Political angst, fake news, and data leaks about who you are as an individual are just some of the problems social media giants have faced this year. Those are the ones we know about. Unfortunately, much of your data and mine are locked away in dark rooms and used continuously in ways we can’t see or learn about today.
It’s no wonder that social media is making the world feel “anxious and divided,” according to Facebook’s Zuckerberg. We’re becoming disenfranchised and dissatisfied with a technology that has the ability to connect us to each other in brand new ways.
The problem has been exposed, and we can academically understand the process to fix things. However, that doesn’t mean the big players are going to take the necessary actions or that they are going to implement them when your data is such a core part of their business model, or that you’ll get the control you deserve.
In the digital era, your data is you. Only you should get to own you.
Where Does Social Go From Here?
Next-gen social networks are going to be mobile-first, ubiquitous experiences that also expand to a wide range of IoT devices. Ever-connected and always growing the number of connections, data growth will compound, and so will a company’s ability to know everything about you.
But, what if it didn’t have to be that way? What if you could control your data, how it is collected and used, or even remove yourself from some services at a moment’s notice?
That’s exactly what’s being proposed by the ONe Network, a new type of social network that uses blockchain and decentralized application (dApp) technology to deliver on the promise of social 2.0 and privacy 2.0
Founder and CEO John Hoelzer said:
ONe was created to address the privacy problem that we see on today’s social networks as well as the countless other sites and services that collect too much information on us in both our public and private lives.
“The idea and development started before Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica brought the problem to light. It’s a shame that needed to happen for people to start to realize just how much information social media companies have on us and are willing to use, or willing to sell,” said Hoelzer. “It’s the wakeup call we needed to start asking the right privacy questions in a public space.”
Those questions include how much of your data you should be able to control and permit companies to use, and when you should be able to take that permission back. It’s the same questions that are at the heart of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was officially adopted by the European Union in 2016.
You’ve probably gotten those GDPR privacy policy updates telling you that you’ve got more control of your data and how to address it. Unfortunately, as multiple reports show, companies are struggling to implement it. And, for now, the strictest applications and regulatory protections only extend to citizens in the E.U.
Blockchain Can Put You in Control
Everyone deserves the protections the GDPR offers, and more. Social media must shift to treat users as customers, instead of like data-creating products. At least, we think so.
That’s the vision of ONe: a feature-rich platform designed to communicate with anyone anywhere in the world through video, voice, text, and other unique ways, without having an outside or unseen force lurking and gathering data from the input as well as user habits. It means shifting the conversation and requiring people to opt-in for things like personalized ads and giving users a way to get a tangible benefit from that opt-in.
What we think is a bit revolutionary about ONe is that we’re being built entirely on the blockchain, which makes it easy for us to put controls into place that you can use to protect your information. The system is also designed to grow as our users and services do, so security scales with us.
Using a set of public and private settings that only you can see or adjust, you’re empowered to create those public and private personas. Use them how you want, with the privacy levels you want, as you aim to lead a normal life and engage in those Internet activities we almost all do sometimes.
Blockchains typically don’t scale well because there needs to be a global consensus on the order and outcome of all transfers. Every participant needs to learn about all updates to the shared ledger. To address this, we’re starting out as a hybridized network that will shift to fully decentralized techniques as the appropriate technology is developed.
We’re waiting on Richard Hendricks’ new Internet. While we’re waiting, ONe promises to do everything we can to protect privacy and expand services to our users. Our token generating event and sale of the Onebit token (OBT) are one way we can raise funds without using any of your data, and we’ll be looking for similar opportunities in the future.
Hoelzer said:
Social needs to put people’s privacy back in their own hands. ONe does just that. I think as people learn about us and how we work, they’ll join us here on ONe. I also hope it will put pressure on other social media services to enact greater privacy controls because that’s something everyone deserves.
It’s the one path forward that makes the most sense.
Images courtesy of ONe Network
