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Privacy

Designing for public communication requires less focus on privacy than social applications designed for close social circles. However, privacy is still important to consider on several counts: protecting user metadata, respecting private account settings, and supporting private direct messages.

User metadata

At a large enough scale, user metadata collected by federated applications becomes a cause for privacy concerns. Examples of these kinds of concerns can be found in this privacy report on Matrix, conducted by a privacy-focused nonprofit, and this response.

Private accounts

Mastodon and Matrix provide private accounts, where the account can be located, but the data posted by the account is only shown to approved followers.

Mastodon has account-level and post-level privacy controls. When an account is locked, follow requests must be approved. Since posts are copied to the instances of followers, locking an account gives a user more control over where their posts will be distributed. Individual posts, as well as the default post setting, can be set to "followers-only".

Matrix has private rooms, which can be joined upon invitation. Users can also "knock" to request to join a room.

Direct messages

Many decentralized social applications use e2e encryption to preserve the privacy of direct messages.

Some more e2e messaging encryption options:

Decentralized social applications focused on privacy

  • Peergos - Peergos provides capability-based access control for files on top of IPFS. Files are kept private. All encryption happens on the client, which could be a native Peergos client or a browser. Data is always encrypted on the servers. Servers do not have access to metadata or sensitive information. Access is controlled through cryptographic capabilities.

  • Zeronet - Zeronet is a p2p browser built on BitTorrent and Bitcoin, designed with a focus on privacy. Instead of having IP addresses, Zeronet site addresses are Bitcoin public keys. ZeroMe is a proof-of-concept Twitter-like social network on Zeronet. Other sites on Zeronet include ZeroTalk (like Reddit), ZeroBlog (microblogging), and ZeroMail (encrypted mail).

  • Freenet - Zeronet was preceded by Freenet, a privacy-preserving p2p overlay network. In Freenet, all data is encrypted and communication is routed through peers, similar to Tor. It cannot be used to access the web; it only allows access to content that has been inserted into the Freenet network. It has an anonymous microblogging service, Sone. Freenet uses a web-of-trust plugin to help manage spam and moderation in an uncensorable medium.

  • Zbay - Zbay is a Slack-like messaging application with monetary transactions, which uses the Zcash blockchain as a database and transaction settlement layer. User identities are Zcash addresses. Usernames are registered by sending a message to an address everyone has a viewing key for, and providing the new user's public key. Private messages can then be sent to the user's address using encrypted transactions.