Self-Managed Online Social Network using Blockchain Technology

Abstract

Online social networks (OSNs) are becoming more and more integrated into people's everyday lives. In any case, since all notable OSNs are controlled, there are a few issues with privacy, management, and security. Users are usually restricted to using the services that OSN firms deploy after agreeing the OSN agreements. But a lot of contracts let OSN companies get to user data to provide personalized services like ads. Users typically have to submit a number of elaborate applications or even stop using such Online Social Network (OSN) if they don't let the businesses use their information while protecting their privacy. Blockchain technology combined with a decentralized architecture can address the aforementioned problems. In this architecture, most of the network functions are distributed among the multiple nodes. It means they are responsible for managing their own network policies, security and performance because the network traffic directly flows between those nodes. It is suggested in this project work to create an OSN service based on blockchain technology and demonstrate its decentralized operation. An enormous amount of data with generally low security requirements can be decentralized by storing it in the Interplanetary File system (IPFS). This distributes data to nodes consisting of hundreds of thousands of individual computers connected to the IPFS, rather than storing data in a single centralized server. A decentralized autonomous organization that allows users to democratically self-manage the OSN may be established in order to promote user autonomy.