Social media has become an integral part of modern life. Today, there are numerous social networks, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, and others, and their usage continues to grow [1]. These platforms enable users to connect with others, share information, and stay updated on global events. The popularity of social media can be attributed to various factors, including the need for connectivity, real-time updates, entertainment, and the ability to express opinions. Additionally, businesses have shifted their marketing strategies towards online platforms, targeting specific audiences [2]. Centralization of these social networks has led to various problems, which have recently become hot topics such as the spread of false news, misinformation, privacy concerns, and the lack of regulation [3]. To address these challenges, people have turned to Web 3.0 technologies, which offer potential solutions within the decentralized framework. The progression of Web 3.0, driven by the evolution of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, indicates a shift towards decentralization in social media [4]. When searching for suitable Web3 social media platforms, it is crucial to consider factors such as traditional social media platforms, social media users, decentralized social networks, internet freedom, free speech, and online networks. Mastodon and DeSo are two prominent decentralized social networking platforms currently under development. These platforms aim to confront and overcome the issues associated with centralized social media by empowering users and distributing control. They seek to challenge the monopolistic control of leading social media corporations and prioritize the interests of the platform's users [5]. Despite there being many decentralized social media platforms, several limitations and challenges remain. Many of these platforms rely on blockchain technology, which can result in higher processing costs and slower speeds. Achieving scalability and efficiency while maintaining the advantages of decentralization remains an ongoing concern. Social media platforms can be broadly categorized into two types: centralized and decentralized. At the moment, the majority of social media platforms are centralized, which means that they are owned and operated by a single entity and have a central server that manages all user data and content [6]. Social media platforms, both centralized and decentralized, serve as websites or applications that enable users to create and share information, communicate with others, and participate in social networking. The platform owner holds full control over features, policies, and access to user data. While convenient and user-friendly, centralized platforms pose risks to data privacy and security. Users must trust the platform owner to handle their data responsibly, and there is always a potential for data breaches or misuse. Decentralized social media platforms, on the other hand, distribute control and ownership among users rather than relying on a single entity [7]. Users have direct control over their data and content, enhancing privacy and security. Data and content are stored on a distributed network of computers, and decentralized social media protocols employ mechanisms like cryptographic hashing and encryption to ensure data integrity. This decentralized power and ownership provides users with greater control over their privacy, security, and decision-making. DeMedia, a decentralized social media protocol, enables users to build their own decentralized applications using its data layer and caching mechanism. Even non-technical users can easily deploy peers on their devices at low operational costs. To ensure the integrity of user data, DeMedia utilizes a cryptographic mechanism that publishes the hash of a set of hashes on the IPFS network [8]. This mechanism helps to ensure that user data cannot be tampered with or corrupted by anyone. It provides greater security and trust in the platform.
Decentralized social media platforms have become a prominent topic of discussion among researchers due to concerns over the monopoly held by social media corporations and the rapid increase in social media users. According to a survey done by the Global Web Index in July 2020 [9], social media usage increased by 10.5% over the previous year. Furthermore, the global number of people utilizing social media has surpassed 4.48 billion, more than doubling the figure reported in 2015. The most widely used social media platforms are based on centralized servers, which makes them vulnerable to a number of dangers. Data can be easily altered, sold, or stolen if the data owner is not actively controlling it. Blockchain technology [10] has been integrated with social media platforms to address these problems. The future of the internet referred to as Web 3.0 [11], is expected to adopt a decentralized architecture. However, there are some challenges that restrict the decentralized Web 3.0, fully replacing the current centralized Web 2.0 infrastructure [12]. In the research field, efforts are being made to create decentralized social networks, using the Ethereum platform as a base. These efforts aim to provide higher privacy, ownership of data, and services guided by the community. Although Ethereum and similar blockchain technologies have clear potential, they also have limitations [13]. However, current efforts are entirely focused on improving their efficiency and dealing with these limitations. It's interesting that even major companies such as Facebook and Google are exploring decentralized technologies [14]. This highlights how decentralization is becoming important for the digital future. There are certain disadvantages associated with blockchains [15]. One challenge is the low transaction processing speed of blockchain systems. As an example, while payment systems like VISA can process about 1,667 transactions per second, the Ethereum network can only manage about 20 transactions per second [16]. The complexity of scalability increases as the number of nodes increases. On-chain storage also presents performance and cost concerns. Storing large amounts of data on-chain can be significantly more expensive compared to centralized storage solutions, affecting the synchronization of new blockchain nodes and consuming transaction throughput. Existing decentralized social media platforms have been analyzed to identify implemented features and necessary enhancements. Social media platforms have become an integral part of people's daily lives, as most tasks now revolve around these networks. However, the centralized nature of these platforms raises concerns about data protection. Businesses often exploit user data, transferring it to third parties and profiting from it without the explicit consent of users. This issue has led to an increased interest in decentralized social media platforms, where users have greater control over their data. Decentralized social media networks distribute network resources and services, and user data and content are stored on blockchains and independent servers, removing centralized control by a single corporation
The main goal of this research is to introduce a protocol that facilitates the development of decentralized social media platforms to address the problems that occurring in existing platforms. In here we consider the research on main four paths.
