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+---

content/blog/2022/04/post-10/index.md

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+---
+title: "The Internet that connects us also manipulates us. In search of a better future." # Quotation marks allow colons, semicolons, etc.
+description: "The Internet as we know it was once free and decentralized by nature. Over time, the Internet lost its neutrality. ThreeFold represents an opportunity to realize the initial promise of a distributed and neutral Internet owned by the people." # Quotation marks allow colons, semicolons, etc.
+date: 2022-04-05
+updated: 2022-04-05 # Comment-out this line with a # if content is unchanged
+draft: false # Make it "true" if you don't want Zola to "publish" yet
+template: blogPage.html
+taxonomies:
+  categories: ["Foundation"]
+  tags: [threefold_grid, community, farming, interview, update]
+
+extra:
+  subtitle: "The UNIQUE Post 1 subtitle" # Quotation marks allow colons, semicolons, etc.
+  author: HANNAH CORDES
+  authorImg: /images/people/hannah_cordes.jpg
+  imgPath: images/in_search_of_a_better_internet.png
+  
+---
+
+The Internet is one of humanity’s [greatest inventions](https://coincodex.com/article/14083/threefold-host-the-cloud-at-your-house/). In its early days, it used to be [free and decentralized](https://theconversation.com/web-3-0-the-decentralised-web-promises-to-make-the-internet-free-again-113139) by nature. No single entity was able to control access to the web as it was built on the foundation of a peer-to-peer network of nodes owned by developers and researchers. Until the dot-com era. Throughout the early 2000s, large corporations took over the web. New platforms like YouTube and MySpace were launched and new infrastructure needed to be built at an extreme pace, starting the data revolution and changing the digital landscape forever. 
+
+<br/>
+
+Twenty years down the line, the Internet’s architecture has become highly centralized – owned by a handful of large corporations that act as the [gatekeepers](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/28/who-owns-the-internet) of our digital world. What was once an open and free platform accessible to anyone has long since built up barriers and lost its neutrality. Users are trapped in a cyberspace that exploits their personal data and allows censorship, hate speech, disinformation and political targeting to thrive. 
+
+## Going down the Rabbit Hole
+
+The Wall Street Journal’s [investigation](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039) “The Facebook Files” and The New York Times’ audio series “[Rabbit Hole](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/podcasts/rabbit-hole-prologue.html)” are only some of the latest examples that depict the shocking impacts of the manipulation, mental health problems, and extremism that social media algorithms are fuelling. Nevertheless, these incidents are only a glimpse into all the ways we’re being affected and influenced about the way we see the world – by the tech giants and their algorithms. Tech giants like Google and Facebook have been surrounded by a constant stream of data privacy [scandals](https://www.wired.com/story/should-big-tech-own-our-personal-data/) as more and more whistleblowers expose their misconduct. However, there are plenty of other, hidden players using the tools and algorithms of social media platforms for their own agendas.
+
+<br/>
+
+[The Great Hack and the Social Dilemma](https://filmthreat.com/features/4-thought-provoking-movies-on-digital-privacy-and-security/) are great documentaries that shed light on how the Internet as we know it became compromised. They depict how algorithms are used to mine user data, control information feeds and manipulate our digital experiences. The [Trump Election and the Brexit vote](https://www.politico.eu/article/cambridge-analytica-chris-wylie-brexit-trump-britain-data-protection-privacy-facebook/) were heavily influenced by private companies like [Cambridge Analytica](https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/cambridge-analytica-files) that manipulated mass audiences through social media.
+
+<br/>
+
+By purchasing thousands of personal data points collected by social media platforms and analyzing them, companies like Cambridge Analytica are able to not only predict but influence the behaviour of each and everyone of us. Data collection and analysis to such an extent allow these companies to craft and push perfectly targeted messages to users in a way that’s optimized to sway their opinions in favour of whatever agenda they have.  
+
+## Can a neutral and free Internet still exist?
+
+On 24th of March 2022, the European Parliament and Council negotiators agreed upon the [Digital Markets Act](https://variety.com/2022/digital/global/facebook-google-amazon-apple-digital-market-act-europe-regulation-1235214516/) (DMA). It seeks to give users more choice by demanding the most popular apps to open up and interoperate with smaller apps. Moreover, the act aims to ensure a fairer market competition by prohibiting certain gatekeeper practices like self-preferencing and targeted advertising. This set of new EU regulations is likely to impact the daily business of tech giants significantly once it becomes law. While the [DMA](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220315IPR25504/deal-on-digital-markets-act-ensuring-fair-competition-and-more-choice-for-users) promises to mitigate some of the issues discussed, it is doubtful that the act will be enough to fundamentally change the current system. This is a step in the right direction, but much more needs to be done.
