A Look Back at 2020: What a Year

To say 2020 was a tumultuous year would be an understatement. We were witness to some weird, some bad, and a whole lot of ugly. Between a global pandemic, an unhinged American President (who still has yet to concede his loss), and anti-masker/Karen videos—scrolling through our feeds felt like a never-ending nightmare.

2020 was so bizarre that nobody even cared when the Pentagon released UFO videos. In any other year, the confirmation of decades worth of well-publicized hearsay would be huge news but because this is 2020, everyone just shrugged it off. Even ‘murder hornets’ couldn’t shake us—it’s been that kind of a year.

The tech industry definitely had its moments as well. Just recently the U.S. Government launched multiple anti-trust lawsuits against Facebook and Google for anti-competitive behaviours—it will be interesting to see what (if anything) comes of this.

Let’s not forget about super-hyped, Quibi—the streaming platform that crashed and burned only 6 months after going live, unlike Chinese made TikTok—which became the fastest growing social media app ever. After accusations of TikTok sharing user data with the Chinese government—President Trump threatened to ban TikTok in the U.S. Demanding that only American ownership could make TikTok legitimate, a deal was almost made to sell TikTok to Oracle and Walmart.  Seriously?  Walmart?  The deal never happened and it looks like everyone has forgotten anyway.

Despite 2020 having been wildly surreal—at Peer Social, we stayed focused on developing our self-sovereign identity and data sharing app, Manyone, and the results have been amazing. We had a lot of proud moments this year, here are a few…

Manyone’s UI/UX Experience

While building Manyone, our front-end developers designed some inspiring app interfaces. They all looked amazing, which made it harder to pick just one —so we asked our early adopters to weigh in. After some feedback, we settled upon a sleek, futuristic theme that is easy on the eyes. We love that our early adopters had a say in how Manyone looks and feels—it makes it all the more special.

UI

Further Development

We’ve been hard at work building the future. Manyone is a secure, encrypted identity sharing and messaging app built for Enterprise firms and other large-scale organizations. We built Manyone because digital identity is the most critical issue facing Internet users.

Manyone is built for safety and security—but, more importantly, it will be yours. It will let you create your own self-sovereign identity, allowing you to connect with who you want—without anyone tracking and monitoring your Internet activity.

When will Manyone be available? Soon.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be taking applications for alpha testing.

The Decentralists Podcast

After months of hosting chats on Twitter, a few of our guests suggested that we start a podcast. Realizing we have much more to say than a tweet allows, The Decentralists podcast was born.

We’ve discussed issues such as the weaponization of social media, the impact of Big Tech monopolies, and the gradual assault on privacy. We’ve also had some incredible guests:

  •  UBC Professor Dr. Chris Rowell, an expert in digital trust
  • University College London Professor, Dr. Geoffrey Goodell, shared his knowledge about identity in an “always-online” world
  • Daniel Bernhard, Executive Director of  FRIENDS of Canadian Broadcasting, shared how social media threatens independent journalism
  •   Dr. Wade Davis, the rock n’ roll Anthropologist, spoke about the potential collapse of American society

Be sure to listen and stay tuned because we have big plans for 2021.