[Cryptography] The Truth Social Network: A Decentralized Social Network

[btc_joe]

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Sunday, November 1, 2020 10:51 PM, Tom Mitchell <mitch at niftyegg.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 31, 2020 at 10:21 PM btc_joe via cryptography
> cryptography at metzdowd.com wrote:
>
> > I’ve been working on a new system for engaging in decentralized social media using an open-source protocol.
> > The paper is available at: https://www.thetruthsocialnetwork.com/White-Paper/
> > Some context:
>
> How is this different from a collection of mailing lists like this?

I would say it's pretty different for a bunch of reasons. For instance, I can't just go to Tom Mitchell's feed and check out his latest musings on life, or engage with them, or reshare them on my own feed. This is social media, less the monopolistic tech companies. A post on here can not trend or achieve virality, at least not in it of itself. I suppose these posts could be shared on social media to achieve such, but if Tom's post engages in 'wrong think' it could be shadow banned.

Further, I can't tip the post, and if I could I would need a paypal like entity to process the transaction. I mean, I could with bitcoin if you provided an address for it but that's a different conversation, in short, this system has different incentives which root the value of attention in hash power as opposed to traditional social media-like statistics. The units of account are in no way shape or form pretending to be, or competing with, global money. It's like reward points that have utility with a particular identity.

Also, with a system like this you wouldn't need a (password-based, vulnerable) account on 3-5 different walled garden platforms i.e. facebook, twitter, and youtube. Just one account, one identity for everything. All content easily referenced in the common language of public key crypto.

> We need moderation... even format rules.
>

It depends which aspect of the system we are talking about here. In terms of what gets posted on your own block publishing server (sort of like your own feed) you are essentially the moderator. We begin with the assumption that a 'reply' is not worth your engagement, it is on you to share it or take it one step further and engage with it. Think of it like your twitter feed, except even more conservative in the sense that not every reply gets automatically posted.

> With social media like twitter and fb there is one durable copy of the
> content. <-- likely important.
> That has a lot of value when people change devices. A safe window at
> work (oximoron)
> a phone, a laptop, a chromebook. Family accounts.
> Then there is the lost laptops and phones problem ;-). [yes plural].
>

In this system the content is, arguably, even more durable. That's sort of the point. On twitter, I am granted permission to post on their platform, at any point in time my content can be 'cancelled' and all record of it lost. Now, of course I do have the option to back up that content before that happens if I am smart, but permission to publish can easily be taken away if I piss off the wrong person. On the TSN, you begin by storing your own data (given you are willing to run a BPS), if you can attract others to run a node of your identity chain, cloutchain, and mine--it becomes increasingly redundant.

With that said, if you don't want to run a server, you can use a Lightweight Address, a different trade-off. Here your content is basically evaluated on it's own merits. If you can provoke interaction/engagement then your content can potentially be stored in another record. Or you can pay a bit of 'clout' to have it shared on a Server Feed (I think this would be more popular with videos and such, sort of like a youtube, but without the need for an account and password). While that stuff would likely have a non-zero cost, it allows for exposure to tipping in the clout of the server feed.