The Problem with Centralized Internet

We live in a time where data is king and it is the fuel for success for many giant corporations such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon & it has also made them very powerful. But with great power, comes great responsibility and infamous events like Facebook - Cambridge Analytica data scandal keep reminding us that these multi-billion dollar companies have not been very responsible, knowingly or unknowingly, when it comes to safeguarding valuable user data. The way how the web works today is worrisome and the only solution to this is a decentralized internet.

Internet today is about gatekeepers. For instance, if you want to access a website, it requires going through multiple middlemen. First, a domain name server, then a server hosting company, which usually directs you to a third party, i.e; a web hosting service and this happens every time you try to open a website on the internet. These gatekeepers, however, are quite vulnerable to cyber-attacks and also make censorship & surveillance very easy.

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That’s not all though, the situation is getting more concerning. Cloud computing is getting quite popular and here too, the data is being hosted by these giant corporations. This means these middlemen are becoming more powerful. Now, moving to the cloud is a good business strategy - It is easier to manage & cost-effective for developers and service providers and it also eliminates the need for maintaining any physical servers. But it is very dangerous for the users.

This gives these giant tech companies unlimited control over the web and history has told us time and again that abuse of such power is inevitable. For example, a gatekeeper of, let’s say, a hundred thousand websites, wakes up and one day decides to block a couple of sites because of some political pressure, without asking or notifying anyone. That’s an abuse of power and to some, that might be synonymous with the death of the internet.

Now, we are not really killing the internet but for sure, there is an irresponsible centralization of the internet in motion and it is making the web more fragile and the people powerless.

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The decentralized, people-driven web solves this problem by eliminating the middlemen, the web-hosting services. This empowers the users to host websites they desire to preserve. Such networks, allow users to download the sites directly from other users. This means that if you have a website with 1000 visitors, it is hosted by 1000 computers from around the globe. So basically, it is a people-powered internet.

In it, the security of the network is dependent on public-key cryptography. It makes sure that no one but the real owner can modify a website. Think of it like instead of using electricity from the city or country’s main power station, you power up the house with solar panels and if one of your neighbors runs out of electricity, they can use some of yours. 

By using decentralized internet, we can make sure that the content is accessible to everyone, at all times, and without the intervention of any powerful & unjust middlemen. With this form of internet, we can also exercise our freedom and fight against censorship and unwanted surveillance.

China is a perfect example of a centralized web. It is so tightly controlled that it is forbidden to criticize the government, protest against it, or even post certain emoticons to remember the victims of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. 

In a decentralized web version, it’s not the government that decides what makes it to the internet or what doesn’t, it is the users that dictate that and this makes the internet more democratic.

Another disadvantage of centralized internet is the increasing threat to our digital freedom due to overregulation. It seems as if the governments and the people who devise internet regulation laws are not aware of the gravity of this situation and also oblivious to the consequences of their decisions.

For example, European Parliament members, who voted for Article 13, a new Copyright Protection Law, were either not aware of the consequences of implementing the law or it was an intentional move. Article 13 requires every website to incorporate a filter in their process that automatically blocks content that violates the “rules” made by giant corporations.

The basic idea is to safeguard copyrighted materials but it has far-reaching implications on many other things we do on the web such as blogging, Vlogging, moving online petitions, linking, and sharing. Google and YouTube have already integrated similar systems into their web and app development and they receive hundreds of thousands of takedown requests every hour.

And they don’t filter them manually, it is impossible, so they use Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Machine Learning (ML) to decide the nature of the content. These AI-driven algorithms and filters, however, do make mistakes and sometimes very big ones.

They are removing and blocking everything from important documents and reports on human rights abuse, lectures about copyrights, and even search results that point to the misuse of power with the help of Article 13. Furthermore, these filters can also remove linked accounts, email addresses, your pictures, or any other unfinished office project or a book, which writer Dennis Cooper experienced back in 2016.

It is not so hard to assume that a centralized system like this could be abused by politicians and tech giants for personal or business gains. Even amid strong opposition from Wikipedia, Github, Mozilla, Vint Cerf (Father of the Internet), Tim Berners-Lee (creator of the Web), and many more, Article 13 was passed in the European Parliament in 2019. It would be no surprise if such rules & regulations and proposals are tabled in the future too.

What we need now is more developers getting together to build new decentralized systems that allow people to use the internet with freedom and safety. So why would developers be a part of this movement? 

Well, think of it like this - Instead of spending thousands of development hours to help a particular corporation make huge profits, you will be coding for a cause that will bring about a positive change in the world and satisfy you from within. You might be earning big bucks through your skills but investing your time and effort into the decentralization of the internet will allow you to do something much more meaningful.

Doing this might not be easy as you will be challenging the might of big corporations but you will certainly win the hearts of billions of internet users around the world. You will empower them to host and create websites, that otherwise would be censored by the centralized digital structure.

Regulations such as Article 13 would be very difficult to impose with the adoption of a decentralized internet because it eliminates the hosting services. The websites are hosted by the users and it is up to them to decide what content goes online and what does not.

Without this necessary revolution, the future of the internet will be out of our control. The increasing control over our digital lives and the systems protecting it are threatening our freedom of speech and our democracy. 

Building a decentralized internet means creating a safe and secure digital space where the power of people is greater than the people at power.