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  Web3 is gaining momentum and creating an impact on the centralised mechanism of Web2 social platforms. For Web2, the Twitter internet social platform, it is often profitable to capture large amounts of personal data for precise marketing. However, the emerging Web3 social companies are going in the opposite direction, as they want to build a social platform that does not hold user data and gives users full control over the use of their own data, which undoubtedly has an irreconcilable conflict with the core business of social giants such as Twitter.

What is a social network (social network)?

A social network can be defined as a social structure that includes a set of social actors, a set of relationships and social interactions between actors. Social networks have existed for a long time. Interactions between people are described as networks between individuals and groups. At the individual level, friendships and animosities form, students play together, colleagues form study groups, organisations work hand in hand for projects, not to mention nations going to war with other nations. All this depicts a social network.

What is a social graph?

It is a structure that represents the social relationships between entities and is used to represent a global mapping of how people relate to each other. The term is popular on Facebook, but has now been extended to represent the social graph of all internet users.

 Facebook has the largest social network dataset in the world. It is still ranked number one, having the largest number of users of any website. However, Facebook's social graph is entirely owned by the company and therefore it has an important advantage over other service providers. facebook achieves this by collecting data on social business and direct marketing.

The Web2 era can be understood as the era of platforms. The main value of platforms as intermediaries lies in connecting people. As such, they rely heavily on network effects and their value is proportional to the number of people using them. For the same reason, they also tend to be centralised, seeking to maximise their user base at the expense of their competitors. They build proprietary algorithms, employ addictive design solutions and limit direct interaction with other platforms, all in order to attract and retain users. They are "walled gardens".

To what extent is the debate on freedom of expression a result of this reality? This cannot be ignored. Proponents of content regulation point out that social media platforms are private companies that are not obliged to tolerate certain types of content, while opponents, such as Musk, argue that their enormous influence means that they have a responsibility to avoid censorship. The former argue that platforms should improve and tighten controls, while the latter argue that controls should be limited or removed altogether. On either side, they tend not to ask the question of whether the owners and operators of those highly centralised platforms should have the power to conduct censorship.

A more radical option has emerged with the advent of Web3, which has at its heart a vision of "breaking the stranglehold of large tech companies on online activity", which also includes the power of tech giants to decide what content can or cannot be shared. This potential for democratisation is a core feature of blockchain technology. Public blockchains are permissionless and transparent. They eliminate the role of centralised gatekeepers by design, opening the door to collective, bottom-up decision-making.

Whenever we use a new Web2 social networking software, we often need to constantly re-establish a new identity as data and information from different platforms are not interchangeable, and personal data is lost when these centralised platforms fall. At the same time, with more and more user data in the hands of social platforms, users are forced to become "data folk", while privacy leaks and data misuse occur.

The Social Graph aims to break the centralised social graph dilemma through a one-stop social application, building a personal-centric visualisation of the Web3 social graph for users, and allowing them to gain revenue from their own data contributions while keeping their data ownership and privacy in their own hands.

In addition, the social graph will also synchronise all of the user's social networks across apps, allowing them to meet like-minded people in different areas of interest, on different platforms, etc. Even if the relevant platform is closed, they do not have to worry about losing the content they have created or their friends.