+
+<br/>
+
+The Internet has become our digital home. It’s impacting our lives in many ways by creating new opportunities, and changing how we communicate and connect. Therefore, it is crucial to restore the Internet’s neutrality to ensure a fair and equal environment. We need an Internet where we can rely on data security and privacy. An Internet where we’re empowered to truly and completely have ownership of and control of our own data. An Internet that empowers us with digital sovereignty.
+
+<br/>
+
+The Internet used to be a free movement of culture and the Web. It started with an open-source and peer-to-peer vision to connect people. And while Web 3.0 projects are looking to liberalize the Internet as we know it, most of them still rely on centralized Web 2.0 infrastructure to some degree. The world needs better, holistic solutions. ThreeFold is [realizing the initial vision and promise](https://threefold.io/blog/post/realizing_the_promise/) of the Internet as an open-source, peer-to-peer planetary mesh network of nodes owned by humanity. It’s a 100% open-source and community-driven project that builds the critical, neutral infrastructure for a decentralized world – one that is built and owned by the people. With ThreeFold, individuals and organizations are empowered to store their data and run their applications on a peer-to-peer network of nodes in a way that ensures their data will not be manipulated, hacked or lost. 
+
+<br/>
+
+Powered by a global community, ThreeFold is the world’s largest peer-to-peer Internet infrastructure with a few thousand 3Nodes connected from 74 countries and the neutral foundation for [any current and future IT workload](https://medium.com/authority-magazine/the-future-is-now-kristoff-de-spiegeleer-of-threefold-on-how-their-technological-innovation-will-7acc0e51c365). ThreeFold is now on the verge of opening up a new Internet era free from censorship, user tracking and privacy breaches. And anyone can participate in ThreeFold’s model by building or buying a 3Node, and connecting Internet capacity from their home or office – creating a fully [decentralized Internet](https://coincheckup.com/blog/threefold-is-the-decentralized-web-the-future-of-the-internet/). 
+
+<br/>
+
+* Join the ThreeFold [movement](https://t.me/threefold) today and drive a new Internet era.
+* Break free from big tech and [be the Internet](https://threefold.io/blog/post/what_is_farming/) by setting up a 3Node at your home.
+* Help us [connect the dots](https://threefold.io/blog/post/connecting_the_dots/).

content/blog/2022/04/post-8/index.md

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+---
+title: "ThreeFold in Paradise" # Quotation marks allow colons, semicolons, etc.
+description: "An inside look at how the Paradise Hills partnership came to be and how the model can scale around the world." # Quotation marks allow colons, semicolons, etc.
+date: 2022-04-07
+updated: 2022-04-07 # Comment-out this line with a # if content is unchanged
+draft: false # Make it "true" if you don't want Zola to "publish" yet
+template: blogPage.html
+taxonomies:
+  categories: ["Foundation"]
+  tags: [partner, threefold_grid, why]
+
+extra:
+  subtitle: "The UNIQUE Post 1 subtitle" # Quotation marks allow colons, semicolons, etc.
+  author: sam_taggart
+  authorImg: /images/people/sam_taggart.jpg
+  imgPath: images/blog/paradise_hills.png
+  
+---
+
+It’s January 2022. ThreeFold co-founder Adnan Fatayerji sits in the office of Shaher Mousli, CEO of Paradise Hills Development, along with Suhaib Sheikh, COO of the project. Shaher and Adnan are long-time friends and in fact Shaher gave Adnan his first internship in Dubai about two decades ago, while Adnan was in his final year at university.
+
+<br/>
+
+Shaher is well-known in the Dubai real-estate market,  for his open-heartedness and transparency, and has a history of always looking for ways to stand out and differentiate himself and his projects. Paradise Hills in itself came from the idea of creating a “paradise” themed model for residents that could even serve as a tropical resting place for birds in Dubai.
+
+## The “aha” moment
+
+For the past twenty years, Adnan and Shaher have maintained a strong relationship, and on this day, they are gathering to find a way to work together – to bring things full circle. They discuss how the real estate market is making a strong comeback, and various types of value propositions for future Paradise Hills residents, when the incredible “aha” moment drops. Instead of a standard one-time gift or fee write-off, why don't we add a 3Node to each residence? A gift that keeps on giving! The room is filled with excitement. They realize that a new dawn in the property and homeownership market is born, combining the unified empowerment of digital and physical assets.
