Hive dApp Review dBuzz - First Impressions of a Hive Alternative to Twitter.
The recent US election showed us the true potential of Twitter censorship. Any political posts they deemed incorrect, misleading, or inaccurate they removed or posted a warning. Twitter has basically taken it upom themselves to become the Ministry of Truth.
Fair enough, it's their platform and they can do as they please. Surprisingly though, nobody was immune from this censorship including the President of the United States.
I know... Before you even go there. ORANGE MAN BAD! Yup I get it. Nobody likes the conservative blowhard. Honestly, if the guy would of tweeted less and shut his mouth more he might actually of won a second term. Regardless, I'm preety confident this was the first time a sitting president was ever publicly censored. I didn't researh that statement and I could be wrong. Look at that feed though.. Every tweet with the "misleading" warning. .
So my point to all this is that if it can happen to him it can really happen to anyone. On top of that I wouldn't be surprised if he got deplatformed when this was all over. I suppose shame on him, he did have 4 years to address this issue. I also get it though, government interference in a media platform opens up a YUGE can of worms.
On top of that there were several Tweets trying to show evidence of voter fraud and voter suppression. These were being deleted as soon as they were found. Several accounts were also shut down. The whole thing felt extremely Orwellian to anyone that was following and paying close attention.
So what's are we to do?
If only we had a censorship resistant alternative to Twitter. OMG... What's that? Look here! d.Buzz to the rescue.
d.Buzz is a Twitter alternative blockchain dApp that runs on the Hive blockchain. Free speech is encouraged and censorship is close to non-existent.
So I've been Buzzing on here for a little over a week or so and my first impression is "Man this couldn't of happened at a better time". Honestly, I get Twitter has the right to censor whoever they want. I also get Trump is a loud mouth buffoon with ridiculous hair and annoying facial expressions. Regardless of all that, I found it incredibly alarming that Twitter censored the president of the United States. Regardless of how you feel about Trump, this means they can now manipulate any political event, pick sides, and censor content however they choose. This is really a post unto itself. I don't want to get into the politics of this, although I've touched on it. I'll maybe write about this in more detail in a later post. For the Tweeted version, we now have a free speech micro blogging alternative to Twitter. THAT'S THE GOOD NEWS.
I love this dApp for everything it represents. A social micro blogging site that you can't be deplatformed from, and is censorship resistant.
Now before I harsh on this, I'm going to say I love this for what it is. After using it for a little over a week it has a kind of unfinished feel to it. I wouldn't mind seeing a BETA or ALPHA release tag somewhere near the logo. At times it's buggy. I've had posts not show up, images tend to be troublesome from time to time. It can be a bit glitchy. Still this is ours! It belongs to the communtiy. From here we can only improve. I sincerely hope development continues on this project and improvements made. The framework is all there and it is beautiful!
This has all the basic features of a Twitter alternative. There currently isn't a rebuzz button and I'd really like to see that. I've seen a lot of great content on there that I wanted to share in my feed and I couldn't.
It has an upvote feature with no downvote feature and I kind of liked that. A lot of people see the down voting as a form of soft censorship and in some ways it is. The lack of that features fits with this dApp though.
I'd like to know how vote power works or if it's "governed" somehow for lack of a better word. My voting power seems much weaker on d.Buzz. Voting rewards are limited to $1.00 and that seems reasonable considering most people are just Buzzing a meme, internet link, or quick thought. Some people don't like the cap, but considering the content it seems reasonable to me.
The community of people on here are fun and extremely active. Honestly, I think the dBuzz community may even be a little more engaging than the HIVE blogging community or the Twitter community for that matter! The community seems to really enjoy commenting on posts, asking questions and sharing knowledge!
I've heard some people have started alternative Hive accounts for dBuzz. One of the downsides of this is all your Buzzes will show up in your followers feeds. That can get noisy if you're not careful and might upset some of your followers who don't get the concept of micro blogging. A second micro blogging account could be a good idea if you're going to blast out 10 buzzes an hour or buzz every thought that pops into your head.
I love that fact that I now have a place on the Hive blockchain to share industry news with the communtiy. Unlike my Twitter feed though, I do limit my dBuzz feed to mostly news links or the occasional meme. Anyone that follows my Twitter knows I often post thoughts or goofy questions and statements. I'm not doing that on dBuzz to keep the noise down in my HIVE feed. That's just me though, I'm hoping the people that follow my Hive feed find the extra news articles and Buzzes informative and helpful. Everyone will obviously approach this aspect of the platform in their own way, the noise factor should be a huge consideration though.
