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The recent Facebook scandal opened a can of worms which doesn't look to be abating any time soon. The #DeleteFacebook hashtag has been trending on social media, with a number of notable figures, such as Elon Musk, deleting Facebook pages for various companies & entities they control...

The problem was caused by Facebook's granting "Cambridge Analytica" access to its proprietary dataset. This lead to the accounts, information and details of over 50 million of its users (particularly in the US, although some in the UK) being made available to CA in the runup to the US presidential election in 2016 and UK's "Brexit" referendum in the same year.

The point here is that Facebook should not have distributed the data, or even higher-level access to it. Whilst they have not broken ANY laws (that's important to state), many users have become shocked that a private company with absolutely zero regulatory oversight might actually consider the data "their" property, to do with as they please (sell it etc).

The scandal has highlighted one of the biggest issues facing the modern web... who controls all the highly sensitive data that could give anything from financial information to any pornographic content you've been watching to people who shouldn't have access to it.

And, yes, most people will say that if you don't have anything to hide, you shouldn't have anything to worry about. The problem here isn't the fact the data was compromised - it was the flagrant disregard for the user base through which it was allowed to happen.

This "corporate shaming" is important. It's a visible demonstration of the large distrust that most people have in the "corporate" infrastructure of the likes of the US and UK - where companies such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook have access to millions of people's private information. It's like living in a police state, having small groups of elites controlling the future of millions.

Irrespective of the political fallout here, the core problem to deal with is the way in which the technology is being challenged. Whilst it's difficult to create a billion-dollar company like Facebook, what isn't hard to replicate is the underlying technological developments it uses to work. This means that if you're looking at this from the perspective of technology, we get a very interesting idea... what if Facebook / Google / Amazon were decentralized?

Decentralization Of Data

Blockchain is the underlying technology-set which provides decentralized database functionality. This has been used successfully in the many "crypto" systems we've seen pushed out in recent years, but now people are looking at how the model can be applied to wider technological issues.

The point is that the "typical" system that works today is through something called the client/server paradigm. This has a central data-provider which stores all the data for a system, granting access only in particular circumstances.
This "data siloing", and is basically where someone's data will be kept (hoarded) by a single entity. This siloing is present in ALL client/server systems, and is why Facebook was in a position to basically "sell" access to its data-set.

The problem with this is obviously that people don't want their data used against them. This means that you either need to retain ownership of it (which won't work in a global / "Internet" connected world), or you need to encrypt it somehow. This encryption is where the "blockchain" paradigm comes in ("crypto" / "cryptographic" / "encryption").
Each "crypto" system running on top of blockchain secures a public data-set with a set of cryptographic signatures. Whilst these signatures provide security, they also provide data veracity... meaning that they have been used to "validate" transactions in such decentralized systems as "Bitcoin" etc...

The reason this is important is because it's the first time in history that it's been possible.
Not only are you able to engage with other users in what's known as a peer-to-peer environment (which was possible already), but (most importantly) - this can be done using a global data-set. This global data-set is the crucial element...

Could It be Used To Power a "Decentralized" Facebook?

Absolutely, and there's likely a "coin" or system either created, or on the brink of being created, which will do just that.

What's important to understand is that Facebook is a service provider. Its service has nothing to do with the data that it has on its servers, but the mechanism through which that data can be utilized.

Thus, the question of whether a "decentralized" Facebook could be created - the underlying functionality is certainly possible... what's been missing has been the way to create and maintain a "global" data-set that simultaneously has no owner and no regulator.

Without a technology such as "blockchain", this has not been possible.

The big deal with a system such as Facebook would come in the form of having a dataset which the user is able to interact with (via a web based service) which allows the user to essentially manage the dataset controlled by the wider "blockchain" system.

Because "blockchain" is open source, it's freely accessible and can be used without having to pay any central body for the rights for its use. This makes a great candidate for some sort of "social" system that can be used in a decentralized fashion...