At a time when our lives are only becoming increasingly digital, why should we hand all of our information to centralized, opaque organizations that have a track record of using it unethically? This is the question posed by Jameson Lopp, the chief technology officer of and co-founder of Casa, a self-custody service, in response to Twitter’s rebranding to X and the launch of Meta’s new community messaging service called Threads.
The idea of Twitter as an everything app was seemingly inspired by the popular Chinese platform WeChat, which allows users not only to chat, make calls, and send media but also to make payments and access a wide range of financial and personal services. However, there is a genuine concern about what happens when you use a single point of access for your entire digital world. If you do anything deemed unacceptable – generally by algorithms designed by people you will never know – you can be cut off in a second, often with little to no recourse.
Fortunately, one of the major boons of blockchain and other cryptographic breakthroughs is the ability to disintermediate big tech platforms and take charge of your identity and data. Platforms like Nostr offer a true path to censorship-resistant social media as well as digital sovereignty. Nostr doesn’t require people to bootstrap servers and so is comparatively very easy to start using. You simply choose your client, be it a web browser or some app, create your public and private keys, and can immediately begin surfing through content from other users or post your own.
At this point, the experience is like Twitter. You get the same basic service with no ads and no threat of data harvesting whatsoever. Furthermore, considering a social network is only as good as the people who use it, you may be surprised just how many famous names are already involved with Nostr. Most notably perhaps is Jack Dorsey, the original creator of Twitter.
Ultimately, each and every individual should be able to decide for themselves how to approach their presence online. Some may prioritize convenience and continue to use platforms like Twitter/X and its peers, while others may see the writing on the wall and decide that their digital sovereignty is more important.