As social media holds the possibility of compromising user privacy, the need for transforming social media has arrived.
Have you ever wondered how you’re seeing all those ads pop up on your screen, selling you something you’ve been planning to buy but don’t remember telling anyone anything about it? Well, you did tell someone – the Internet! How? While using your social media account you knowingly or unknowingly divulged information about yourself, say your location, hobbies, profession, demographics, likes, and dislikes etc. By a process called ‘Digital Profiling,’ information about individuals is gathered and analyzed from their interaction with a digital data network. Our social media accounts are an example of such a network. However, weak security standards on such platforms can lead to the leakage of sensitive and classified personal information. And this is exactly why transforming social media has become a requirement and blockchain is being used for this.
Blockchain is a technology that gives prime importance to security and privacy of information (a feature that was lacking in traditional social media). This is probably one of the main reasons why several social media applications are already leveraging it. For example, ‘Nexus Social’ is a decentralized social media platform that supports e-commerce as well as social networking in a tightly secure and private environment created using blockchain. Then there is Obsidian, a blockchain powered social media application that ensures secure and anonymous messaging to anyone on the globe. And that’s not it! Listed below are six stunning ways blockchain is transforming social media.
1. Anonymous Messaging
Blockchain is capable of transforming social media in such a way that applications can be created to support anonymous messaging for people. People of those countries where access to certain social media websites is banned can use such social networks.
2. Decentralized social network
Since blockchain decentralizes the entire system, it becomes extremely difficult for a hacker to hack into the social media networks and then into somebody’s account. In such a system, the data is distributed over the network and has been stored in several other systems. As a result, there is no single point of attack.
3. Secure currencies within the platform
Using blockchain, social media can also be converted into an online market portal where people can buy or sell via secured transactions using cryptocurrency or cryptocurrency wallets. Applications such as Nexus Social and Obsidian work that way. They have their currencies, which can be used to purchase on the blockchain enabled social media platform.
4. Control over self-created content
In traditional social media, the content we post does not usually stay under our own patent. Anybody from any part of the world has access to the content that we post on our social media profile. They can further copy our content and take credit for our creation. This has resulted in people losing out on credits that they deserved. Using blockchain-enabled social media platform, people have total control over the content that they have created and earn credits for what they have generated.
5. Verified news feed
A lot of times, social media has been reported to post misleading news posts. These posts often lead people into believing something that never happened. With people accepting blockchain-powered social media, the news feed that we are shown is checked for its authenticity and can therefore never be misleading.
6. Inaccessible for Google indexing
As of now, all our details can be found using the indexing feature of Google. By using this technique, many companies gain access to people’s information that may breach an individual’s privacy. By accepting blockchain in social media platform, indexing won’t be a possibility.
Earlier, it was assumed that blockchain has no other application beyond Bitcoins. With enhanced research, the number of fields turning to blockchain is gradually increasing. This is why it won’t be an exaggeration to say that it would be correct to say that blockchain will revolutionize social media soon.
