I wish them luck. I will start using it when I know anyone else that uses it.
If everything is decentralized, there are no records if you get threatened, extorted, or harassed on a platform, and harmful content isn't saved anywhere notable.
At then end of the day, no platform can guarantee security but they all do cost money to develop and operate and nothing comes truly for free... this we all know... There is some motive for the platform being developed, which is unclear at this point to me.
I'd rather deal conservatively and cautiously with non P2P platforms at this point just to be fully honest.
> Scuttlebutt can be transformative for society, decentralizing and enabling local community development free of big corp. It is a fast growing decentralized social network. As an alternative to the large corporate social networks it enables autonomy for the users and a free zone from big data harvesting...
> Secure Scuttlebutt (SSB) is a peer-to peer communication protocol, mesh network, and self-hosted social media ecosystem.[3][4] Each user hosts their own content and the content of the peers they follow, which provides fault tolerance and eventual consistency.[5] Messages are digitally signed and added to an append-only list of messages published by an author.[6] SSB is primarily used for implementing distributed social networks, and utilizes cryptography to assure that content remains unforged as it is propagated through the network.[7][8]
Besides, that’s not all the relevant data. The person I responds to was concerned about the motives around SSB. Going to the community’s main site and seeing the summary on Wikipedia would help them discover it (or the claimed motivations).
I'd take some time to read the protocol. I'd go as far as saying the protocol _is_ the contract you form with other members of the network when communicating. No centralized EULA, it's a set of policies that you must follow if you want to establish communication with another node on the network.
https://ssbc.github.io/scuttlebutt-protocol-guide/
If you receive a message, you'll have proof you received it and proof that it was created with the senders identity (key). This proof is stored locally on your device, and is likely replicated across multiple nodes that you peer with. From the "Private Messages" section:
> Private messages are encrypted so that only certain recipients can read them. They are posted to the sender’s Scuttlebutt feed like normal messages.
> Anyone can see the fact that a feed posted a private message, who sent it (the feed that posted it), when it was sent and its size. However the list of recipients, number of recipients and message body is concealed.
If someone posts something illegal (or just not nice) on their feed, you'll have proof too in the same way. That proof will also likely be federated across multiple peers. From the "Feed" section:
> The messages in a feed form an append-only log, meaning that once a message is posted it cannot be modified. Each message (except the first one) references the ID of the previous message, allowing a chain to be constructed back to the first message in the feed.
> there are no records
I'd argue the records on this platform are more resilient than what exist today on centralized platforms.
If your goal is to track harmful content, and alert people who share your definition of harmful, this communication protocol will allow you to do that. You should be able to form communities around moderation policies.