Cofounder of @bitsocialnet, peer-to-peer network for social apps, with no servers, no global bans, where users and communities are cryptographic property.
Joined February 2022
- Tweets251
- Following77
- Followers142
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Rinse - Bitsocial retweeted
.@estebanabaroa, who started Bitsocial as "Plebbit" 5 years ago, has stepped away from the project for health reasons.
Last year he wrote: "I'd like to get to the point where I could disappear and it wouldn't kill plebbit... it's the only way plebbit becomes real."
@rinse_12 and @tomcasaburi are carrying it on. Thank you Esteban.
t.me/bitsocialnet/793370
bitsocial.net/about
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In this clip, @VitalikButerin is describing bitsocial.net without knowing it.
He says that decentralized social media needs real choice between communities, more user control, and a way to create a community without setting up a whole new set of infrastructure.
I agree with all three. I just don't think a chain gets us there.
Why? Because a like can't be double spent like money can, so social doesn't need consensus. Putting it on a chain means paying gas, validators or a sequencer for a problem social doesn't have.
It also doesn't scale. Look at node requirements [1]. We need every user to be able to leave any host and run their own node with 1 click, on cheap hardware or a phone.
It’s also bad UX. Users shouldn’t have to connect a cryptocurrency wallet to enjoy a decentralized social media app. We should help all web2 social users, even anti-crypto people.
The Farcaster people protesting in this clip know where onchain social leads: a handful of validators and one main app, and leaving means losing your audience [1].
Remember Secure Scuttlebutt? I think Vitalik does. It showed us all years ago that social can be peer to peer with no chain at all [2]. One problem was it made every peer keep the full history of everyone it follows.
Bitsocial is P2P without the chain. Every community is a keypair with its own node, its own rules and its own spam challenges, and any app can read any community. Probably the most innovative part is the custom anti-spam challenges: each community decides what it takes to post there [3].
Don't like how a community is run? Make your own from the 5chan desktop app, on your laptop, with no server or domain. Running a full node is as easy as opening a Bitsocial desktop client, which runs one automatically. Soon users will run full nodes from the browser too, via my Forge RPC [4].
We started with an imageboard (5chan.app, the first Bitsocial client) because it doesn't require user profiles. We're working on profile nodes, which run on non-custodial RPCs like Forge RPC by default, since not every user will run their own node. They're out very soon and will open the door to a possible Twitter/X alternative on Bitsocial [5].
We also have a Reddit alternative in the works, seedit.app, the second Bitsocial client, which will soon enjoy profile nodes as well as Forge RPC for community creation on web.
Bitsocial needs more contributors, it’s just me and @rinse_12 at the moment. We’ve been working on it for almost 5 years so far. Join us on github.com/bitsocialnet.
Sources:
[1] docs.bitsocial.net/compariso…
[2] docs.bitsocial.net/compariso…
[3] docs.bitsocial.net/custom-ch…
[4] bitsocialforge.com/#forge-rp…
[5] bitsocial.net/#master-plan-p…
Here’s a clip of our first PROTECT THE PROTOCOL action.
This is just one of many activities we have planned this week at @EFDevcon. We’re setting up our HQ at the Onchain Art Community Hub, so come find us and learn how you can be part of the movement!
Shoutout to fellow digital felon @kyb_eth for capturing the moment! ✊
self hosted blogs never solved discovery. You publish, spend money on a domain and hope google search picks you up. But a blog client on top of Bitsocial sits next to forums and other Bitsocial clients people already read. So somebody on a @getseedit client can read your blog
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IPFS doesn't fix this either.
Not unless users load the CID directly, and almost nobody does.
Most IPFS sites load through a normal domain via DNSLink. That's just a DNS TXT record pointing at the CID. Whoever hijacks the DNS swaps in their own CID.
ENS sites usually load via a gateway like eth.limo, like vitalik.eth.limo (@VitalikButerin's blog). Another DNS domain, and you're trusting its servers. My 5chan.eth.limo works the same way.
What we need is browsers that run IPFS nodes and resolve decentralized domains by default, directly. No .limo. Not just .eth, also competitors like .gwei and the ones coming, like .bso.
The node has to be lightweight though. Skip the DHT and use trackers, like torrents do.
Bitsocial nodes already work this way. Mine went from ~6TB/month of bandwidth to ~60GB.
Twelve DeFi frontends hijacked overnight, all registered at name(.)com. I checked the DNS this morning. Four of them are still serving the drainer right now.
pickle(.)finance, apexdefi(.)xyz, fluxbeam(.)xyz and shprd(.)finance all resolve to one IP, 31.56.52.52. The nginx there returns each site's real-looking page with one extra script, quiet-ember-one.js, 1.9 MB, byte-identical on all four, same hash. It is obfuscated end to end and runs through eval. That is the Step Drainer.
