Skycoin BBS: Social Media for You

Summary:

On corporate social media, you’re the product. A company controls your data. They sell it to advertisers and store it on their servers. Once you make a post, it’s theirs – forever. You have no control over privacy, technology, or even your own identity. Why should we settle for that?

It’s time for a social media revolution. Skycoin is bringing social media back to you, the user. We’re excited to announce the alpha launch of Skycoin BBS: the first distributed social media platform in the Skycoin ecosystem.

Skycoin BBS is a peer-to-peer replicated social media application built on immutable data structures (CXO) on top of the Skycoin platform. Planned features include:

• Decentralized network so that you retain your privacy and freedom
• Ability to post content, upvote, downvote, and comment
• User profiles
• Tipping for content with Coin Hours and Skycoin
• Resistance to network failure
• Public keys and trust lists that let users filter out spammers, bots, and untrustworthy users

Ready to join? Get started with the Skycoin BBS at: https://www.skycoin.com/downloads/.

Read about the development of Skycoin BBS and chat with the developers: https://t.me/skycoinbbs.

Follow development updates: https://www.skycoin.com/blog/tags/bbs/.

Check out the technical aspects of Skycoin BBS: https://www.skycoin.com/blog/bbs/bbs-development-update-1/.

Track coding commits at the Skycoin Github repository: https://github.com/skycoin/bbs.

Get a list of nodes to connect to and boards to subscribe to: https://t.me/skycoinbbshosting.

Watch the Skycoin BBS platform in action in the Development Showcase YouTube Videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZqwgefYauU.

Our Vision:

Skycoin BBS is a peer-to-peer replicated social media application, built upon immutable data structures (CXO) on top of the Skycoin platform. It’s a communication platform for users, by users. Skycoin BBS is social media done right.

This new web application is one of the first to be implemented using the Skycoin ecosystem. Skycoin decentralizes the internet, encrypting protocols by default. Since Skycoin has no central server, your data isn’t controlled by any central authority. You retain your privacy and freedom.

BBS stands for Bulletin Board System. Traditionally, BBS were do-it-yourself servers that allowed users to interact and share content. Modern BBS offer an alternative vision for the internet: one where users, not corporations, have control. Skycoin BBS takes inspiration from early Bulletin Board Systems to create a decentralized, user-centric social media platform.

Databases in the Skycoin distributed BBS application are replicated peer-to-peer using the Skycoin CXO library, previously called Aether. Users submit posts with a Sky Messenger prototype. This is Skycoin’s TOX-like standard for machine-to-machine communication between public keys (github.com/skycoin/net).

With Skycoin BBS, you can enjoy all the benefits of a social media platform without giving up your data. Planned features include user profiles, posting content, upvotes, downvotes, and comments. You can even tip for content using Coin Hours and Skycoin. Since Skycoin BBS is user-owned, we’re adding more features upon request.

On Skycoin BBS, voting and content curation are transparent. The community can verify data via cryptography, allowing them to easily spot vote manipulation. Users can vote other users as trusted or as spam. A special list will also exist for blocking users.

Skycoin BBS protects against bots. Users can mark bots as spam and discourage others from following them. Although bots can upvote each other, it won’t matter because users won’t mark them as trusted or follow them. Since the bots will have no followers, an algorithm process will ghost the bots and make their actions invisible.

The benefits of Skycoin BBS go beyond user privacy and data ownership. Skycoin BBS also eliminates the danger of corporate and government interference. Unlike most social media networks, Skycoin BBS is decentralized. There’s no central server to shut down and no way for a single entity to monitor communications. Every outbound packet could be communicating with a peer who can forward the message. This peer-to-peer system protects users from third parties and authorities seeking control.

Skycoin BBS is currently in alpha. As we continue to develop this new social media application, early users may experience some bugs or data loss. You can help us improve Skycoin BBS by reporting these incidents when they occur. With your feedback, we can make Skycoin BBS a true revolution in social media.

This is only the beginning. With Skycoin BBS, we’re building a new internet on the Skycoin ecosystem. We did this because we believe people, not corporations, are the key to the internet’s future. We shouldn’t have to sell our digital souls to communicate with each other. Skycoin BBS is decentralizing social media with a peer-to-peer network that brings communication back to the user community. You deserve a better social network – and with Skycoin BBS, you’ve got it.