Claim OwnershipThe Decentralists
Subscribed: 5Played: 9
Subscribe
© 2025 The Decentralists
Description
As big tech continues to exploit our personal data—more than ever, people are demanding control of their digital lives and asserting their self-sovereign identity. The solution is a decentralized Internet—and we are here to talk about all things decentralized. The Decentralists is a podcast about social media, privacy, and self-sovereign identity. The Decentralists is hosted by Michael Cholod, Henry Karpus, and Geoff Glave.
88 Episodes
Reverse
Pavel Durov is a Russian business executive and entrepreneur serving as the chief executive officer (CEO) of the secure messaging service, Telegram since 2013. Telegram is basically the WhatsApp if Eastern Europe. Along with his brother Nikolai Durov, he founded the social network VKontakt, a Russian version of Facebook, in 2006, which quickly became the most popular social network in Russia before founding Telegram in 2013 and leaving Russia for Dubai. As of 25 August 2024, Durov was the 120...
It’s time for yet another Hot Topix involving everyone’s favourite Billionaire nemesis, Elon Musk. For those of you who have been living under a rock, Elon Musk is a South Africa-born, American tech entrepreneur who made his initial fortune co-founding and then selling the online payment platform PayPal. With his millions from PayPal, Musk embarked on a Howard Hughes like adventure, taking whacky ideas from the fringes, electric cars and colonising Mars and made them mainstream with Tesla and...
The war in Ukraine is at a stalemate and a ‘new’ conflict has exploded in Gaza occupying the world’s attention. Partisan politics has tied up American funding in Washington, and Ukrainians are freezing in the dead of winter. To make matters worse, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are threatening the world more than ever before. There’s a palpable sense that we’re on the brink of something terrible, especially considering the spectre of a second Trump Presidency. To quote Malcolm Gladwell, the ...
It has now been a little over six months since Meta rolled out "Threads" - Their supposed X (Formerly known as Twitter) killer. Like Twitter, Threads is available as both an app and a desktop client, and it offers users the ability to post and share short text posts, images, and videos, as well as interact with other users' posts through replies, "reposts," and likes. Current estimates put total Threads users at around 160 Million accounts. The path that Threads is following is littered...
On October 7th, full scale war broke out in Gaza between Hamas, a terrorist group and Israel. Thousands of rockets from Gaza pounded Israeli settlements killing 1200 people, Israeli retaliatory strikes have killed tens of thousands. The Israel / Hamas war has taken public attention away from the frozen conflict in Ukraine just as Winter sets in. Is the Israel / Hamas war a coincidence or is there someone in the background pulling the strings? Tune in to this episode of The Decentralis...
In October 2022, Elon Musk spent $44 billion buying Twitter which he subsequently renamed "X". Musk's purchase of Twitter took almost a year as the drama played out in front of our eyes. Elon first went public in early 2022, ironically on Twitter with a public spat with founder Jack Dorsey over what her perceived as a lack of free speech on the platform. When Jack didn't take the bait, Musk upped the ante by declaring that if he couldn't get satisfaction, he would buy Twitter and do it himsel...
International momentum is growing to seize Russian state assets, including central bank reserves to pay for the rebuilding of Ukraine. Otherwise, western taxpayers will end up footing the bill. Canada leads the world with Senator Ratna Omidvar's recent amendment to the Special Economic Measures Act (SEMA) allowing the seizure of Russian state assets and private assets to rebuild Ukraine. Other countries are poised to follow suit, but there’s concern that seizing assets could lead to a loss of...
After being summoned by the Government of Canada, Mike’s about to walk into several meetings with some of the highest-ranking officials and Ministers in Ottawa. Learn all the details including ‘what it’s really like’ within the hallowed halls of the House of Commons on Parliament Hill. Mike was rather surprised! Please join us to learn who’s involved, what was discussed, and the next steps to move forward on this episode of The Decentralists.
After more than nine months, Mike is back in Canada. Why? Well, he was summoned by the Government of Canada. An influential Member of Parliament and a well-respected Senator have heard about the unique plan to rebuild Ukraine that The Peace Coalition has developed, and they want to talk. Please join us to learn who’s involved, what was discussed, and the next steps to move forward on this episode of The Decentralists.
