To better understand decentralization, I think it’s helpful to identify the opposite. Centralized services play an integral role in our lives. For example, when you log into Facebook, you are accessing a centralized service. If you pay with your credit card, the credit card company is a centralized service. A service is centralized when a single party is in control of access to a platform or medium of exchange. When you create an account on a social media platform like Facebook or Twitter, you are creating an account on that platform’s server. In these cases, it is easy to think of centralization occurring at the server level. The server is where data is stored and processed. As shown with the recent Twitter hack, with centralized social media, having access to the service’s servers means access to every account on the platform.

With a credit card company like MasterCard, centralization occurs at the point of exchange. When you purchase something with your credit card, whether online or in-person, MasterCard is in control of the payment from you to the recipient. This can be extended to banks and third-party payment processors like PayPal. Unless you use cash, a third-party is in control of any transfer of money. Besides knowing the sender, receiver, and amount of each payment, these third-parties are given full discretion to stop payments without the sender’s or receiver’s permission.

Decentralizing our social media platforms and finances has many actual and potential benefits. I will be focusing specifically on benefits to security and censorship resistance.

Decentralization and Security

As stated above, centralized social media platforms are particularly vulnerable to devastating attacks. Centralization is a major component to that vulnerability. Often times we think about online security in terms of encryption and firewalls. Though important, the biggest vulnerability any online system faces is actually people. We humans will always be the biggest vulnerability to any system. Whether it’s using the same password for every account we ever make, innocuously clicking on a phishing email, or even being coerced or bribed into exposing a system to attackers, we are the proverbial “weakest link.”

So how do we reconcile the fact that the systems we use are vulnerable because of us? I believe the solution lies not in elimination of vulnerabilities, but rather mitigation of harm. If we assume all systems managed by people are inherently vulnerable because of said management, mitigation would entail reducing the system’s exposure to people. Organizations already have measures in place to consolidate access to particular systems in a small, select group of individuals. These measures can be thought of as similar to having multiple user accounts on a single computer. There could be five different users on one computer, but only one user has access to every system on the computer as an administrator. Now, what happens if someone has access to the administrator account? Herein lies the major difficulty of securing a centralized system. Administrative access to a centralized service risks access to every component of the system. It is at this point that we must look beyond security measures and towards changing the structure of the system itself.

With a decentralized system, there is no longer one administrator with access to the entire system. Using social media platforms as an example, if we compare Twitter and Mastodon we see how the damage from being hacked can be mitigated through a decentralized platform structure. When Twitter’s servers were compromised, hackers essentially had administrative access to all of Twitter. Administrative access on a centralized service like Twitter results in access to every account on Twitter, similar to administrative access on your computer enabling access to every user on said computer. On the other hand, Mastodon is not a centralized platform. There is no singular Mastodon server. Instead, Mastodon is a collection of servers run by many individuals and organizations around the world. If hackers gained administrative access to one of the many servers running Mastodon, they would only have access to the accounts hosted on that server. Because there is no central Mastodon server, damage from hackers infiltrating a server is mitigated. This is one of the great strengths of a decentralized system. With a distributed network of independently run servers, a central point of attack is significantly minimized.

Decentralization and Censorship

Censorship and centralization go hand-in-hand. Controlling content is most effectively done through a central point of control. Having covered censorship on centralized social media platforms already, I will discuss censorship through centralized finance. Centralization of finance is best understood through an examination of a single transaction. If person A wants to send money to person B, they can go about it several ways. One way would simply involve person A handing person B cash. In this transaction the only two people who know that person A gave person B money are person A and person B. Person A can also send money to person B online through their bank’s e-transfer system or an app like PayPal. Now, not only do person A and person B know of the transaction, but so do both of their banks and any application they used to make the transfer. Centralization in finance shines a light on finance’s middlemen.

Third-parties like banks and payment processors control the pathways through which money is exchanged. These third parties are notorious for payment censorship. One group of individuals heavily impacted by censorship from third-party payment processors is sex workers. Sex workers have been banned and restricted from most third party payment processors and are often denied the ability to open business accounts at banks due to the nature of their work (Engaget, 2015). Preventing sex workers from making a living is one of a myriad of ways centralized finance often harms marginalized communities and demonstrates the need for decentralized finance.

