2020 has been a crazy year, to say the least.
On top of a devastating global pandemic, there was the non-stop feed of circus-politics, fake news, anti-masker and anti-vaxxers. There were also antitrust lawsuits brought against Google and Facebook—perhaps the beginning of the end of Big Tech Internet monopolies?
We launched The Decentralists.
Last February, we were one of the featured speakers at an international Blockchain symposium
We advanced research on Decentralized digital identities with the University of British Columbia and University College London
We won’t miss 2020, but we’re grateful for all we’ve accomplished—it’s worth celebrating!
2020 has been a crazy year, to say the least.
On top of a devastating global pandemic, there was the non-stop feed of circus-politics, fake news, anti-masker and anti-vaxxers. There were also antitrust lawsuits brought against Google and Facebook—perhaps the beginning of the end of Big Tech Internet monopolies?
We launched The Decentralists.
Last February, we were one of the featured speakers at an international Blockchain symposium
We advanced research on Decentralized digital identities with the University of British Columbia and University College London
We won’t miss 2020, but we’re grateful for all we’ve accomplished—it’s worth celebrating!
Henry : Hey everyone, it's Henry, Mike, and Chris of The Decentralists, this is our year-end Hot Topix and of course, we're going to do a bit of review. Now, normally I'm not a huge fan of yearly reviews because we have all heard everything over and over again, but there are a few things that made this year, well, rather onerous, rather special, and very much different. I have Mike and Chris with me and we are going to talk about that. Number one, gentlemen, obviously, let's get it right out of the way, COVID.
Mike : Oh boy. Well, I'm glad it is almost over; fingers crossed, toes crossed, everything crossed because for me, Henry, this has been from a COVID perspective and what it's meant to my life and my relationships with my friends and family, especially if we go into the Christmas holidays and New Year's, I just can't wait for it to be over, I've been going nuts.
Henry : A hundred percent. I think that we all agree there. Okay, next, Trump.
Mike : Donald Trump, quick on this one, I'm glad that it's over too.
Chris : Not yet, Mike.
Mike : Well, you're right. Okay, cautiously, we'll all get our vaccine on the 20th of January and Donald Trump will be a disease of the past.
Henry : Okay. Next, TikTok
Mike : That one's yours, Chris.
Chris : Well, that reminds me of the Greek legend of Icarus, TikTok got itself, a shiny new pair of wings, but flew too close to the sun, meaning that, Hey, it was one of the hottest social networks, but it might not be around for very long.
Henry : But then again, guys, let's face it; Trump's gone, everyone seems to have forgotten about selling it to an American company.
Mike : Correct.
Chris : We'll see.
Henry : It's not on the agenda for next year, I don't think.
Mike : Well, it'll depend on how much money Walmart and Oracle donated to Biden's campaign.
Henry : Mike, I definitely want you to handle this one in a few sentences; anyway, we were banned from Twitter.
Mike : Yeah, what the hell? And I still have no idea, none of us know, it's ridiculous, they're not even coming in touch, you know what? We have been banned now for what's it been, Chris, four, five months, something like that? I don't miss it at all, seriously, I don't miss it at all because I'll tell you, it is something where don't get me wrong, we had a community, it did its thing and I think that it's probably one of the least let's say, poisonous and least innocuous of the text-based ones, social thing.
But at the end of the day, it really takes a lot of work to build a community on Twitter and Chris, all the kudos to you for doing this for a living because I honestly don't miss the unrelenting chaos that you have to be into and how you have to post like once or twice a day or whatever or this thing. To me, it was an illustration of the hold that social media grabs on your psyche, and I'm glad that it's gone.
Henry : Good point, okay. How about antitrust for big tech?
Chris : Well, do you trust big tech? So, this year we're seeing the federal government and certain state governments finally put the clamp down on Facebook, Apple, Google, and Amazon, that's right, Amazon is especially getting in trouble because of how they're treating both their workers and their supply chain. So, we're seeing a showdown and shocker, it looks as though Facebook and Google were colluding together, and had an agreement with each other on what to do should they both be victims of an antitrust suit.
Henry : Could one of you maybe, Mike, explain because we really haven't spoken about that in previous Hot Topix, this collusion between the two.
Mike : Well, and I think that Henry, this could be a Hot Topix on its own but we've talked about antitrust, we have talked about things like section 230, literally 2020 is in my view the beginning of the end of the internet, as we know it. And this collusion thing is to me the most glaring example of why it is the end of the internet because antitrust is one thing, antitrust means that Google goes in, they have a search engine, they basically internally have access to all of those results unless they decide to sell them.
And even if they do sell the results, they get them first, so they know what the most popular search terms are on this planet, in every language, in every country before anyone else does. So, that puts them in a position to do things that ensure that any Google property, company, brand, branch, technology, whatever that they're involved in gets priority over everybody else but this new thing, collusion is different. I think that it was the state of Texas, was the one that filed the collusion case recently and I've heard of two kinds of allegations of collusion.