The war in Ukraine is not just a physical war of tanks, trenches, artillery and attrition. It’s also being fought across the Internet on the social media front line and deep within the darkweb where armies of hackers from both sides fight a brutal cyberwar. Sometimes these electronic battles erupt into the daylight with both horrendous and hilarious results. Are there legitimate reasons to train national cyber-soldiers - a professional army of hacktivists? Find out what we’ve di...
Ukrainian people are very technically sophisticated, especially in the big cities like Kyiv and Lviv. Evenryone has the latest iPhone compete with air buds. You can order, pay and tip at every restaurant by scanning a QR code at your table. Banking is virtual and people pay and transfer money by sharing credit card numbers and tapping Apple Pay. Hungry? Glovo will deliver in the middle of an air raid and Uber, Uklon or Bolt will pick you up and drive you anywhere in Kyiv anytime. How did Ukra...
Ukrainians routinely complain about paying extra fees for expedited processing of documents, or to have a plumber repair their toilet. Kyiv is littered with unfinished apartment buildings because developers skim so much from the construction funds that the structure cannot be finished. Doing business in Ukraine is challenging and it’s not just because of the illegal Russian invasion. For decades corruption has been a reality. Is corruption inevitable in post-soviet countries? Wha...
WIRED recently published an explosive article The Kremlin has Entered your Telegram Chat, regarding the experience of Russian rights activist Marina Matsapulina. Matsapulina, like most Russians and indeed most Ukrainians, was using the globally-popular Russian-developed Telegram. Equivalent to the American WhatsApp, communicating through Telegram is touted as totally private and secure. So how did the Russian secret service know her every move? Is Telegram, the supposedly anti-authorita...
We came to Ukraine because we felt our mobile app could be incredibly helpful to refugees. Many agreed, so we redesigned it to enable displaced people to securely & privately report details of damage or destruction of their home, land and property (HLP). Ukraine must find an efficient way to document and process the expected millions of rebuilding claims, even from those who may not have a property deed or other formal proof of occupancy. Furthermore, political agreement and...
It’s not easy traveling to Ukraine during wartime with multiple flights and a 24-hour train ride from Warsaw, but it’s certainly an adventure. You’ll find that Kyiv has every modern conveniece like ride-sharing, food delivery and digital government services. However, it also has daily air raid sirens, and deadly missile & drone attacks courtesy the Russian Federation. Most people speak English, restaurants are full and the bars make awesome cocktails, but a little anxiety is always palpab...
It’s been three months since we last released an episode of The Decentralists and for that we apologise. However, we have a pretty good excuse. Mike went to Kyiv for two weeks in early August on a mission for our non-profit, The Peer Social Foundation. He’s still there - deeply involved in planning the country’s recovery with the brave people of Ukraine. What the heck are the Decentralists doing in Ukraine? How do you even get there? What’s life really like in a war zone? Please have a ...
Bill C-10 is a proposed amendment to the Canadian Broadcasting Act, introduced on November 3, 2020 by Minister of Canadian Heritage Steven Guilbeault during the second session of the 43rd Canadian Parliament. The bill seeks to amend the Broadcasting Act to account for the increased prominence of internet video and digital media, by adding undertakings that conduct "broadcasting" over the internet to the regulatory scope of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)...
What goes into making a social media app? What kind of planning does it require? Today, we are discussing product management and taking a deep dive into our brand new self-sovereign messaging app Manyone. To discuss this, we’ve invited Geoff Glave, Co-Founder of Manyone, and Chief Product Decentralist. Geoff has over 25 years of experience in product management, shaping visions from inception to real world products that bring value to individuals and enterprises. Geoff believes that the Inte...
What is the biggest threat to independent journalism both in Canada and internationally? We discuss this question and more with the executive director and spokesperson for the watchdog group, FRIENDS of Canadian Broadcasting, Daniel Bernhard. FRIENDS conducts leading-edge policy and opinion research on issues affecting Canadian media and related issues. This research demonstrates that millions of citizens care deeply about the future of Canadian media, journalism, and programming. Unfor...
Palantir, Clearview A.I., NSO Group, maker of the infamous Pegasus spyware, Anomaly 6 and Zignal are a few examples of private companies that offer to spy on anyone for a price. Anomaly 6, a mobile phone spyware solution set up by 2 former NSA military intelligence officers, can track roughly 3 billion devices in real time, equivalent to a fifth of the world’s population. Zignal Labs, a social media monitoring firm that leverages its access to Twitter’s rarely granted “firehose” data st...
Comments
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States