Online Social Networks in Business Frameworks

24Blockchain-Based Decentralized Online Social Networks – Benefits and Challenges

Neha Agrawal^1*, Sukrati Agrawal¹, Ankit Upadhyay¹ and Hitesh Rawat²

¹Department of Computer Science Engineering, Shri Vaishnav Vidyapeeth Vishwavidyalaya, Indore, India

²Shri Vaishnav Vidyapeeth Vishwavidyalaya, Indore, India

Abstract

The online social networks (OSNs) have obtained much popularity in the last few years as they not only allow users to exchange information and opinions but also provide platform to users to connect with their friends and family members. However, the online social networking sites suffer from many issues like, piracy leakage, data breaches, identity deception, fake news, and misinformation. To overcome these limitations, technological advancement introduced the integration of Blockchain technology in social media networks. Blockchain can provide security, information control, transparency, tamper-proofing, confidentiality, traceability, and supervision. This chapter explored the different threats associated with social media in the first section. In the second section it discussed the working of blockchain and how Blockchain based social media platforms resolve the issues related with social media platforms. At the end the challenges of this integration are discussed.

Keywords: Social media, blockchain technology, centralized networks, privacy and security

24.1 Introduction

In the early 2000s, OSNs [31, 32] emerged as a way of sharing user’s contact with others ...