Odysee is a decentralized alternative to YouTube and other content-uploading platforms, and it is cheered for valuing free speech. The platform is ready for a comeback after nearly three years since splitting from LBRY, now running on Arweave (AR).
In 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) opened a lawsuit against LBRY Inc. for allegedly selling unregistered securities. The company lost the case in 2023 and announced it would close its activities. LBRY was a blockchain-based file-sharing network, while Odysee was built on top of it as a front end for content creators and the audience.
Now, after a Forward Research acquisition, the platform has partnered with the Arwearve blockchain and is ready for a comeback.
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“Odysee believes that the future of digital content lies in protocols, not platforms. Open protocols enable a decentralized ecosystem where data and content can be freely exchanged and accessed without being locked into a single platform.”
– Odysee post on X
Odysee announces its comeback
In a video shared on July 10, Odysee explains how it is now a protocol instead of just a platform. This new vision aims to help content creators solve the issues of dealing with multiple centralized platforms and databases, sometimes risking losing years of work when facing a ban or other arbitrary moderation.
For that goal, the protocol will run on Arweave, the infrastructure that stores all the uploaded contents and correspondent rules. Therefore, any platform will be able to retrieve Odysee’s content from the blockchain in a permissionless manner, creating safeguard alternatives.
Notably, creators can set their own rules for their content, including monetization and ownership aspects. If a platform, like Odysee, closes, a new one can surge, pulling the attached information and preserving the material.
How Odysee addresses free speech and internet free will
Finbold talked to Odysee CEO Julian Chandra to understand how the protocol intends to deliver the promise of promoting “internet free-will,” as stated in a previous post on X.
“The free will is the freedom to choose. So, the right to access whatever information and data you are after. It encompasses the free speech plus so much more.”
– Julian Chandra for Finbold
Competitors like Rumble, for example, are prohibited from operating in Brazil due to political interference. In this context, Chandra shared his vision of how Odysee and Arweave empower the users and guarantee free speech and internet free will.
“What we are doing is closer to the original mission of what the internet was supposed to be than anything today. The internet has become more centralized and closed-off since its inception. We are kind of doing a 180 and trying to make things more open again.”
– Julian Chandra for Finbold
As of this writing, Arweave native token, AR, was trading at $24, up 7.2% in the last 24 hours.