The IP belongs to Snowcore Inc, AS218986, Amsterdam. The network was registered with RIPE in July. The AS number in June. A hosting company younger than most memecoins, built for this.
How they got in: the hijacked sites use name(.)com's own nameservers, so someone changed DNS records inside the registrar. The teams that recovered, Flap, Kintsu, StonkFun and others, did it by moving their nameservers to Vercel and Cloudflare. name(.)com has no incident on its status page and nothing on its blog.
No loss numbers yet. StonkFun says none of its users were hit.
Same lesson as Binance this week. Nobody broke the chain or the contracts. They took the laptop, they took the registrar login. The frontend is the part of DeFi that still works like a 2010 website, and it holds the button your users click.
In the Fediverse, content format is tied to server software. To microblog, you need a Mastodon account; to write long-form, a WriteFreely account; to share videos, a PeerTube account. Each requires a new identity on a new server.
A social network can die because the storage startup under it ran out of runway. Nobody who posted there signed up for that bet. All Bitsocial's web apps have no backend that can go broke. Any copy on any domain, or the desktop build, joins the same peers.
Ever wanted "@grok is this true?" on a decentralized social network?
Askwise is an open-source AI reply bot for Bitsocial communities and profile. Mention it in a post or reply and it answers in the thread, images included.
It only works in communities and profiles that opt in
What happens to a network when a million people show up in one week? If on servers, someone pays for the spike or the spike breaks it. If readers are also p2p peers, the crowd brings its own bandwidth and share with each other. That's the bet Bitsocial and Bittorrent is built on
A global social media mod team can be excellent and still wrong for your community. What fits a knitting forum fails a politics board, and vice versa. On Bitsocial there's no central team to be wrong. Each community or profile sets and enforces its own rules
Account suspension at twitter just got even messier.
"You can no longer Auth with X"
Which means if someone had a recurring payment on their X connected app, you are now locked into that payment.
If the company is kind enough to leave contact detail you might be able to cancel, but this means a loss of services twitter/X is wholey responsible for.
X is not, nor will it ever be a serious OIDC with its suspension policies.
Someone can get reported for CSAM and their post was "Meta is do backkkk" and experience a ban or worse, in Stanky 's case.
X will never have the trust needed for X banking. Because 20 Sonic fans may take exception to meme on the state of natalism in sonicland.
Users paying hundreds of dollars a year, need recourse—real human recourse—or your product remains a gimmick.
Why would I trust X? The money may technically be there, but why would I build my house on X's sandy beaches?
X won't even talk to me.
All systems are automated and those automations are broken. Who do I contact when something breaks?
Look at the state of the App and ask yourself if they are this incapable of running a stable website, how can you trust them to run stable transactions?
Elon has reinvented cryptocurrency, but the one bridge out expects him to play nice with your accounts.
And he won't treat your socials well.
Now, will Elon break that trust with your cash? No. But that connection of flippant moderation and lack of human review poisons trust.
Seriously, the problem with X, the entire problem of X, is in the appeals. You can't even submit screenshots. Threads of evidence are deleted before you can source them.
Who is actually paying attention as Wormtongue runs the kingdom?
X was happy to take my money, but they need to take the contract seriously.
I am obviously not the only one who deals with this and it's been a concern on my mind for years. I am blunt and argumentative. And that means that my personality is a ban risk.
Improve your product X, implement real moderation. Treat paying customers with the respect of a real human reviewer.
Take down offending posts, not the account associated. Establish patterns, not strikes.
End mass reporting. Obey your own TOU.
#FreeStanky
Nobody should need to learn what libp2p is to post on a forum. In Bitsocial the browser tab quietly runs the p2p node, finds the peers and publishes for you. The user sees a forum they can post to and interact with.
Why should a forum be rebuilt every time someone writes a better app for it? On Bitsocial the community is the durable thing and apps come and go around it. Members, mods and history stay where they are no matter which client you open.
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So many PHP forums have people's emails and passwords exposed right now.
bitsocial.net is designed so user accounts have neither. Each account is a cryptographic key that only the user controls. Even better, with no central server or admin, nobody can shut it down.
New on Bitsocial: custom feeds.
Every community can now write its own feed algorithm, for posts and replies alike. Some ideas I had:
- AMA mode: the host's replies rise to the top
- New voices: first-time posters get boosted
- Slow feed: posts only appear once the hype settles
- Actually debated: rank threads by how many *different* people are replying, not by raw reply count.
Sage: a 5chan board where replies saying "sage" don't bump the thread. That one already exists as a npmjs package
Each sort is a small npm package. The community publishes which sorts it runs and their settings, so the algorithm is public, any client can run it, and no platform or client decides what you see.
Here's an example,
github.com/pkcprotocol/activ…