One is the one that Chris just mentioned, they have been alleged, and I think that this was The Wall Street Journal, said that they have been alleged that Facebook and Google have an arrangement like kind of a back door, secret handshake that says that if they ever get prosecuted for antitrust at the same time that they are going to work together to thwart the legal process. No, seriously, and the other one, the Texas one was based on Google's purchase of DoubleClick, which was the big online ad buying campaign company, Google bought them and absorbed them into Google ads.
And they basically had this idea where they sold ads based on banners and Facebook announced, well, now that DoubleClick doesn't exist as an independent entity, we're going to do our own banner advertising and Facebook apparently gave them a call and said, look, if you don't do your own and you use ours, we'll give you a deal and your Facebook advertising is preferential treatment. And this is my last point, why this is different is because if you read the fine lines on these cases, collusion, if it is proven, is a felony and if it's proven it is instantly illegal behavior, that's two of the subtleties in the American legal code and a felony means people go to jail.
So, we can only hope that the next picture we see of Zuckerberg with that kind of tofu kind of space alien look on his face is behind bars.
Henry : Well, I think that you're absolutely right and guys, I believe, I hope that 2020 is indeed the beginning of the end of the internet, as we know it. Because from my perspective, it's the first time that I have ever seen the general public and the media realize and pay attention to the fact that, oh, my goodness, social media is controlling our lives and destroying a lot of lives. Well, look at that movie alone, Social Dilemma.
Mike : Well, both of those movies were this year, Social Dilemma and The Great Hack were both in 2020.
Henry : Yeah. So, it is changing and we have to be at the vanguard, I think that we are.
Mike : I hope so; at least we're going to do our best.
Henry : Well, yeah, let's move on to a few items that, what Peer Social and Manyone have achieved in 2020. Mike, why don't you start there?
Mike : This podcast, I've never done a podcast before and I remember Chris came up with the idea a while back and we made it a reality and it has been probably one of the most delightful experiences of 2020 for me. And I think that generally speaking aside from the COVID, it's been a great year, but getting together with you fine gentlemen, and with some of the unbelievable guests that we've had this year, some of the unbelievable discussions that we've had has just been fantastic. A highlight for sure. What do we have next, Chris?
Chris : Well, you had your first public presentation, didn't you, Mike?
Mike : I did, we did our first, we got asked to do a talk at a blockchain technology symposium in Toronto, in February of 2020 supported by the ever illustrious Henry , we went to the center of the universe and we gave our first talk on self-sovereign identity. And we actually unveiled Manyone for the very first time, our brand for the product that we're building.
Henry : Yeah. But don't forget the heavyweights who were there, come on UBC, the University of Toronto, and many, many others, I can't even remember them, Mike.
Mike : Well, exactly. And as I said, Henry, basically, that first day when we were there and there are all these guys talking about math on the board, and when you see math and there are no numbers, you're in front of a bunch of really smart people. Mathematicians with A's, and weird, like Greek symbols and stuff like this, way beyond me, but it was a lot of fun.
Henry : And let's not forget that was the first time that I had accompanied you on any corporate outing and I didn't know what to expect. But those two, three days there, I was thrilled and very satisfied to learn that when you, and when I did my best to explain what we're trying to achieve with Manyone a very secure, private communications platform that you own everything that you create, and no one can take it away from you, people listened and they thought that it was a great idea. Not once did I hear someone say, well, you can't do that.
Mike : Well, you know what, fingers crossed, but it's true, why should somebody object? Like who objects, does anybody listening to this object to owning their own data or controlling their own identity? If they do, they're probably actually a bot that's been plugged in by some hacker group somewhere or whatever.
Henry : Would you object to having no advertising targeted at you?
Mike : Exactly. Would you object to owning your own digital identity? No, I don't think I want to, come on, this is the way that the world's going and I think, to the discussion we just had previously on the internet in 2020, this is how we change it because I think that what's happened, Henry, is over 2020, everybody's realized that things have to change. People have been fed up with the echo chamber that is the internet, the abuse, the trolling, we got our first hate mail, that's something that we forgot to talk about, but all of these things, I think that people are fed up and I think that people are fed up with the virtual world. I know I am, I'm fed up with Zoom and all this stuff and I can't wait to actually get together with real people again.
Henry : Well, in some ways I think that maybe Mr. Donald Trump actually did us a favor because what he did is he showed the entire world, especially after he lost the election, how ridiculous Twitter can be when you send out these messages that have no basis and fact. And everybody knows that now the vast majority of the world realizes that half of the time, what you read is garbage
Mike : Well, and more importantly, social media, the internet, online platforms are not democracies. So, we had a lot of other great things happen this year, one of the things that I'm really proud of is, I did account yesterday, Henry, we added 26 people, at the end of 2019, we had a quixotic kind of crusade, I used to call it, to change social media. And in looking into changing social media, we realized that the easiest way and the best way, and the only way, was to give everybody their own kind of self-sovereign identity, their own place where they can be themselves and decide how to share their digital, kind of life with others.
And that just added fuel to the fire when Jack Dorsey kind of capitulated on Twitter at the end of 2019, and in 2020, we've just been off to the races, 26 more people, last time that I counted we're at something like 52 now.