So with all this said I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS MICRO BLOGGING PLATFORMS!!! All caps and triple exclamation marks because I'm super excited! I think this a great addition to the HIVE blockchain and look forward to using it in the future.
I decided to write this review for two reasons. 1) I've shared the link with a few HIVE people that had no idea we had this and they too absolutely loved it! 2) I obviously plan on sharing this in my Twitter feed to let people know there are alternatives if they're looking for places that support free speech and they don't want to be censored.
If you have a Twitter account, please feel free to share this under the #HiveFixesThis hashtag.
Well, that's all folks! If you didn't know about d.buzz I hope you stop by the site and check it out, maybe consider joining us and help support Hives micro blogging alternative to Twitter! Happy Sunday and Cheers!
https://twitter.com/BitcoinDood/status/1325589054038175745
But there's nobody on the d.buzz platform and even fewer using HIVE....
Start with you, start with me and grow together. We have to start somewhere.
Traffic and user numbers are a chicken and egg scenario.
Use it and promote and hopefully we all grow together is my attitude towards all this.
Most of the world still uses cash but here we are messing around with this crazy idea of cryptocurrency. Satoshi Nakamoto had a small group of people that seen his vision and here we all are!
That's how we compete and defeat corporate mainstream social media.
Very interesting. I have resisted it for the very reason you mention: possibly clogging up
myother people's feeds. An alt account is a good idea. Doesn't mean I am going there. Too much potential for more distraction!Censorship is complicated. I grew up in a country with censorship and without freedom of speech or association, so that informs my next statement. There is a huge difference between warning that a statement may be untrue or inaccurate because it's not backed up by fact, and redaction. Redaction is censorship. In a world where people, unlike you, have forgotten how to fact check and question, IMO, it's incumbent on platforms to encourage that. And again, IMO, especially if the statement is from a public figure and a world leader.
That said, Twitter's treatment of @theycallmedan is censorship and not acceptable.
What they did to Dan was unacceptable for sure.
I think the political implications are horrifying too. They can and have now shown they will choose a side and interfere with certain political issues. We are heading down such a slippery slope with all this.
We are going to be describing social media as language has been described for centuries: as hegemonic.
We saw huge interference in our last election. Orchestrated by Bell Pottinger. It all stinks.
It should be empowering but it's being used against us and that has to change. It's really sad and it is happening on a global level.
On the far other side of free speech I'd love to see a new social site created that treated "all political" content like most social platforms treat porn. JUST not allow it. I might actually sign up for something like that if it was available. I think a lot of people would use it too.
I think the difference there is that it's voluntary, written in the ToS, and sides aren't chosen or manipulated. Plus a lot of people need a break from all this stuff.
Just a nice place to share photos, jokes, family news, etc. with family & friends. Also have suitable controls of who would be allowed to view the content.
This political overload is literally driving people wacky.
It should be empowering but it's being used against us and that has to change. It's really sad and it is happening on a global level.
On the far other side of free speech I'd love to see a new social site created that treated "all political" content like most social platforms treat porn. JUST not allow it. I might actually sign up for something like that if it was available. I think a lot of people would use it too.
I think the difference there is that it's voluntary, written in the ToS, and sides aren't chosen or manipulated. Plus a lot of people need a break from all this stuff.
Just a nice place to share photos, jokes, family news, etc. with family & friends. Also have suitable controls of who would be allowed to view the content.
This political overload is literally driving people wacky.
I could not agree more. As I say in one of my bios (my WordPress blog): life is too short for politics and bad wine.
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STOPI have not used it yet, but I am happy it exists. People have tried doing microblogging on the blockchain before, but maybe it can take off this time. I think Hive can have all sorts of content.
The censorship thing is not such a big thing to me, but I can see why people want platforms that don't have it. It does tend to be nasty stuff that gets censored on the big platforms, but there may also be some free speech issues. I don't go into my thoughts on DT ;)
It will be interesting if some big names migrate to Hive/Dbuzz to escape censorship. If their followers come over then that could help it grow. It may just change the atmosphere though. I know of people who are put off by the lack of central control, but freedom has value.
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I remembered a STEEM micro blogging dApp and remember it didn't work out well. I'm hoping this one gets the development it deserves. I think it's a great addition to the HIVE blockchain.
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BEER.I think that's only available on the blogging platforms though and not available in the d.buzz app unless I'm just missing it.
In the dApp you just have the heart, the comment, and the value. You could of course share it from the blog feed as a work around though I guess.