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**Bastyon** is an innovative social network and video sharing platform. Unlike the mainstream social networks, there is no corporation behind it, it is based on the Bitcoin model. Bastyon is an open source project run by a team of developers and experts, and its goal is to provide a community moderated platform where the freedom of speech is seriously respected.
The project was originally created by Daniel Satchkov, but now encompasses over 25 developers and many volunteers across the globe. Bastyon is more of a protocol than a platform, since any developer can build its own app on it. The platform does not run on a single server but on a network of user nodes that are located all throughout the world.
This means that users are always able to get information and communicate, see the content and post as long as they have an internet connection and only a handful of nodes somewhere in the world are operational.
This overcomes the limitations that censors put in place to block or limit communication and spread of information. Information wants to move freely. While, for example, in China some social networks can be used only behind a VPN, there is no need for that with Bastyon.
In addition,Bastyon does not collect personal information: users register without any email or phone number and no personal data like the IP or MAC address are stored in any way. Note, that while Bastyon does not collect any IPs (as can be seen in open code), it is not possible to hide your IP completely when using the internet, unless you are using a VPN.
By doing so,Bastyon enables users to discuss issues freely. Today, anonymity is a requirement for security and privacy and Bastyon is able to guarantee it.
Furthermore, in order to deliver completely private and anonymous communication, Bastyon provides an encrypted chat system, not associated to any phone number or personal data, protected with peer-to-peer encryption model (note, that group chats are not encrypted, only 1-on-1 chats). No one except the two users involved in the chat session can access the messages. All the claims are easy to verify, since Bastyon app and Pocketnet blockchain are both completely open-source, with code visible to everyone. Moreover, all the chat messages are automatically deleted after 7 day.
Bastyon is a censorship-resistant pseudonymous social platform where people can chat, communicate and share contents with others transparent rules that are the same for every user and developer.
The interface of the platform is a typical set of user tools in a modern social network
There are three sections in total:
1 On the left - the control panel, which includes the search bar, content categories, tags, settings, etc.
2 In the middle, of course, the news feed
3 And on the right side is the comments feed.
All sections of this interface are intuitive and in the absence of any significant features do not need a separate description