+
+<br/>
+
+![Paradise Hills 3Node](/images/blog/paradise_hills_3node.png)
+
+<br/>
+
+Together, ThreeFold and Paradise Hills will collaborate on a [historic partnership](https://threefold.io/news/post/paradise_hills/) to create the world’s first neighborhood cloud network, living on top of the ThreeFold Grid. Dedicated servers called 3Nodes will be installed into 170 homes, providing the edge computing and Internet storage needed to run decentralized applications and Internet services. This will give residents, businesses, developers, and the government a secure and highly-available sovereign cloud infrastructure to store and process their data locally. And homeowners will be rewarded in the form of ThreeFold Tokens (TFT) simply by having these 3Nodes connected.
+
+## No time to waste
+
+Quickly the team puts the idea to paper, and by February the deal is done. In March, the collaboration is announced and makes the rounds in publications like [Yahoo! Finance](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/paradise-hills-property-development-threefold-090000146.html) and on plenty of regional properties. Adnan even begins training the Paradise Hills sales team on how to present the opportunity to potential residents. The speed of the collaboration is proof of a collective commitment to take this leap of faith, and a high-level of trust in each other and the possibilities. Another big reason for confidence: once the modeling was done, it was clear that this could be a massive financial opportunity for residents, one which could even pay off the cost of the house in a relatively short number of years.
+
+<br/>
+
+![Paradise Hills Connected](/images/blog/paradise_hills_connected.png)
+
+<br/>
+
+The ThreeFold [3Node](https://threefold.io/farm) will be a standard “appliance” in each Paradise Hills residence, much like a refrigerator or an oven. But this appliance is anything but “standard” – it provides and connects decentralized Internet capacity owned by the Paradise Hills community, and comes with an onboarding guide to welcome each resident into the much larger ThreeFold community.
+
+<br/>
+
+Further, Paradise Hills is adamant about building tools on top of the ThreeFold Grid – digital storefronts for local businesses, peer-to-peer marketplaces and forums or chats for the residents, and whatever else is deemed to be needed. The collaboration with ThreeFold essentially turns Paradise Hills into a sovereign “smart” community, where even the footage from the security cameras on premise can be stored locally and privately.
+
+## The community comes together
+
+Flash forward to a few weeks ago, the early Paradise Hills community gathers together for a gala. ThreeFold co-founder and tech guru Weynand Kuijpers has the chance to speak in front of the group. He speaks about the early days of the Internet, how it was hijacked by Big Tech turning people into products, and how now there is a new model for the Internet by people, for people. “You are some of the first to do this,” he says to the crowd.
+
+<br/>
+
+![Partners of Paradise Hills](/images/blog/paradise_hills_partners.jpeg)
+
+<br/>
+
+Afterwards, residents come up and express their excitement, even if they don’t quite understand all the details. One woman in particular asks, “Can you please explain to me how having this device in my home won’t impact my privacy or security?” Adnan goes on to describe how the 3Node is actually there to preserve privacy and security. “A 3Node is just like a solar panel, only instead of electricity, it provides Internet capacity for local usage. In fact, any data that’s in your home is just a fragment of a piece of a puzzle, so it’s inaccessible to you or anyone else for that matter.” Overall, there is a clear feeling that contributing to this new Internet Grid will bring a unifying force to the community, and a deeper sense of meaning for what it means to be a resident of Paradise Hills.
+
+## Bringing Paradise to the world
+
+Paradise Hills is a first of its kind partnership, but it is only the first. We at ThreeFold see incredible opportunities to scale this model across the world, and not only in real estate developments. Imagine if we apply this to lower-income and affordable housing communities, or colleges and universities. Hardware gifted to residents that connect together to form a localized part of a truly sovereign Internet Grid, on top of which useful community tools can be built – all while generating passive token rewards for the residents. A ground-up model. A global concept, applied locally.
+
+<br/>
+
+If the Paradise Hills story inspires you, and you have an idea for how to bring this model elsewhere, we invite you to take action. Head to the ThreeFold Forum, create a topic under the [Paradise Hills Model](https://forum.threefold.io/t/about-the-paradise-hills-model-category/2632) category, and let’s spread this to the world.

