Traditional social media companies, our true communications networks, are held captive to advertising revenue,
which is held captive to TBTF banks, which are held captive to government agencies.
But what if that model could be disrupted?
Disrupted in a way where content creators and all the people making billions of posts directly get compensated from other users.
Greetings and salutations, my fellow pubs. My name is Walker and this is the Bitcoin Podcast.
The Bitcoin Block Height is 820727, and the value of one Bitcoin is still one Bitcoin.
Today's episode is Bitcoin Out Loud, where I read you a Bitcoin or Bitcoin adjacent piece.
Today I'm reading a piece Preston Pish wrote for Bitcoin Magazine titled How To Actually Get Free Speech.
Actually made this recording on Friday shortly after Bitcoin Magazine published it,
and my first read through of Preston's article is the one you're about to hear.
I had a feeling it would be a banger of an article, and Preston crushed it with this one as usual.
In this piece, Preston makes a succinct and compelling argument by first defining the problem with existing centrally controlled social media platforms,
then exploring the solution, a decentralized protocol for free speech, Noster.
He also gets into some of the unique benefits of Noster like zaps and how they can challenge the status quo.
I recommend sending this to any of your friends and family who don't quite understand why free speech is so important.
You can watch the Bitcoin podcast on Rumble, YouTube, or X by searching at Walker America,
or listen on fountain.fm, or wherever you get your podcast by searching for the Bitcoin podcast.
If you listen to the Bitcoin podcast on fountain, consider giving this show a boost or creating a clip of something you found interesting.
For those that have boosted this show already, or zapped me on Noster, thank you.
And if you haven't checked out fountain yet, you really should,
because you can send Bitcoin to your favorite podcasters and earn Bitcoin just for listening to another fucking Bitcoin podcast.
And if you still need to do some sovereign Christmas shopping for your family or get a little something for yourself,
head to bitbox.swiss.com, slash Walker, and use the promo code Walker for 5% off the fully open source Bitcoin only BitboxO2 hardware wallet.
I am extremely pleased with the BitboxO2 and like Bitcoin.
I wish I would have found it sooner.
It's a great tool for seasoned psychopaths and new Bitcoiners alike.
So go to bitbox.swiss, slash Walker, and use promo code Walker to get 5% off and help support this show at the same time.
Without further ado, let's get into this Bitcoin out loud read from Preston Pish.
How to Actually Get Free Speech by Preston Pish.
Speaking freely is just as important as being able to use your money freely.
Centralized platforms do not truly allow you to speak freely.
We need alternatives.
Like most things, it's hard to talk about the solution if we don't properly define the problem first.
So let's start there.
Last week, Elon Musk and Andrew Ross Sorkin conducted an hour long interview full of awkward and strange moments for people not familiar with the battle for free speech taking place.
Please take a moment to watch this curated clip to see what I'm talking about.
How do you think about the economics of X?
If part of the underlying model, at least today, and maybe the answer is it needs to shift away from advertising, if you believe that this is the one part of your business where you will be beholden to those who have this view, what do you do?
F.Y.
I understand that there's a reality too.
What in the world is this all about?
Well, as you'll see, it's about control.
Legacy string pullers trying to maintain order.
And ultimately, it's about a desire to control your free speech.
The problem.
The current social media landscape is not just a battleground for public opinion, but also a complex web of influence and control where the intricate ties between government agencies, large financial institutions, and advertising interests converge to shape and manipulate public discourse.
The term deep state often refers to the idea of a body of people, typically influential members of government agencies who get involved in the manipulation or desire for control of government policy and shaping the public opinion.
Why?
So they can retain power and control of the system.
Once Elon Musk took Twitter private, he was able to see all the correspondence and control that was being exercised between government agencies and the captured Twitter executives strategically used within the organization.
Click here to view the Twitter files in all the gory details.
So the next natural question is, how did these people make their way into an organization like Twitter?
Enter the modern day decentralized equity ownership of a large cap company where the ownership of the company's initial founders is minuscule.
And the actual control of the company falls into the hands of a couple large ETF fund owners, also known as the too big to fail banks, TBTFB.
If the TBTFBs control the board, then the TBTFBs can dictate where, how, and who performs what strategic censorship task within the communication platform.
These relationships create a scenario where the concept of a safe environment, ostensibly meant to protect users from harmful content, is weaponized to suppress certain topics or points of view.
Advertisers, under the guise of maintaining brand safety, exert pressure on social media platforms to moderate content in ways that align with these broader, often opaque agendas.
What promoters of such control are championing is a destructive weapon that serves their interests today, but that will unmistakably be turned against them once their political interests are no longer in control or aligned.
Talk about a fool's objective.
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.
Thomas Jefferson, The Solution, a Decentralized Speech Protocol, Noster.
