Lens Protocol Founder: Building Social Networks Should Focus on Resilience

ChainCatcher news, Aave and Lens Protocol founder Stani Kulechov stated, "In light of the recent arrest of Telegram's CEO Pavel Durov, I have been reflecting on how to build a 'resilient approach' that can uphold various rights, even when these rights (such as freedom of speech and content moderation) may conflict with each other.

First, when discussing resilient software, it is important to move away from the concept of 'decentralization.' 'Decentralization' is a term that can easily lead to misunderstandings, and its meaning is rarely agreed upon.

Instead, the construction of social networks should focus on resilience. In fact, resilience means minimizing any potential single points of failure that could undermine or affect the functionality and integrity of the network. This concept is easier to understand and measure.

For example, the most successful DeFi projects today are built this way. They do not necessarily aim to achieve a certain level of decentralization, but rather to ensure that protocols like Aave can withstand potential threats and single points of failure from various participants.

A truly resilient social network is a system that is extremely difficult to penetrate or disrupt by any single entity or coalition of entities.

Resilience ensures that participation in the network or protocol is safeguarded at all levels. The flow of information should be resilient against manipulation or biased censorship. Administrators should be protected from undue influence. Content should be able to resist deletion by operators and be fully controlled by its authors.

Currently, blockchain technology provides a means to achieve resilience. At its core, blockchain ensures access control (who can write) and secure storage of value (assets). It can determine who can publish in the information flow, join communities, moderate content, serve as legitimate fact-checkers, and how funds are allocated within the network. Additionally, it enables a community-driven framework for selecting administrators or fact-checkers through voting mechanisms.

For resilience to be effective, accountability and transparency are key. Transparent networks are more likely to ensure resilience, and if privacy is needed, guarantees like zero-knowledge proofs (ZK-proofs) can provide verifiability while ensuring transparency. Public blockchains have these features built-in.

I believe that a truly resilient social network will unlock new interesting use cases, as developers will no longer have to worry about being shut down.

These foundational principles will guide the development of Lens V3."