Increasingly centralized control over digital identity and online interactions has led to widespread censorship and ideological engineering, reinforcing a model that strips individuals of their autonomy in the digital world and allows governments to censor content and opinion in the name of national security.
The current crisis over the intransigent radical Islamic regime in Tehran, hellbent on the development of nuclear weapons in the teeth of world opinion and Trump administration efforts to prevent it, highlights the need for new technology that can prevent heavy-handed efforts to suppress free speech and manipulate popular opinion.
After the outbreak of hostilities with Israel and the beginnings of street demonstrations in Tehran in support of the Israeli effort to decapitate the lawless regime of the mullahs, the Iranian government almost immediately attempted to block all social media apps as protestors flooded the streets and attempted to organize messages and activity in opposition to the regime. The terrified government was able to block most communication via the traditional technology of shutting down access to the central hub, or internet server.
But because the social media app Parler (in which I am a major investor) is now designed so that content and speech cannot be pulled offline — even if tech companies, banks, or governments want it taken down — it remained online and saw a massive surge in usage on the part of Iranians opposed to the government. Protestors are now organizing in every major Iranian city on Parler, because its innovative blockchain technology is designed to stop online censorship.
Whether or not this spells the end of the mullahs’ dictatorship, it spells the end of their lock on information.
Parler learned its lesson about the need for a platform impervious to government censorship the hard way in January 2021, when Big Tech colluded with government to destroy its platform. Parler was forced offline after tech giant Amazon, under pressure from American intelligence agencies and other U.S. government entities, suspended server access. The Parler app was also booted from Google’s and Apple’s app stores after similar strong-arming from Washington. The ostensible reason for the unprecedented action was that Parler had allowed communications seeking “to incite violence” in the U.S., specifically postings that had encouraged the riots at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
But the motivations for suppressing Parler were related less to incitement of violence (Facebook and Instagram had been the primary means of communication for most of the groups in question) and more concerned with censorship of unauthorized opinion. At the time of its shutdown, Parler had rapidly grown to 18 million users, due to the fact that, unlike other social media platforms, it refused to censor content at the behest of government authorities.
While other sites were engaged in active shadow-banning of users, suppression of proscribed opinion, and other forms of censorship, Parler had become known as one of the last bastions of free expression. In just 24 hours, it went from being the number one app in America to digitally extinction.
The trauma of being taken offline birthed the project on which I serve as an advisor — OPTIO, a blockchain infrastructure that makes such deplatforming impossible. We are not making it legally or politically impossible, mind you, but technologically impossible. This is the first such decentralized internet network of its kind. It can be used across a variety of applications, including social media, digital wallets, streaming platforms, and enterprise services.
By eliminating centralized gatekeepers, we intend to empower users to participate in a transparent, censorship-resistant, and user-driven digital economy. Users will retain full control over their personal information, free from centralized exploitation. For the first time in human history, even a government with total control over its digital infrastructure cannot silence its people. The old playbook of tyrants determined to suppress information and control opinion is now officially dead.
Authoritarian governments depend upon the control of information and the ability to disseminate an official narrative to their populations. Views contrary to the government-approved narrative cannot be tolerated, and platforms for alternative opinion or for organizing opposition groups are quickly dispatched.
Unfortunately, authoritarian governments can easily use the tools developed over the last 30 years by big tech and the giant social media companies to construct a vast web of surveillance and censorship. And we’re not just talking about Iran — this applies to Russia, China, North Korea, and even to the Big Tech-Big Government nexus in the U.S. The power to control information is the foundation of every authoritarian system.
But now, that power is obsolete because of a technological innovation bigger than messaging apps or social media. The entire concept of government censorship is now threatened. The Iranian protesters flooding the streets of Tehran aren’t just organizing demonstrations, they are demonstrating that the age of digital censorship is over. Big Tech and Big Government wanted to kill free speech in America in 2021. Instead they inspired the invention of a free speech firewall. What just happened in Iran proved that it works.
Erik Finman is one of the youngest bitcoin millionaires and a major investor in Parler. He is also a tech entrepreneur and senior strategic advisor at OPTIO.