Blueprint of a distributed social network on IPFS, and its problems
If you're thinking about building a distributed social network, you <i>HAVE</i> to have answers to the question: How do you moderate it? (Or how do the users moderate what they consume, if you will)<p>Basically, think of the most annoying person you can imagine, give them infinite free time, and a uncontrollable urge to do EVERYTHING they can think of to make your life miserable on said social network (doxxing, abusive messaging in every way possible, creating dozens or hundreds of accounts, etc...). If you do not have facilities to deal with this, your network is garbage.<p>With the focus on "distributed" and "resilient" and "unblockable", you're effectively creating the perfect environment for every abusive stalker, internet creep, and troll.<p>Lord of the flies is not a functional governance mechanism. Moderation and control have to be designed into the network <i>from the outset</i>.<p>There's no reason I can think of that some sort of "distributed control" isn't <i>possible</i>, but you'd better have it planned out <i>first</i>. Bolting on tools for handling abusive users after-the-fact will likely be much harder.