The hours-lasting failure suffered by Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram reminds users of the benefits of decentralized social networks built on the blockchain.
Facebook crash
The massive outage in Facebook services around the world and the fact that it is being investigated by federal prosecutors in the state of New York about the agreements with more than 150 companies, which allowed the sharing of private user data, should make us doubt about the benefits that these big centralized giants provide to us.
As I commented months ago in an article published in Blockchain Media, entitled «Social Blockchain Networks Substituting Facebook Do Not Spy on You and You Can Earn Money with Them»:
«There are many reasons for deleting Facebook: the fact that it doesn't respect your privacy, that it uses you as a product to sell your data, or that it keeps a record of all the calls you make and where you are at all times, and that it has no qualms about sharing that information with governments».
Igor Domsac
Users unable to access Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp
On Wednesday, Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp recorded a resounding failure in their worldwide service for hours on end, both in their desktop web version and in their applications. This situation, coupled with repeated violations of privacy, should serve to question our use of these tools in which users constitute the product, but are others who profit at our expense and also manipulate us:
«Beware of Facebook, serious cases of censorship are being reported with the justification that content owners have deleted publications. It's important to be vigilant on the eve of elections».
Miguel Sánchez
Fortunately, technological advances already offer a solution to the bottleneck generated by these great monsters. There are many benefits in public blockchain and smart contracts versus the centralization of our network interactions. Because of their decentralized design, peer-to-peer networks eliminate the risks of centralized data storage.
Advantages of the blockchain
Let's take a look at the advantages provided to users by the new decentralized social networks:
- Transparency: interactions are immutably recorded in the blockchain, so anyone can consult them at any time.
- Security: data and information are secure, using cryptography and replicating information in all nodes of the network. Having a single attack vector makes centralization infinitely more vulnerable.
- Resistance to censorship: no centralised body can intervene in the information shared or transactions carried out within the network.
- More efficient management: algorithms are more reliable than people, so we manage resources better and minimize human error.
- Quality: the immutability of the blockchain and its community governance provide greater quality, reducing the possibilities of fraud and tackling more effectively the expansion of fake news.
- Data control: users have control over all their information and transactions.
- Fairer distribution of wealth: the exchange of value between equals with low transaction costs allows users to receive fairer remuneration for their content, rather than the platform taking the lion's share of the profit.
In short, we already have precise tools to connect to the net in a much cleaner, more transparent and secure way, eliminating these great intermediaries that parasitize our lives. By allowing exchanges of value directly between peers, with free admission for all, the new update of the system brings transparency, traceability and decentralization to the process of relating to each other.
The world is certainly transforming, mutating into increasingly complex structures, and moving in turn towards the establishment of more horizontal, closer, intimate and humane professional and social relationships. There are no more excuses to remain trapped in the centralized cobwebs!