What Is Zion, the Web5 Social Network App?

 After Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter, many people are looking for alternatives and wondering what the future of social networks may be. One contender is Zion, which uses Web5 components.

Read more | What are application identifiers?

After Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and his team laid the foundation for the future of Web5 earlier this year, it was only a matter of time until a project was announced that employs Web5 components.

It wasn't long after Dorsey's comment that Zion, an app for creators, announced it will use a decentralized web platform from payments app Block in its second version. That brings the world closer to a social network built on Bitcoin. But how does this work, and how does it relate to Dorsey’s Bluesky social app?

What is Zion?

Zion describes itself as “an open global scalable decentralized community platform that facilitates direct flow of content and payments between creators and their audiences.” Zion was built with Web5 components and is distinct from Web3 in its core architecture and design.

See Also: What Is Web3?

Web5 is a decentralized peer-to-peer network based around decentralized web nodes and identity, using Bitcoin as the base consensus layer. Zion aims to sever the tie between social-media companies acting as the middleman between content creators and fans.

By replacing the intermediaries with vetted, open-source protocols, Zion aims to create a space for full sovereignty over your digital identity. Zion emphasizes freedom of expression and self-custody of personal information. Because Zion is built within the Web5 framework, the underlying technology enforces privacy, with no possibility of targeted advertising. Privacy and self-custody are enforced by the protocol, not by companies.

The Zion app has two primary functions: payment and community. The communities are forums that look and function like a cross between Twitter and a traditional/Facebook online forum. Zion users can use forums to share content, discuss ideas and get paid for what they contribute. Because Zion wallets operate on the Lightning Network, users and creators can instantly transact across borders.

Read More: What Is the Bitcoin Lightning Network?

Bitcoin acts as the base consensus layer for Zion, with Lightning acting as the layer 2 scaling tool. Identity on the centralized web is viewed by the Zion team as broken. Traditionally, identity is issued by external authorities who ultimately decide whose identity will be revoked, and when.

Organizations may inadvertently reveal personal information or change policies, or an individual’s identity may be replicated in the form of identity theft. In the case of Twitter, that problem was recently highlighted with the changes made for how users can receive Twitter’s blue checkmark. A formerly manual process to indicate genuine accounts on the platform was reduced to only requiring the purchase of a Twitter Blue subscription. That change resulted in confusion over identity and a decrease in trust.

Zion uses decentralized identifiers (DIDs), which solve many of the problems that make Web2 experiences from an identity perspective frustrating.

Read more | https://barcodelive.org/barcode-identifiers