Noster, an acronym for notes and other stuff transmitted by relays, is a decentralized social network protocol that offers a novel approach to online communication, standing in contrast to traditional centralized social media platforms.
Its decentralized nature aims to tackle issues like censorship and control by removing the centralized authority that often dictates content moderation policies on other platforms.
If you are interested in how this is technically achieved, feel free to read this article so you can learn more.
Sidebar, here Preston links my article, thank you Preston.
What is Noster, how does it work, why does it matter, that I wrote on February 1st of this year for BTC Times.
You can check it out at BTCTimes.com, but I'll also link it in the show notes.
Next, Preston shares a tweet from Edward Snowden.
What is Noster, unlike the old social media platforms, where the platform owner, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, gets to decide who can speak and what can be heard.
Noster is an open protocol.
If a platform is a silo, a protocol is a river.
No one owns it and everyone is free to swim.
Back to the read.
Quickly after this new protocol was released, Jack Dorsey took an interest in the project.
Dorsey, quick to put his support behind the project, donated 14 Bitcoin, 245,000 USD at the time, to the protocol developer Fiat Jaff.
In fact, his donation came after publishing a blog post, talking about the need for a native internet protocol for social media.
It sure makes you wonder, what was Dorsey seeing on his final days at Twitter, that compelled this billionaire to pour his time and energy into this somewhat obscure and tiny protocol project.
Shortly after, numerous client interfaces with the Noster protocol started to sprout up.
Dorsey had another interesting post.
He said, Zaps represent the only fundamentally new innovation in social media.
Everything else is a distraction.
Now, this is where things get really interesting.
Going back to the points initially outlined, traditional social media companies, our true communications networks, are held captive to advertising revenue, which is held captive to TBTF banks, which are held captive to government agencies.
But what if that model could be disrupted?
Disrupted in a way where content creators and all the people making billions of posts directly get compensated from other users, similar to all technological revolutions.
How do you dematerialize the large server racks, the Twitter headquarters, and take down the TBTF banking attack vector all in one?
That's right.
A native payment function called Zaps, where if I like someone's post, I can casually send them 100 Bitcoin Satoshis, 4.5 cents, by just pushing a single button that's integrated into the person's post.
Consider the implications.
A user, impressed by a post, article or comment, can express their appreciation, not just through a like or share, but with tangible financial support.
This single action, a tap on the screen, could transfer a few Satoshis directly into the digital wallet of the content creator.
The process doesn't require the exchange of sensitive banking information.
Instead, it utilizes the power of the decentralized Bitcoin network, ensuring transactions are peer-to-peer, without the need for intermediaries.
The innovation does not stop with content monetization.
Just this week, a company called Primal introduced an iOS Noster client that provides an interface to this free speech protocol, and it also had a native Bitcoin Lightning wallet all in one.
This transforms the social media interface into a decentralized payment system.
It transcends the boundaries of traditional financial systems, where transactions typically require third-party verification, are subject to fees, and often involve lengthy processing times.
What Primal, and any other client provider could accomplish with a native Bitcoin wallet, is the transfer of funds instantaneously and globally, making it a potent tool for freedom of expression and commerce, without anyone's permission.
Most importantly, this integration challenges the status quo of monetization on social platforms, where content creators often receive only a fraction of the revenue generated from their content, if any at all.
Instead, the value is directly channeled to the creators, recognizing and rewarding them for the worth of their work.
The dystopian AI incentive to keep people scrolling withers away, especially since client providers are aggressively trying to outcompete each other for the best user experience.
If you don't like your client provider, no sweat, take your private keys somewhere else, and all your previous posts and content generation comes right along with you.
As we consider the broader implications of such technology, it is clear that such an approach could herald a new age of digital interaction.
It encapsulates the principles of decentralization, not only in communication, but also in commerce.
The promise of Noester, coupled with the financial liberation offered by integrated Bitcoin Lightning transactions, sets a precedent for future platforms, seeking to empower users and creators alike.
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
Salman Rushdie.
If you enjoyed this article, give Preston a follow on Noester.
He links it in the article, I'll put it in the show notes, but you can also just go to primal.net slash Preston.
And that's a wrap on this Bitcoin Out Loud episode of The Bitcoin Podcast.
If you are a Bitcoin-only company interested in sponsoring another fucking Bitcoin podcast, head to bitcoinpodcast.net.
You can find me on Noester by going to primal.net slash Walker.
If you want to follow The Bitcoin Podcast on Twitter, go to at titcoinpodcast and at Walker America.
You can also find the video version of this podcast at youtube.com slash outwalkeramerica and at walkeramerica on rumble.
Bitcoin is scarce. There will only ever be 21 million.
But Bitcoin podcasts are abundant.
So thank you for spending your scarce time to listen to another fucking Bitcoin podcast.
Until next time, stay free.