The internet as a social network: A review

Jerry
3 min readSep 18, 2024

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I’d like to credit @0xintuition for the insights in this article. This review reflects my understanding of their points and where I see Intuition fitting into the broader picture of decentralized social networks.

The article in provides a comprehensive examination of how the social graph shapes our online experiences and highlights the critical need for a shift toward decentralization to address the challenges posed by centralized social media platforms.

It also explains how the internet has evolved into a web of social interactions driven by the social graph. This graph, built from our digital interactions, influences the content we see, creating echo chambers and raising privacy concerns. Centralized platforms use this data to predict and manipulate user behavior, leading to issues like surveillance capitalism and data monopolies.

Intuition offers a decentralized approach to change this. It aims to give users control over their data and identities, promoting a more democratic and secure online experience. By using self-sovereign identities and decentralized data storage, Intuition empowers individuals to manage their online presence, reducing the risks associated with centralized control and creating a more user-focused internet.

Overall, the article suggests that shifting towards decentralized networks like Intuition could redefine the internet’s social fabric, prioritizing individual agency and privacy while reducing monopolistic control.

Key Points and Analysis

1. Social Graph and its Impact:

- The social graph, which maps our online relationships and interactions, significantly influences how content is curated and displayed. While this personalization enhances user engagement, it also creates echo chambers and reinforces biases.

2. Privacy and Centralization Issues:

- Centralized platforms exploit detailed user data for commercial and political gain, raising serious privacy concerns. This centralization leads to issues like unauthorized data sharing, surveillance capitalism, and monopolistic control over user data.

3. Decentralization as a Solution:

- The article argues that decentralization could counteract these problems by redistributing control from large corporations to individual users. Decentralized systems could offer self-sovereign identities, better data privacy, and reduced risks of data misuse by eliminating single points of failure.

4. Intuition’s Role:

- Intuition aligns with the vision of decentralization described in the article. By leveraging decentralized identities and a verifiable knowledge graph, Intuition can help ensure that user data remains private and under user control. This approach could reduce the power of central entities and mitigate the risks associated with data monopolies.

5. Balancing the Pros and Cons of Social Media:

- While social media platforms have democratized information and enabled global communication, they also have drawbacks like misinformation and content manipulation. A decentralized model, as proposed by Intuition, could address these issues by giving users more control over their data and interactions, thus fostering a more balanced and transparent online environment.

6. Empowering Users:

- The article emphasizes the importance of media literacy and transparent algo. Decentralization alone won’t solve all problems but can provide a foundation for users to better manage their online presence and make informed choices.

Conclusion:

The article presents a compelling case for decentralization as a way to address the shortcomings of current “social media models”. Intuition’s focus on decentralization, self-sovereign identities, and verifiable claims aligns well with these goals. By adopting such approaches, Intuition could contribute to a more equitable, secure, and user-centered digital landscape.

Link to article — Here

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Jerry

Software ∂єνєℓδρєr, Open Source and crypto Enthusiast.