content/blog/2022/04/post-9/index.md

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+---
+title: "ThreeFold Weekly! April 5th, 2022 (Vol 13)" # Quotation marks allow colons, semicolons, etc.
+description: "Welcome to the 13th edition of of ThreeFold Weekly. Let’s take a look what’s been going on in the ThreeFold universe last week." # Quotation marks allow colons, semicolons, etc.
+date: 2022-04-05
+updated: 2022-04-05 # Comment-out this line with a # if content is unchanged
+draft: false # Make it "true" if you don't want Zola to "publish" yet
+template: blogPage.html
+taxonomies:
+  categories: ["Foundation"]
+  tags: [threefold_grid, community, farming, interview, update]
+
+extra:
+  subtitle: "The UNIQUE Post 1 subtitle" # Quotation marks allow colons, semicolons, etc.
+  author: HANNAH CORDES
+  authorImg: /images/people/hannah_cordes.jpg
+  imgPath: images/weekly_vol_12.jpg
+  
+---
+
+## Major ThreeFold News:
+
+* Last week, Gulf Land Property hosted the  **Paradise Hills Award Gala with over 160 people**  including home owners, contractors and supporting project developers. During the Gala, ThreeFold’s  **Adnan Fatayerji and Weynand Kuijpers**  had the chance to present ThreeFold to the audience with an overwhelmingly positive response and support. Moreover, the two co-founders accepted  **an award for ThreeFold**  as an  **integral technology partner**  of Paradise Hills Development and establishing the [world's first community-driven cloud](https://threefold.io/news/post/paradise_hills/).
+
+<br/>
+
+* ThreeFold co-founder  **Adnan Fatayerji**  joined the [BlockHash Podcast](https://youtu.be/wu-vf1H-zQ0) to share all about ThreeFold and to discuss decentralization. It’s a great interview,  **covering all ThreeFold essentials** . Well done, Adnan!
+
+### Community updates:
+
+* **Mik**  from Canada shared about his experiences as a DIY farmer and how he is  **leading the way**  by providing  **big-time support**  for the ThreeFold Farming community. Watch the inspiring conversation between Mik and Sam [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE5E1mCVdqk&t=2s). *If you’re a community member interested in sharing your story in a similar format, let us know in the comments below [this post](https://forum.threefold.io/t/looking-for-farmer-stories-to-share-with-the-world/2398?u=hannahcordes).*
+
+<br/>
+
+* A big thank you to those who registered to become validators of the ThreeFold Grid for being vital members of our community and securing the Grid! There are only  **8 [L2](https://forum.threefold.io/t/procedure-to-register-your-l2-validator-node/1864) and 1 [L0](https://forum.threefold.io/t/procedure-to-register-your-l0-validator-nodes/1866) validator spots remaining**. Take a look [here](https://threefold.io/blog/post/stake_tft_become_validator/) if you’d like to learn how to stake TFT and become a validator.
+
+### Technology Developments:
+
+* We’ve launched a new and improved  **3.0 wallet in the TF Connect app** which includes a TF Chain wallet. Take a look at [this post](https://forum.threefold.io/t/tf-connect-wallet-v3/2565) to find all the details.
+
+### ThreeFold Grid: 
+
+* In a [new Grid Enhancement Proposal](https://forum.threefold.io/t/gep-farming-start-price-april-2022/2585?u=hannahcordes), the Grid Council proposed the **farming start price of 0.08 USD in April**. Thank you all for voting, this GEP has **passed with 89%** of our community voting in favour, meaning the farming start price for April will be 0.08 USD. Please remember that the minting payout for March 2022 will be executed on the 8th of April instead of the 5th of April.
+
+<br/>
+
+* **Have you migrated your 3Nodes from V2 to V3 yet?** If not, please do it asap as **it’s our collective responsibility** to fully bring the ThreeFold Grid to its latest version. Also, it’s crucial for you to log in V3 farming rewards, so finish the migration process via ThreeFold Connect as explained [here](https://forum.threefold.io/t/farming-migration-grid-v2-v3/2143?u=hannahcordes).
+
+<br/>
+
+* Titan 3Node orders continue to be shipped all over the world. If you have specific questions about your order, please get in touch with the support team!
+
+<br/>
+
+Until next time, ThreeFolders! 🙌 
+
+<br/>
+
+*You can find the latest edition [here](https://threefold.io/blog/post/weekly_vol_12/). For older editions of ThreeFold Weekly, go to [our forum](https://forum.threefold.io/c/ecosystem-developments/41).*