Decentralization, Defintion: The process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those related to planning and decision-making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group and given to smaller factions within it.
Do not let your privacy slip quietly into the darkness, work with platforms that have no central source of authority.
Your Right to Privacy is a fundamental right outlined by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Your government may be trying to take this from you.
You wouldn’t give Best Buy your ID to enter the store.
You wouldn’t give Baskin Robbins your ID to eat ice cream.
You wouldn’t give the police your ID to state your opinion.
Central Authority: A center (central server) which dictates all which may happen.
Decentralized: Having no center (central server) or several centers (independant central servers).
Decentralized Network: A network consisting of multiple servers that are able to act as independent authorities.
Instance: A server, typically part of a decentralized network.
Federated: A type of Decentralized Network in which all Instances freely share resources with more complete interconnection.
Software Fork: A piece of software, derived from another piece of software with some modification made.
Mastodon is a Decentralized and Federated social media platform, anyone may host an Instance and will have access to the information available on the Decentralized Network.
There is no Central Authority; It is made by users, for users.
There exist numerous free, public Instances at which you may register for an account, the option is also available to run your own, and still maintain complete access to the network.
You can use the amazing tool at https://instances.social to find the right public Instance for you!
Alternatively, find instructions for setting up a private instance below!
[Technical]
Instructions for setting up your own Instance:
Bluesky is a decentralized social media platform which tries to be more similar to Twitter (X) than Mastodon.
Anyone may host a PDS (Personal Data Server) which is similar to an Instance, however Bluesky requires you to interface with the network over an expensive to run Relay server, the largest of which is hosted by Bluesky itself.
~Note: This still beats Twitter (X) by a long shot~
You can sign up below, and further down you can find out how to setup your own PDS.
Instructions for setting up a Relay are out of scope for this guide.
Website: https://bsky.app
[Technical]
Instructions for setting up your own PDS/Instance:
Matrix is an open standards communication protocol for real-time communication.
It’s designed to allow users of one communication service to communicate with users of another communication service.
It sports features similar to Discord, allowing private messaging, servers with channels, voice calls, screen sharing, and file sharing.
It also supports End-to-End encryption between users and within server channels, allowing your messages to be sent completely encrypted between the users, only being decrypted once it reaches the user’s eyes.
Anyone may host a Matrix server, and there exist multiple implementations for doing so.
There also exist a number of different servers you may sign up with, in case you don’t want to sign up using matrix.org and don’t want to self-host.
These servers and links to sign up with them can be found here: https://matrix.org/ecosystem/hosting/
Element is the default client, designed by the same team as Matrix, to communicate using the protocol.
Do keep in mind you are not tied into using Element, many different alternatives exist, however, Element is the easiest to use
[Technical]
Instructions for setting up your own Instance:
I am by no means a professional and I am more than happy to accept feedback via issues on GitHub at https://github.com/CanadianBaconBoi/PreserveYourPrivacy/issues
PSA below created by Hydraulic Beanbag on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/@HydraulicBeanbag)