We’ve been a little quiet on this newsletter over the past couple of months. However, that doesn’t mean we haven’t been busy with the Deplatformer project. The main reason for the radio silence is that we were working our way through the process of applying for, winning, and finalizing the terms of an Open Dev Grant from the Filecoin Foundation. These good folks agree that the Deplatformer project is a great way to repatriate online sovereignty of personal data and social media content, one of the core objectives of the decentralized web movement.

Working closely with the Filecoin Foundation, we refined our short-term roadmap to focus on one core use case: deplatform user content from Facebook and store it securely on Filecoin. We have received funding for three developers to work on the following milestones for the next three months:

1. Extract and parse information from a Facebook export file.

2. Create user databases and store information locally.

3. Provide a user interface to browse and manage deplatformed content.

4. Provide a user interface to add albums and upload local photos and videos

5. Encrypt media files and metadata.

6. Manage encryption keys locally as part of a zero-trust architecture.

7. Upload images, video and metadata to Filecoin.

8. Create a Filecoin Management Service to:

   • Receive uploads and make storage deals.

   • Manage user wallets (create, deposit, report balance)

   • Maintain a list of trusted, economical miners.

   • Maintain market pricing information.

   • Determine replication policy.

   • Report on expiring storage deals and enable auto-renew.

We have been busy at work on the first few milestones since the Christmas break. We look forward to reporting on our technical progress here shortly.

Free and Open Source

The Deplatformer application will be free and our code will be released under the open source MIT and Apache licenses. Our fellow Filecoin Python developers will also be happy to hear that this grant sponsorship will help us to continue maintenance of the Pygate gRPC client for the Powergate API, starting with compatibility upgrades for the recent 2.0 release.

Not a second too soon, as Facebook disgust reaches all-time high

Making progress on the Deplatformer vision can’t come soon enough. In the past half year there has been more scrutiny, mistrust, and disgust about Facebook’s business practices than in all of its past (which is saying something):

• Facebook reportedly told its ad reviewers to ignore fraud and hacked accounts as long as 'Facebook gets paid' (Business Insider. December 10, 2020)

• A new study says Facebook "actively promotes" Holocaust denial (Mic. August 17, 2020)

• Facebook ‘Secretly’ Tracks Your iPhone Location—This Is How To Stop It (Forbes. December 13, 2020)

• After The US Election, Key People Are Leaving Facebook And Torching The Company In Departure Notes (Buzzfeed News. December 11, 2020)

• The Smoking Gun in the Facebook Antitrust Case (Wired. December 8, 2020)

• Facebook wants to shut down an academic study of political ad targeting, just as it prepares to reinstate targeted political ads. (Wired. November 20, 2020)

• Facebook’s Sandberg deflected blame for Capitol riot, but new evidence shows how platform played role (Washington Post. January 13, 2021)

• Despite Parler backlash, Facebook played huge role in fueling Capitol riot, watchdogs say (Salon. January 16, 2021)

These recent stories don’t even address the core issue: Facebook’s subversive data collection and profiling of you as you use their platform and as you go about your business on the web OUTSIDE of Facebook. We expect an onslaught of Facebook refugees in the coming year as the “Delete Facebook” sentiment takes root in the mainstream and people become motivated to take real action.

• Facebook Users Have 3 Superb Reasons To Quit In 2021 (Forbes. January 10, 2021)

• How to delete Facebook and live your best life (Mic. September 16, 2020)

Thanks to Filecoin Foundation funding, we plan to have Deplatformer ready to receive these newly liberated users and open a door onto a secure, decentralized alternative.

P.S. We have created a Twitter account for the project. Please give us a follow and help spread the word: https://twitter.com/deplatformer_io