Decentralized finance takes the middleman out of transactions. In the digital space, decentralized finance occurs through cryptocurrencies. Similar to how Person A and Person B can transact directly with one another using cash, cryptocurrencies allow that same A to B transaction online. Cryptocurrencies as a whole are much more complex with plenty of nuance, but for the purposes of discussing censorship resistance, a peer-to-peer network where people and organizations can transfer value between themselves, without a third-party payment processor or bank, prevents censorship from those third-parties.

Protection through Decentralization

With the exponential growth of cryptocurrencies and a growing audience and stability in decentralized social media alternatives, people are taking control and protecting themselves through decentralization. As a concept, decentralization is nothing new. However, between tech companies tightening their grip on the internet’s infrastructure, and banks tightening their grip on the market, it’s important to remember that decentralized alternatives are available to everyone.

Opt-out of centralization and into decentralization.

Where to Begin:

The First Cryptocurrency: Bitcoin

Decentralized Social Media: Mastodon; more here

#Decentralization #Mastodon #Cryptocurrency #Bitcoin #Censorship #Privacy

Social Media = Public Square

Presenting ourselves to the world comes with inherent risk. With every piece of ourselves we share online, we risk compromising our personal privacy and security. We show our faces, share our feelings, and sometimes engage in difficult discussions. The beauty of social media is that the global community can, for the first time in history, engage in the same discussion all at once. The new connections we make and old ones we maintain through social media more often than not outweigh the risk. Yet, scrutiny and periodic reevaluation of the platforms we use to share our lives is vital to maintaining an open and trusted medium of communication. If the last decade has taught us anything, it's that social media platforms of yore are no longer providing a beneficial service that outweighs the immense damage they've caused to our privacy.

The primary cause of the harm associated with social media is related to the centralized nature of current platforms. When a platform is centralized, it means all the content on said platform is controlled by a single party. Users of a centralized platform are subject to the actions taken by the single party controlling the platform. These centralized social media platforms generate revenue through the exploitative collection and sale of user data. With a revenue model dependent on the sale of ads, centralized platforms are incentivized to maximize the value of the data sold by manipulating and censoring user content. To illustrate the downsides of centralized social media platforms, I will focus on three of the biggest: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Data Collection

Data collection is the engine that drives the revenue train for centralized platforms. Every user interaction is recorded and sold to target ads at very distinct groups of people. As I’ve discussed before, Facebook’s privacy record leaves much to be desired. In my opinion, Facebook is no longer a social media platform and instead has become an efficient data mining operation. Facebook’s collection activities occur both inside and outside the application itself. As recently as July 10th of this year, apps with Facebook integration through Facebook’s software development kit, or SDK, were shut down due to bugs within the development kit. Facebook’s SDK is a part of their data mining operations. Every time an app integrates Facebook's SDK, it pings Facebook’s servers any time a user logs into that application through their Facebook account. Through this SDK, Facebook collects user data from apps with said SDK integration.

With their major acquisitions of Instagram, WhatsApp, and more recently Giphy, Facebook’s native data collection net is wider than ever. The intrusive collection of user data has reached a point of negative return versus the social interactions made through their services. Facebook data collection policy is by no means unique. However, it presents the most poignant example of the lengths to which centralized social media platforms will go to harvest as much data as possible.

Revenue Model

The principal purpose centralized platforms like Facebook and Twitter collect user information is to sell that information to advertisers. Revenue generated by these sites is directly proportional to the correlation between data harvested and user engagement. The detrimental effects of a social media platform with an engagement driven revenue model can be seen clearly on Twitter and Facebook through the ads and content promoted by the platform, often through the use of algorithms. Twitter’s engagement algorithm has been accused of spurring extreme political rhetoric as recently as 2019.

The most concerning aspect of Twitter’s algorithm is how easily it can be manipulated by bots. Bots are computer-run accounts that automatically generate content through links and standard phrases on Twitter. With a deluge of content generated by these bots, Twitter’s algorithm is often manipulated to promote content often categorized as propaganda and fake news.

