Resilient Social Networks

In light of Pavel’s recent arrest, I’ve been reflecting on the need for a "resilient approach" to building social networks that can uphold a spectrum of rights, even when those rights, such as freedom of speech and content moderation, may pull in opposing directions.


First, it’s important to move away from the notion of decentralization when discussing resilient software. "Decentralization" is a loaded term that is often misunderstood and rarely achieves consensus on its meaning.


Instead, social networks should be built with a focus on resiliency. In practice, resiliency means minimizing any single point of failure that could disrupt or compromise the functionality and integrity of the network. This concept is easier to understand and measure.


This is how, for example, the most successful DeFi projects are built today. They are not necessarily driven by the goal of achieving a certain level of decentralization but rather by the need to ensure that protocols like Aave are resilient against potential threats from various actors and single points of failure.


A resilient social network must be protected from centralized governments, institutions, third parties, users, founding teams, and even its moderators or operators.


A truly resilient social network is a system that is extremely difficult for any single entity—or a coalition of entities—to penetrate or compromise.


Resiliency ensures that participation in the network or protocol is safeguarded at every level. Feeds should be resilient to manipulation or biased moderation. Moderators should be insulated from undue influence. Content should be resilient against removal by operators, remaining fully under the control of its authors.


Currently, blockchain technology offers the best means to achieve resiliency. At its core, blockchain ensures access control (who can write) and the secure storage of value (assets). It can determine who can post to a feed, join a community, moderate content, act as legitimate fact-checkers, and how funds are distributed across the network. Additionally, it enables a community-driven framework for selecting moderators or fact-checkers through voting.


For resiliency to be effective, accountability and transparency are crucial. Transparent networks are better equipped to guarantee resiliency, and if privacy is required, guarantees such as ZK-proofs can provide verifiability while ensuring transparency. Public blockchains already have these features built-in.


I believe that truly resilient social networks would unlock new and interesting use cases, as developers would no longer need to worry about being shut down, and users would be free from the fear of persecution.


These foundational principles will guide the development of Lens V3.