Related papers: How Decentralization Affects User Agency on Social…
Moderation and blocking behavior, both closely related to the mitigation of abuse and misinformation on social platforms, are fundamental mechanisms for maintaining healthy online communities. However, while centralized platforms typically…
The pitfalls of centralized social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter/X, have led to concerns about control, transparency, and accountability. Decentralized social networks have emerged as a result with the goal of empowering users.…
Middleware, third-party software intermediaries between users and platforms, has been broached as a means to decentralize the power of social media platforms and enhance user agency. Middleware may enable a more user-centric and democratic…
Many have criticized the centralized and unaccountable governance of prominent online social platforms, leading to renewed interest in platform governance that incorporates multiple centers of power. Decentralization of power can arise…
Personalized recommendation algorithms deliver content to the user on most major social media platforms. While these algorithms are crucial for helping users find relevant content, users lack meaningful control over them. This reduces…
Decentralized social networks like Mastodon and BlueSky are trending topics that have drawn much attention and discussion in recent years. By devolving powers from the central node to the end users, decentralized social networks aim to cure…
Decentralized social media protocols enable users in independent, user-hosted servers (i.e., instances) to interact with each other while they self-govern. This community-based model of social media governance opens up new opportunities for…
Web 3.0 focuses on the decentralization of the internet and creating a system of interconnected and independent computers for improved privacy and security. We extend the idea of the decentralization of the web to the social media space:…
The overreaches of mainstream social media platforms have been extensively reported and studied. For activist communities, these platforms pose risks of surveillance, censorship, or erasure. Decentralized social networks (DSNs) serve as…
Bluesky is a Twitter-like decentralized social media platform that has recently grown in popularity. After an invite-only period, it opened to the public worldwide on February 6th, 2024. In this paper, we provide a longitudinal analysis of…
Decentralized architecture offers a robust and flexible structure for online platforms, since centralized moderation and computation can be easy to disrupt with targeted attacks. However, a platform offering a decentralized architecture…
In centralized countries, not only population, media and economic power are concentrated, but people give more attention to central locations. While this is not inherently bad, this behavior extends to micro-blogging platforms: central…
On the Internet large service providers tend to control the digital identities of users. These defacto identity authorities wield significant power over users, compelling them to comply with non-negotiable terms, before access to services…
Bluesky is a new social network built upon the AT Protocol, a decentralized foundation for public social media. It was launched in private beta in February 2023, and has grown to over 10 million registered users by October 2024. In this…
Decentralized online social networks have evolved from experimental stages to operating at unprecedented scale, with broader adoption and more active use than ever before. Platforms like Mastodon, Bluesky, Hive, and Nostr have seen notable…
Online discourse takes place in corporate-controlled spaces thought by users to be public realms. These platforms in name enable free speech but in practice implement varying degrees of censorship either by government edict or by uneven and…
Centralized social networks have experienced a transformative impact on our digital era communication, connection, and information-sharing information. However, it has also raised significant concerns regarding users' privacy and individual…
Digital public health monitoring has long relied on data from major social media platforms. Twitter was once an indispensable resource for tracking disease outbreaks and public sentiment in real time. Researchers used Twitter to monitor…
Social media platforms offer numerous benefits and allow people to come together for various causes. Many communities, academia, government agencies, institutions, healthcare, entertainment, and businesses are on social media platforms.…
Online abuse is becoming an increasingly prevalent issue in modern-day society, with 41 percent of Americans having experienced online harassment in some capacity in 2021. People who identify as women, in particular, can be subjected to a…