Henry : That is incredible. And I remember in 2019, it was you and Chris and a handful of others. And I was thrilled to get involved, but there was a reason for it, the podcast and everything else, but I have learned so much more since then.
Mike : That's great. What do we have now? Oh yeah, well, let's not forget, so we have kind of built a bit of a research following, which is awesome because one of the things that we found out this year is that this stuff isn't easy. We have been working on this solution for going on two years plus now and you start to realize how much of the world has been built, the internet, the digital online world has been built around this idea of taking, of collecting our data and kind of manipulating it and selling it.
And what that means is all these platforms that we've been building on, whether it's iOS or Android, these mobile devices, all this other, it's been a real headwind to try to get a solution that we could put out there that people could use because everything's working against us. So, the way that you need to fix that is you need to get some people that are way smarter than me and you, no offense, maybe not Chris, people who can help us research killer solutions. And we have been lucky to have one of our good friends we've interviewed on one of our podcasts; Dr. Geoffrey Goodell out of UCL is supporting us in our research into digital identity architectures.
And the good folks with Vickie Lemieux who invited us to Toronto to do our first pitch and the gang at Blockchain@UBC are also helping us to research a whole bunch of other great bits and pieces that we need to support building a solution to make the world better for all of us.
Henry : And I think that what people have to realize is, okay, why are you getting involved with these universities? Because don't forget what we're trying to create here has never been created because we're doing it differently, so it's not like you and I can sit around and come up with an idea and then say, let's just build this. No, no, no, we need people who really know what's possible and what they can do right now and what they can do in the future.
Mike : That's right. To cap it all off in the last kind of couple of months, we officially kind of launched Manyone website, so we now actually have a place where people can go manyone.one and learn a little bit more about the actual practical applications, shall we say of this self-sovereign identity and sharing platform. And to support that we have opened an office in Stockholm, Sweden, and to support kind of a truly global solution and a truly global launch, we have feet on the street in Canada, in Vancouver, and across Canada and we have feet on the street now in Europe, in Stockholm, and in Amsterdam.
So, it's fantastic to be able to bring a European focus, a European agenda because in a lot of respects, Henry, the Europeans are leading when it comes to protecting people's digital rights with things like GDPR and stuff like this. We can't ignore our European kind of brothers and sisters and in order to make something that's truly going to change the world, we have to change it for everyone.
Henry : And don't forget that we have some very important team members in the states, too.
Mike : Absolutely. And what we need to do is we need to fix the internet for everybody, not just for the elite few and that's why we're getting ready to test, we actually have the alpha that we have been looking to release for a long time, it's actually ready. I have it on my phone, you have it on yours, Chris has it on his, we're just putting together some support material for everybody, and then hopefully we can launch, I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll be out before the end of this year, if not very early in 2021, which will be great.
Henry : Fantastic. If somebody is in their kitchen and they're listening to this podcast and somebody else walks in and they don't know what we're talking about, they haven't heard the rest of the podcast. Can you explain in two sentences, three sentences what we are doing?
Mike : I'll make it even simpler, I'm going to say two words, trust yourself. What we are building is the ability for each of us to take control of our ability to trust people again online, right now, trust is not yours, it's not mine, and we have to trust the platforms. And our platform is based on one person, one platform, so trust yourself and start to re-establish healthy relationships digitally, which is basically impossible nowadays, given the structure. So, re-establish a healthy internet, re-establish healthy digital relationships, take control of your digital life and trust yourself, it's that simple, if I went into the tech Henry, we'd lose everybody, it's not about technology, it's about enabling people to trust themselves.
Henry : Exactly. Manyone, trust yourself, I love it, Chris, any final thoughts?
Chris : Well, I'm looking forward to 2021, I think that everybody is. Well, one thing 2020 taught me it's to expect the unexpected, I'm going to go into 2021 with that same mindset, but I'm going to be very optimistic about it. I'm going to say that 2021, knock on wood, is going to be a way better year than 2020, I don't know for sure, but I'm just going to take it on faith that 2021 is going to be a great year.
Henry : Yeah, let's make it better.
Mike : Absolutely. It's up to us, for me, 2021 is the year where I re-evaluate and I now have a renewed appreciation for real relationships with real people.
Henry : Right on, well, here's what I like to say in closing, Chris and Mike, you guys have been so important to what we're doing here, I've learned so much from Chris over this past year, it's ridiculous, actually. And then the funny thing is I now feel like, oh, I've known this stuff all my life, which of course I didn't but Mike, we have to have a big, huge shoutout to you because you years ago had the vision for this. You're the guy who came up with the idea, the outrageous idea of saying, well, let's change the entire internet, let's completely throw it on its head and do something different because that's the only way that we are going to save the world.
And at first, I didn't understand it, but then I listened and I did and then the beautiful thing is that you found a whole bunch of people who love that vision, so that's why we're all here, and I thank you for having that vision and making it happen.
Mike : Thank you, Henry. Go big or go home.
Henry : Later, boys.
Chris : Thank you all for joining in today.
Mike : Thank you, Henry, and thanks to everybody for listening in 2020, let's look forward to 2021.