I Do Not Wish To Be A Part Of Your Unfiltered Social Media
President Trump was banned from using Twitter just as his term in office was coming to a close. This event fuels a discussion already happening frequently among many BCH supporters about the need for "restriction resistant" social media platforms. Since Donald Trump's politics are irrelevant to the discussion at hand, I won't be covering them here. It would appear that the general consensus in the BCH community is that no one's voice should be stifled, regardless of whether or not the specifics of what is being stated are accepted. The majority in the neighborhood agrees with this assessment.
Many Bitcoin Cash supporters want to recreate popular social media sites like Twitter and Reddit using the BCH blockchain so that user contributions are immutable. The core idea of this line of thinking is that once anything has been spoken in public, it can never be taken back. No one can be prevented from speaking their mind.
It is of the utmost importance to the Bitcoin Cash community because the vast majority of users hold the view that the adoption of Bitcoin Cash is being artificially hindered by BTC supporters purposely limiting open discussion in significant Bitcoin Cash community sections like r/bitcoin. And I'd say I basically agree with the common agreement that Bitcoin wouldn't have the market share that it currently enjoys if Bitcoin supporters hadn't engaged in aggressive methods in an effort to mold people's views of Bitcoin.
There is a deeper discussion to be had about what constitutes "censorship," especially because I remain unconvinced that Twitter's decision to ban Trump amounts to actual censorship. When seen through the prism of a private firm whose goal is to maximize advertising revenue, Twitter's move to ban Trump is analogous to banning a customer who is making other diners uncomfortable.
For the record, that is where I stand; I want my preferences made clear. But I won't wade into the semantic quagmire of trying to get everyone to agree on what censorship actually is. Because it diverts attention from the question I want to investigate, which is whether or not the hopes of those who would like to see a "censorship resistant" social networking service built on the blockchain will be realized. I won't be doing that since it would divert my attention away from the main issue.
Each "tweet" or post would be recorded in an immutable public ledger called a "blockchain," as far as I can tell. The most important aspect is that once your post has been published, not even the people who created the user interface that allows you to do so can remove it. The blockchain is decentralized and therefore immune to tampering.
As an example of such a service, you may have heard of Memo.cash. Memo.cash is, at its core, just a gateway for storing information on the Bitcoin Cash network. Even if the company or service that Memo.cash is a part of were to ever go out of business, the "tweets" that you posted to the blockchain with Memo.cash's help would remain intact.
As a matter of fact, I find it quite unappealing. Having to figure out who I am and how to present myself to the public after the advent of social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and others was actually a blessing in disguise. Many things are better off being kept secret, but there's a strong possibility that naive adolescent me would have spilled the beans on them. I would not have wanted them preserved in any manner, including something as "permanent" as posting them on Facebook.
Although I'm an adult now, there are still times when I entirely reassess the way I want to be seen online and end up erasing past posts from social media like Facebook and Twitter. Such comments may still exist in an archive or backup file. But they're hidden so well that a search wouldn't turn them up anyway, and that's fine with me.
Individuals may also have legal grounds for requesting data deletion or restriction. Think about the situation when someone is accused of rape but is later proven innocent. At this point in time, it seems quite unlikely that a person could convince Google to completely delete the first connection between their name and a rape claim. In any case, it seems like it would be beneficial for them to be able to contact a firm like Google, Twitter, or Facebook and have any reference to the false claim erased. Because of this, the allegation will not be the default search result.
Even worse, it frequently occurs in the media industry for people to run wild with half-baked interpretations of an incident or speech, which can lead to social disaster for the person involved. When someone is falsely accused of doing something, the media and the public tend to move on before the truth can be uncovered. A single valid result is found for every ten thousand wrong ones. The fact that the truth is available to all does not ensure that anyone will actually bother to look for it.
Those who hope for this in a BCH-powered social network likely feel that the existence of the true post would undo the harm done by the false one. However, I fail to see how that could be the case, given that examples of this kind of circumstance already exist, which seems to run counter to what you're arguing. The existence of websites that archive and preserve every post posted to Reddit has allowed users to see what postings may have been removed by moderators, although this does not appear to have significantly impacted moderators' ability to exert control over their communities.
While no central authority has control over the data contained in a blockchain, that doesn't imply users can't alter their access privileges. Memo.cash may decide to show every single post that has been added to the blockchain. On the other hand, someone else might design a user interface that scrubs the web of offensive material like child sexual images and racist comments.
In any case, that's what they say about themselves. Just by tweaking the algorithms, we can see if they are selectively erasing content in order to force it to conform to our preferred message template for a given topic.
Since the factors that contribute to a website's success are unpredictable and uncontrollable, you may find yourself right back where you started if the second site were to suddenly become more popular. People are complaining that the truth is being buried on an obscure website while the masses are busy at the more popular one. It's happening when everyone else is checking out the more popular site.
Concerns regarding censorship, perception, and free speech will not be resolved simply because a social media site is built on blockchain technology and data is stored in an immutable format.
To me, this is the most fundamental reason why assuring potential customers that their uploaded content will never be deleted is not a selling point. This is the type of constraint we support for everyone else but would rather not experience personally.