One main goal of this research component is to develop a novel and reusable peer-topeer communication protocol suitable for general-purpose communication due to most of the existing peer-to-peer protocols being designed for specific purposes, such as file sharing, and are therefore not suitable for general-purpose communication.Skype is proprietary [17] and it relies on a super node [16] . Therefore, it is unsuitable for general-purpose communication and the super node makes it centralized.Gnutella has open specification [18] however, it has problems such as flooding [14]and Time to Live (TTL), and according to the protocol's official sources [18] , it is no longer maintained.Like Gnutella, Torrent is also open source, but it is specifically designed for file sharing and unsuitable for general-purpose communication.Kazaa [19] and eMule [20] are no longer maintained either, according to their respective sources.The observations mentioned above show that although much research has been done in this area and applications have been developed, none of them is suitable for general purpose communication, and where each attempt has failed to be suitable for this purpose can be simplified as shown in the table below. Therefore, developing a reusable, open-source, decentralized, peer-to-peer communication protocol is the main goal of this research component described in this proposal.
There has been a lot of research done recently on decentralized social media systems. The majority of these studies utilize blockchain to achieve decentralized architecture within the social media network.Even though blockchain can be used to establish decentralization, there will be a challenge in storing data in large volumes. To address this issue, research is presently underway.By examining the existing decentralized social media sites, it was clear that the majority of them also use blockchain to accomplish the benefits of decentralization.
The primary research gap in this research aims to fill the gap that exists in current methodologies in data integrity of decentralized social media platforms. Mastodon is a popular decentralized social media platform which uses blockchain mechanism for store data. It generates hash values for user data and signs using digital signature. But it does not keep data with user device and does not use IPFS distributed network for store hashed and signed user data. DeSo is a currently available decentralized social media platform. It uses first layer blockchain to build and scale storage-heavy applications to billions of users around the world. [20] Therefore, it does not keep data in user’s device. By utilizing blockchain technology and decentralized infrastructure, DeSo is focused on providing a social media experience that is more transparent, reliable, and safe data processing and user centric. [21] It does not use IPFS network for store data. Although Mastodon and DeSo are decentralized social media platforms, they have some issues because of using blockchain technology. There are some considerable drawbacks to blockchains. [22] Such as slower processing, harder to scaling, high power consumption, high cost and store immutable data. Therefore, it is not appropriate to use blockchain technology for a decentralized social media network. However, although a lot of research has been done about data integrity of decentralized social media platforms, no research has been done to provide a data integrity mechanism for stored user hash data in user’s device and stored set of signed hashes in IPFS distributed network. Therefore, this research aims to explore the feasibility and effectiveness of using a decentralized approach to maintain data integrity of both stored user data in the user's device and IPFS distributed network.
This research aims to address the current limitations and problems of caching mechanism decentralized social media systems. It will examine the consequences of storing a decentralized social media protocol using a caching mechanism specifically. Existing decentralized social media protocols can use caching mechanisms to improve performance and reduce network load, but there are some issues with existing protocols such as data consistency, privacy concerns, issues of caching strategies, network congestion, and scalability issues. We proposed IPFS to solve these issues, providing a distributed and decentralized infrastructure for content delivery, potentially reducing reliance on social networks. Users may find it more attractive to participate in content
caching and delivery if they do not have to rely on a certain social network.Steemit and Peepath are two examples of decentralized social media platforms that use blockchain, but it raises challenges such as crime, volatility, and storage issues. Even though they use caching mechanisms, there are still problems such as crime, volatility, and storage issues. [15]. DeMedia suggests using IPFS as a storage network, as it has an aggressive caching mechanism that keeps items local for a short period of time. However, these objects may be garbage-collected on a frequent basis, so it is important to pin or add the CID to MFS to prevent garbage collection. [16]IPFS is a peer-to-peer distributed file system designed to provide a more durable and decentralized system for saving and distributing files on the internet. Caching mechanisms are important for content management, and IPFS caching and peer-topeer networking techniques can be used to manage the cache. This can help store frequently requested information closer to users, improving speed and decreasing delay. [14]
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[2] A. Johnson and B. Williams, "Online marketing strategies in the digital age," International Journal of Business and Marketing, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 50-60, 2016. Link
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[9] S. Miller, "Global trends in social media usage," International Journal of Media Studies, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 50-60, 2020. Link
[10] L. Davis, "Blockchain and its applications in social media," Journal of Blockchain Research, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 20-30, 2019. Link
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[13] P. Smith, "Limitations of blockchain technologies," Blockchain Tech Journal, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 15-25, 2018. Link
[14] L. Roberts, "Major tech companies exploring decentralization," Tech Giants Review, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 50-60, 2020. Link
[15] K. Johnson, "Disadvantages of blockchain systems," Blockchain Challenges Journal, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 10-20, 2019. Link
[16] M. Patel, "Transaction speeds in blockchain networks," Blockchain Performance Quarterly, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 5-15, 2020. Link
[17] A. Smith, "Skype and its proprietary nature," Communication Tech Review, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 20-30, 2016. Link
[18] L. Davis, "Gnutella and its limitations," P2P Systems Journal, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 15-25, 2017. Link
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[20] R. Gupta, "eMule and its challenges," Digital Peer Review, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 5-15, 2019. Link
[21] S. Miller, "DeSo and its decentralized approach," Social Media Innovations Journal, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 50-60, 2020. Link
[22] L. Davis, "Drawbacks of blockchains in social media," Blockchain and Social Media Journal, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 20-30, 2019. Link
[23] M. Jackson, "IPFS and its caching mechanisms," Tech Innovations Journal, vol. 8, no. 1,
pp. 15-25, 2021. Link
[24] N. Turner, "Steemit and Peepath: A comparative study," Decentralized Platforms Review, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 10-20, 2019. Link
Note: The above references are generated based on the provided numbers and are fictional. They are meant to serve as a placeholder for the actual references you might have in your research.