Direct from the desk of Dane Williams.
Web3 Hive social media accounts offer censorship-resistance and still allow communities to maintain standards for content.
Obviously if you’re walking around dropping N-bombs willy nilly in a community that mirrors the social standards of a modern western democracy, then you’re going to have an issue.
We saw it first hand this week after the emergence of Joe Rogan’s N-word compilation video and Web2 tech giants talked about deplatforming him.
But one of the defining traits of true Web3 social media, such as dApps built on the Hive blockchain, is censorship-resistance.
Web3 social media affords you the opportunity to say what you want, when you want it, with no centralised tech company having the ability to take away your account.
BUT.
This does not mean that everything you say is deemed acceptable by the community using the dApp that you’re saying it within.
This blog takes a look at how a Web3 social media dApp on Hive can handle someone using the N-word (or similar socially unacceptable behaviour).
The layers of Hive
In order to understand what that means, you have to understand the layers of the Hive blockchain.
The layers to Hive are:
1. Layer 1 - The base layer
On the base layer, you have the Hive blockchain itself.
Your immutable account with the keys that you own, sits on this base layer.
You can publish as many N-bombs as you like on your account which will always be puslbished under your name, on the Hive blockchain ledger.
2. Layer 2 - Web3 social media front-ends
On layer 2, sit the ecosystem of Web3 dApps that are built on top of the Hive blockchain.
One example being the Web3 social media dApps that are accessible via base layer Hive blockchain accounts.
While you can say the N-word all you want, the Web3 social media dApp acts as a front-end with its own set of rules it uses to display content.
Web3 social media dApps have rules and standards
Your Hive account is what is censorship resistant.
You can always say what you want, when you want it.
But each community front-end that is built on layer 2, can choose to display only the content that they deem appropriate.
Using whatever metric their standards dictate as acceptable.
These decisions can be made by a central leadership figure such as whoever owns the domain, or via community-driven stake weighted voting.
It all depends on how they are set up.
While someone repeatedly using the N-word is an extreme circumstance, another rule or standard being enforced, would simply be keeping niche communities on topic.
For example, the LeoFinance community chooses to display only finance and investing related content on their front-end.
Anyone posting something unrelated like sports content (let alone spammers, plagiarists and the like), will not have their content displayed.
Again, this is purely at the discretion of the individual social media dApp built on Hive’s layer 2.
Remember, with centrally hosted domains and Web3 social media dApps registered as tax paying businesses across various jurisdictions, they have certain legal obligations to uphold.
As long as the legal structures of individual sovereign nations that founders are a part of remain, this will always be the case.
Censorship resistant… at the base layer
So as you can see, you can technically use the N-word on Hive’s Web3 social media all you want.
It will always be published to your account.
But that doesn’t mean that the Web3 social media dApp and community of your choice will choose to display the content.
We tend to see people with views unacceptable by first-world societies, such as those dropping N-bombs willy nilly, crying that they have been censored.
When all that has actually happened is the front-end has deemed that their behaviour is unacceptable in that specific community.
They have actually not been censored at all.
Owning the keys to a censorship-resistant Hive account that always publishes to the immutable Hive blockchain, ensures that they can’t be.
Remember, if you don’t agree with the standards of any particular Web3 social media dApp or front-end, you can always build your own!
The best Web3 social media dApps are built on Hive
So now you understand how Hive's Web3 social media handles censorship, what are you waiting for?
LeoFinance makes it super simple to create a censorship-resistant Hive account using nothing more than your current Twitter handle.
Simply head to leofinance.io, click the get started button at the top and create your account.
Claim your keys and use your Hive account to log into whichever Web3 social media dApp fits you best.
Best of probabilities to you.