Yet, for all of Twitter’s shortcomings, Facebook retains the title of most reckless, through its egregious, and often times dangerous, algorithmic content manipulation. Facebook’s algorithm has promoted fake treatments to cancer patients, has been accused of discriminatory ad delivery practices, and stoking political partisanship. I'm sure almost everyone has a story about a creepily specific ad showing up on their timeline. Creepy is precisely what Facebook's proprietary, and therefore secret, algorithm is.

Censorship

Censorship across centralized social media platforms is rampant and affects all ideologies across every platform. To discuss censorship I will focus primarily on YouTube and how its approach exemplifies the problematic nature of centralized platform content moderation. Since its acquisition by Google in 2006, YouTube has become one of the most visited sites on the internet. This centralized platform houses mainstream and niche content, with one set of rules governing it.

All centralized social media platforms have a fundamental problem with content moderation. Effective content moderation requires a “scalpel”, not a “hammer”. With large centralized platforms like YouTube, there is no way to perform nuanced moderation. As a result, YouTube uses the hammer approach through automated content moderation tools. What results from the hammer approach to content moderation is the censorship of certain groups on the platform who follow the rules set forth by YouTube themselves. For example, LGBTQ YouTube creators’ videos were flagged and demonetized by YouTube's algorithm because of the algorithm’s inability to distinguish non-sexual queer content from sexually explicit “mature” content. Where large centralized social media platforms are fighting against misinformation on their platforms, a “hammer” approach to censorship is both ineffective and potentially dangerous.

Decentralized Social Media

The issues of data collection, revenue models, and censorship in social media are related to the centralized nature of these platforms. Fortunately, decentralized and open source alternatives are available. Three examples of decentralized social media platforms are Mastodon, Pixelfed, and Peertube.

Decentralized social media platforms operate differently from centralized platforms. For example, if you wanted to communicate with anyone on Facebook, you must have an account on the Facebook server (i.e. have a Facebook account). However, with a decentralized platform like Mastodon, there is no central “Mastodon server” like Facebook. There are multiple servers (called instances) all running Mastodon separately. Now, if you wanted to communicate with someone on Mastodon, you just need an account on any instance running Mastodon. Anyone can run an instance and each instance is then administrated and moderated by whoever hosts the instance. This instanced approach allows for the “scalpel” approach to content moderation that centralized platforms are incapable of implementing. With volunteer moderators managing the content on specific instances, and migration from one instance to another made easy, users can find or even create an instance that caters to the specific moderation practices they desire.

Instances “speak” to each other through protocols like ActivityPub. Through ActivityPub, users on one instance can talk to users on another instance, creating a social media network that is both open and closed. Posts from users on other instances are visible on ones feed, but those posts can be separated from posts from users on their local instance.

Mastodon, Pixelfed, and Peertube are open source, meaning anyone can examine the code and run an instance themselves. With no centralization, there is no dragnet collection and sale of user data. Instances may have a Patreon or other monetary support system in place to help finance the upkeep of an instance.

Decentralized social media is supported by the community, for the community, and as such there are no ads or algorithms. Social Media feeds are in chronological order, and “likes” and “favorites” are not recorded and used to push intensely personal ads. Building communities and sharing our lives on these decentralized social media platforms brings the value of connection through online platforms back to reasonable and appropriate levels.

As you may have noticed, the biggest player in the centralized social media space is also the most exploitative. I strongly believe deleting ones Facebook account is the biggest and most effective step one can take in reclaiming their privacy. Untangling oneself from Facebook's many arms is difficult, but starting with the base app is the best place to start. Mastodon and Pixelfed provide great platforms to begin building an online community anew, one friend at a time.

Tools:

Mastodon: Mastodon is an alternative to Twitter. The link provided has a great step-by-step guide to assist with joining Mastodon as well as selecting an instance that’s right for you. There are also many mobile apps available for both iPhone and Android.

Pixelfed: Pixelfed is an alternative to Instagram. Pixelfed is in active development. A mobile app and stories feature are in the pipeline.

Peertube: Peertube is an alternative to YouTube. Peertube is in active development with future iterations bringing streaming to the platform. The link provided will guide you through selecting an instance for browsing and account creation.

#Privacy #SocialMedia #Mastodon #Pixelfed #Peertube