Wikileaks recently claimed that Facebook censored their post on Hillary Clinton’s email dump. This suggests that users of Facebook are in no way guaranteed the right to post whatever they want. At the end of the day, it is Facebook Corporation (Quote: FB) which has the final say on what should be publicly allowed on Facebook. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, this is the expected outcome of a free service existing as a centrally managed set of servers owned by special interests and shareholders.
The solution, not without its own disadvantages, would be to create and migrate all users to a decentralized social media network. I think this would be possible with Namecoin in combination with WordPress (think BuddyPress) where all users would have their own local servers or rent machines with services like Heroku, Namecheap, Openshift, Amazon EC2, etc.. The process should be simple:
- User rents machine on Heroku, Namecheap, Openshift, etc…
- Install WordPress on this machine
- Add WordPress social network plugin
- Create Namecoin domain
- Create user profile
- Publish posts, socialize and message friends
Here are some current examples/ideas of people creating and implementing P2P social networks:
Diaspora – Working version of a private decentralized social network
Synereo; visit their blog to keep up with their progress.
The Pandora. P2P Social Network
Masques: an invisible social network