THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Democracy is impossible without freedom of speech, cross-pollination of ideas and a common understanding of what is true and what is false, said Dr Shiva Kintali, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, who recently launched a block chain technology-powered, decentralized social networking platform- Freebits app. He was delivering the keynote address on day two of ‘International Conference on Social Media and Developing Societies’ organised by the Media Studies Department of Christ Nagar College, Thiruvananthapuram, in association with Media Action Nepal and AIJRF UAE.
“Social media platforms controlled by technology companies are becoming spaces of censorship and control. There is a social media censorship crisis across the world. Journalists, politicians, creators and even satire accounts are getting de-platformed. Couple of technology companies are controlling the global social media communications and censoring, shadow banning and de-platforming opinions without any transparency,” he said describing the relevance of an independent and secure social networking platform.
“Freebits is a new social networking platform built on block chain technologies. It is a decentralized, permissionless, censorship-resistant, global social network built on top of the above-mentioned EulerChain ecosystem,” he said.
Manju Rose Mathews, the head of media studies and organizer of the conference, said “Freebits platform democratizes social networking and empowers content creators to reach worldwide audiences without any concern of censorship and marginalizing opinion leaders and journalists by technology platforms.”
The conference concluded on Saturday. Sessions led by Dr Julie Posetti, Global Research Director, International Council for Journalists, Dr Alden Grizzel, program specialist- media and information literacy at UNESCO Paris, Prof Dhiraj Murthy, University of Texas at Austin, Dr Marc E Smith, Director - Social Media Research Foundation, California, USA, presented papers in the first two days.