Blockchain has now emerged as a solution for many issues despite topics like technology development, economic measures, and freedom of speech because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It has been reported that Iva Wisher, the co-founder of Ignite, a decentralized microblogging platform, said that blockchain may also be a solution against state-sponsored censorship in today’s pandemic-related new normal.
However, Wisher clarified that in general, freedom of speech means a “possibility to express any opinion, even an unpopular one, unless this opinion is not a call to violence.”
Wisher added:
“The blockchain technology then could come in to bring an opportunity to express your opinion without risk of punishment from the government.”
Another co-founder of Ignite, Vladislavs Semjonovs believes that decentralized platforms with community governance systems like Ignite make it “technically impossible” to meet state-sponsored censorship such as the recent ban of TikTok by the US government.
Semjonovs added:
“First of all, we will need to implement a blockchain consensus to release a full-scale solution of content relevance mechanism. Prometeus [decentralized protocol] team came from the cutting edge of big data and AI technologies, so after the consensus mechanism is implemented, we can apply cutting edge technologies from the AI field in order to provide relevant content for our users.”
According to Wisher, a blockchain-powered social network or microblogging platform should implement an AI-backed sensitive content mark system to “protect users from any kind of illegal content,” because moderators shouldn’t be part of a decentralized platform like the ones that aim to combat the censorship.
.@prometeusnet team explains how blockchain technology can counter state-sponsored censorship https://t.co/f9LNT6yos1 — Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) August 16, 2020
As the users will still be able to see posts that others can consider as “hate speech,” Semjonovs says that they “will have to confirm that by captcha. (…) Users can always decide not to see any content from a particular user.”
Likewise, he explains in a technical way how its project can be a reference for other similar platforms that could make its inception into the blockchain environment of social networks, and how the platform could be governed by the community using models such as DAO.
Binance Smart Chain official updates are now available on Ignite! 🔥🔥 Register by the link below to explore the most recent news from @Binance_DEX 👇👇https://t.co/ySTpLZiqIP — Prometeus (@prometeusnet) August 14, 2020
He said:
“First of all, Ignite (or any other community-driven social network) can’t exist without a powerful and flexible consensus mechanism, as BSC provides. Secondly, BSC has a feature of mini – tokens (BEP8) which fits Ignite upcoming community system. As for Skynet, we share common ideas and directions on decentralized ecosystem development. The social network can’t ensure comfortable UX without a CDN.”
As per the report, both believe that the adverse effects of the recent TikTok banning from the US and the Indian government’s similar measures against Chinese applications will “increase along in a post-pandemic time.”
Thus, they concluded:
“As for us, we believe that blockchain media technologies should bring people the freedom of choice with the social media content – exactly the same way the blockchain fintech technologies brought such freedom with their financial activities.”
Source: Cointelegraph | Image: The Equinix Blog