While the Internet has created amazing ways for us to all communicate through social media, the fact of the matter is that people become too invested in platforms which are under someone else's control. For years we've seen increased cases of big tech showing bias towards political parties. This has all finally come to a head with the deplatforming of President Trump and even the suspension of hosting of Parler by Amazon because Parler refused to moderate content.
Currently this "big tech" bias seems to be against conservatives. However, liberals should be just as concerned about the consequences - if a conservative owned company gained popularity then suddenly started removing liberal content, liberals would and should be just as outraged.
The common response we typically hear to this issue is "if you don't like it go build your own platform". And that's what Parler did. However, because Parler was hosted by someone else (Amazon), they were still subject to disconnection.
The problem goes even deeper than hosting. Let's say you build a social network on your own hardware, in your own data center. This data center will be reliant upon an Internet provider selling you Internet access. But what if your internet provider decides they don't like your freedom of speech? With the flip of a switch, your users can still lose access.
The only solution to all of this is to abandon centrally hosted networks completely. For free speech to truly thrive we must embrace peer to peer technology.
What is "peer to peer"? Do you remember Limewire and Bearshare, two popular programs in the early 2000's for pirating music? Those programs used early peer to peer technology. Of course, instead of sharing photos and chatting with friends, the programs were typically used for illegal purposes. But, the concept of a distributed network was born, and has started to thrive since. Programs such as Tor have now started to appear, allowing anonymous access to the Internet across a random, encrypted network path.
The next logical step is to make this network two-way, allowing users to communicate across a distributed network with no central server. Sure, individual people could get disconnected, but the network itself could never get shutdown.
So what are our current options? Not many unfortunately.
The best contender seems to be Manyverse, which is available on iPhone and Android. One of the best features of Manyverse is that it will function off-grid, meaning that even if the Internet goes down, as long as you can connect to others through a local wifi or even Bluetooth connection, you can still communicate. The problem however with Manyverse is it's pretty difficult to get people connected. Once the learning curve is overcome, it's a viable system, but for now adoption is low due to lack of ease-of-use.
A bit easier to use is Bridgefy, but unfortunately it only works via a Bluetooth mesh network, meaning you can't be far apart. Bridgefy might still be worth installing though as an emergency communications network, and has become very popular by Hong Kong protesters.
More similar to traditional social networks are Diasporia and Mastodon, but the problem with these networks is that they aren't true "peer to peer". While they may be distributed across multiple servers, it would still be very easy to simply shut down all of the servers, leaving the users out in the cold.
Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a "silver bullet" to allow true freedom of speech on the Internet at this time. Hopefully, as the massive lockdown of social media has pushed people further and further to seek alternatives, maybe someone will step up to the plate and build a network which can't be shut down.
Ken Buckler is a Cyber Security professional. The opinions expressed in this article are his own, and do not reflect those of his employer or clients.
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