03:30 pm
Tue Mar 12

Featured Session: How and Why We Need to Decentralize Social Media (OFFICIAL)

Austin Convention Center
500 East Cesar Chavez Street, Austin, TX, 78701
0.32km SW

This is an official event. More info on badges, wristbands & priority access.

Austin Convention Center

Room 16AB

500 E Cesar Chavez

Speakers

Dr Larry Sanger

Everipedia

The problem with social media is that it is centralized. Centralization empowers massive corporations and governments to steal our privacy and restrict our speech and autonomy.

What should exist are neutral, technical standards and protocols, like the standards and protocols for blogs, email and the web. Indeed, many proposed standards already do exist, but none has emerged as a common, dominant standard.

Blockchain technology—the technology of decentralization—is perfect for this, but not strictly necessary. Common protocols would enable us to follow public feeds no matter where they are published. We would eventually have our pick of many different apps to view these feeds. We would choose our own terms, not Facebook’s or Twitter’s, for both publishing and reading.

Primary Entry: Platinum Badge, Interactive Badge

Secondary Entry: Music Badge, Film Badge

Format: Featured session

Event Type: Session

Track: Media & Journalism

Level: Beginner