Privacy and Freedom vs Transparency and Control
Freedom means having the right to be who you are, say what you want and do what you love provided it doesn’t infringe upon the freedom of others.
But in reality, we don’t really have the online freedom to say what we want or do what we love, do we?
Think about it. Our lives have gone entirely digital with the advent of the Internet. Some of us care more about our online lives and persona than the real ones.
People meet online, study online, and even find the love of their lives online.
A report by the UN suggests that, of the almost 8 billion people around the world, 5 billion are connected to the Internet. The study further states that an average Internet user spends almost 6 hours and 53 minutes a day online. Take us for example. We mostly work online and when we’re not working, we’re still online.
But we’re not really allowed to say what we want and do what we love because the Internet of today which spurred the digital revolution almost 2 decades ago thrives on user data.
And that’s why the data economy is a humongous $274 B large.
But do you know what’s more valuable than that?
Your privacy.
We are constantly being surveilled, directly or indirectly. Ever thought that your data could be on someone’s spreadsheet classified into a cold, warm, or hot lead?
Or you could be represented in an infographic just like the image below.
The above image is the representation of a survey by Pandasecurity in which 1000 Americans participated. A majority of them value privacy but aren’t willing to pay for applications that protect their privacy.
The survey itself is an example of people willing to share their data.
The problem here is that a lot of people can benefit from an app that doesn’t collect data, but the app’s developers will still need to pay for operational and other costs. Thus, without data, such apps would not have a viable revenue stream.
What then, can be the solution?
Well, the data economy is not your enemy. It is the centralized actors who use your data for purposes other than for which it is collected.
When you’re signing up on a social media platform, you trust the platform to not use your data for their personal gains. But once you provide them your personal information like your phone number or email address, all you can do is sit back and hope that they don’t use it for devious reasons.
Moreover, with your personal data exposed, it becomes increasingly difficult to voice out for what you believe in. Your data could be used against you.
This is especially true on centralized social networking sites which use your personal information such as your name, username, email address, geographic location, IP address, or even your KYC information to cancel you on their platform.
Should the Internet be Censored?
Is free speech no longer the goal of the Internet?
To answer this, let’s see how one of the largest centralized social media platforms has fared in protecting free speech so far. Here’s a statement by Twitter on defending and respecting the rights of people. But ironically, the Twitter of today isn’t what it used to be. Or maybe it never was what it originally set out to be.
Elon Musk, Twitter’s new CEO along with Journalist Bari Weiss made astounding revelations about Twitter’s alleged shadowbanning to be true.
Twitter has practiced what it calls Visibility Filtering or VF. Twitter used VF to snub voices that supposedly go against their policies. This includes preventing tweets from trending using an internal “Trends Blacklist” or a “Do Not Amplify” tag.
Twitter has also used the VF feature to prevent people from finding certain accounts, such as the popular right-wing talk show host Dan Bongingo.
Among the list of people who were blacklisted include a Stanford medical doctor Jay Bhattacharya who claimed that the Covid lockdowns would harm children.
Clearly, Twitter hasn’t been advocating for free speech for a really long time.
Social media today is a powerful tool to express your opinions, get real-time information, show your support for a cause, and even run donation campaigns.
We believe that every opinion matters, even if we don’t agree with them. And everyone has the right to express themselves.
There are instances of a single positive opinion on social media greatly impacting a person’s life.
While the opposite is also true with undesirable content that express intolerance, xenophobia, hate speech, sexual discrimination, and the like, it is worthwhile to build applications that help people deter negativity while preserving data privacy and freedom of speech.
So, Lets Free the Internet
Yes. Let’s do it.
But how do we go about it?
Well, Google didn’t give any viable solutions. Because, in its current form, many people don’t seem to think that the internet is really restricted.
Why?
Because centralized platforms hold monopoly over your data. It is how they are structured, inside out. And we are so used to the Internet that runs on data fuel that we’re blindsided to the idea that maybe, we can be part of the Internet too.
Freedom is limited on the Internet built by centralized applications. You are bound by the countless terms of service and privacy policies of these apps.
But, if you can hold a stake in the Internet, shape it, drive its growth, and truly be a part of it, then you’d have a censorship-free Internet that’s fair and unbiased.
The key to achieving this is decentralization.
Censorship-free DApps like the BChat Web3 Messenger let you own a stake in it.
Free and Open Source Applications
The BChat Web3 Messenger is an open source application without any censorship. Here, users’ privacy is prioritized.
It is a decentralized application free of surveillance because it doesn’t collect any user data.
Users can freely share their views while preserving their privacy.
User data (shared messages, videos, and calls) is protected by layers of encryption and onion routing. BChat also provides you with metadata protection, which popular end-to-end encrypted applications fail to do.
Anonymous sharing of information over secure channels built over decentralized nodes ensures that the BChat decentralized messenger is the best open-source solution for a number of people.
Being open-source also means that there’s a greater scope for the technology to be adopted by other developers.
BChat’s open source benefits:
- Surveillance free.
- No data user is collected or shared.
- Censorship free.
- Collaborative efforts.
How Decentralization Aids Free Speech and Human Rights
Decentralized cryptocurrencies and censorship-free dApps have shown us that they can be the ray of hope in one’s life. Here’s a story that depicts how a quick-witted person converted his savings into cryptocurrency and fled from a war torn region.
Can you imagine waking up to sirens and loud blasts emanating from your surroundings?
You wouldn’t know what to do. But this was the reality for Fadey, a Ukrainian, who sensibly planned the situation and fled to Poland with his girlfriend by converting 40% of his life savings to cryptocurrency.
This shows how crypto can be used in critical situations when all other trusted, centralized systems fail.
Consider a similar situation where one needs to communicate with their loved ones without the fear of being surveilled or persecuted.
Professionals like investigative editors and reporters, human rights activists, even government and law enforcement officials need secure applications to share private and confidential information, without having a target on their backs.
Decentralized messaging applications like BChat were built to serve this purpose. BChat enables the safe and secure transfer of your messages and files.
Happy International Human Rights Day! #LetsBChat
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