter, and also other social networks provide you untethered accessibility to their platforms, all in exchange for something valuable-- insights right into your behaviors, preferences, habits, links, place, and content.
A lot of the downsides of social networking come from the truth that the user’s data is stored on a centralized system. The central authority can easily access the user’s data.
Go into the Blockchain
Given that its inception around 8 years ago, Bitcoin has only just recently caught the passion of the internet-at-large, mostly because of its perspective as an instrument for financial investment. While the worth of the cryptocurrency itself is volatile and constantly fluctuating. Blockchain is the underlying innovation that holds assurance throughout markets. The blockchain is the decentralized and distributed system utilized by cryptocurrencies-- can additionally be used to interfere with other markets and applications.
Currently, blockchain startups have surpassed cryptocurrencies. With blockchain based projects like Ethereum and NEO offering the capacity to run applications and develop smart contracts. There is a possibility to disrupt all sorts of sectors-- social media one of them. The new generation of socials media addresses the downsides of a central method to social networking for a decentralized system, thereby bringing about efficiency, privacy, as well as safety and security gains.
Why Blockchain Technology is Beneficial To Social Networking Sites
- You are not the "product"
Social media are a found diamond of individual info, and the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and extra, are trading our aggregated details to offer their clients better targeting for their marketing and advertising projects.
If you do a general evaluation of the Terms of Service of most social media platforms, you will certainly notice one common style: that once you post your material on the platform, the social network has the right to access your web content for their own use. Whether these are text, images, videos, and so forth. While Facebook states that "you have all of the web content as well as information you publish on Facebook". The truth is that the business, it also says that it uses details gathered from users to target marketing and tailor interaction.
- Better Control Over Data
Blockchain technology aims to revolutionize the social media platforms by developing a decentralized approach to connection. By eliminating the main server, there is no solitary entity that can enforce such surveillance as well as controls over user-generated web content.
This is the main point of Obsidian's creators when they started developing the Obsidian Messenger over its Stratis-based blockchain. "The main difference between our messenger client and others is that our system is completely decentralized," says Peter McClory, Chief Executive Officer of Obsidian.
- Enhanced Security
If aggregated analytics and user targeting are tolerable enough, social networks like Facebook are also being implicated of eavesdropping on customers through smartphone.
For most people, this may not be a worry, however, for those who are paranoid about their personal privacy, then the most practical choice is to not sign up with social networks in all. Nonetheless, socials media still have their qualities, in regard to company networking, partnership, and exchange of ideas.
Here, we can once again highlight the decentralized nature of the blockchain, which makes certain personal privacy and safety via a dispersed consensus mechanism.
" By decentralizing and also securing all information as well as uploads, Nexus hopes to get rid of all intrusion of personal privacy that large corporations are currently performing," claims Nexus creator Jade Mulholland.
Obsidian's McClory shares: "The problem a lot of these applications (WhatsApp, Signal, Wire, Threema, etc.) have is that none of the widely known safe and secure messengers safeguard communication metadata successfully enough, that is, who is interacting with whom. This allows viewers and/or the company that runs the messenger on their servers develop a network of individuals that exchange messages. That's especially a problem when individual accounts are connected to email addresses or telephone number.".
- Freedom of speech.
For those in repressive regimes or where censorship is a concern, a blockchain based system to social networking provides the advantages of safe and secure authentication whilst still making certain anonymity. Despite having messaging services like iMessage, WhatsApp, and others, having end-to-end security, the trouble lies with the meta-data that obtains exchanged with the messages, which leave electronic breadcrumbs that third parties can pick up. Thus, also if eavesdroppers do not know the components of a message, they can identify where it came from, that it is resolved to, as well as other such details.
Platforms like Obsidian supply a means for customers to prevent the censors as well as to avoid security. "We have completely gotten rid of the need for individual accounts so that addresses will never ever have any type of info that can be connected to phone numbers, e-mail or other accounts," says McClory. "By executing a decentralized strategy, communication metadata is spread over the world.".
- A method to pay.
In addition to messaging, peer-to-peer commerce is an additional area being discovered by social networks. Blackberry has actually attempted this with BBM's rebirth in some markets in Asia (especially Indonesia). Facebook is also working to develop its own blockchain. The company is also planning to launch its own cryptocurrency “GlobalCoin” in 2020. However, there is usually a disjoint in terms of the messaging and the payment platform.
A blockchain based approach to messaging and social network can easily address this need. Because cryptocurrencies are blockchain-based, then users can easily exchange coins or tokens through the same social network. In addition, smart contracts can make social networks function more like a trusted network, wherein users can make actual deals or exchange of value through cryptographically-signed and executed contracts. There is potential for all kinds of industries integrating social with all sorts of transactions.
- The Potential for Crowdfunding
Finally, we can point to the popularity of crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Consider also how startups have successfully raised capital through token sales or ICOs. A ‘social network that runs on the blockchain’ can let users easily raise money through crowdfunding. The same “decentralized network” that runs the cryptocurrency can also support similar crowd sales without having to utilize external payment mechanisms.
Nexus' Mulholland adds that "Social, our cryptocurrency, can be used to do many things on the social network, such as buying and selling in the marketplace, purchasing ad space, and donating to crowdfunding campaigns.".
Final Words
The rapid growth of social networks has led to burgeoning infrastructure that has required platform owners to primarily earn their keep through ad sales. This has led users to be at a disadvantage because their data has become the "currency" being traded by social networks.
A “decentralized approach to social networking” can ensure better privacy, as well as the potential to do more with smart apps and contracts, as well as e-commerce and crowdfunding transactions.