Can Blockchain Fix Fake News?

In the era of “fake news”, one startup is seeking to use the Ethereum blockchain to fix journalism. The project is called Civil and it is working to encode elements of the newsroom into smart contracts.

“By writing the functions of various departments, including circulation, subscriptions, ad sales and marketing, into the self-executing code, Civil aims to cut out a middleman of a different sort: media bureaucracy.”

“If successful, the effort (which is planning an ICO this year), would break down every aspect of a newsroom into its most basic components and let individuals fulfill those functions with only limited managerial oversight.”

Tom McGeveran formally with Politico, but now working on Civil told Coindesk:

"We see in crypto economics the possibility of decentralizing this package, stripping it down to the relationship between readers and journalists/producers, reducing the cost base for these basic services and freeing it from incentives that match the interests of third parties but not citizens or readers or journalists."

The general vision for the project is to remove the need for a large bureaucratic office, drastically cutting costs and removing the middlemen between journalists and readers. In order to fuel the network of services, Civic plans on releasing its own token allowing users to access content, vote on newsroom decisions and error check.

To have a more complete understanding of the project, here is an excerpt from the Civic whitepaper…

Abstract

“Journalism needs a radically new operating paradigm. Media innovation and consumer behavior trends over the past 20 years have eroded the business model of journalism, leading to shrinking coverage throughout the ecosystem, increasing reliance on an unsympathetic advertising industry, and record-low public trust in mainstream media. However, this same wave of innovation also yielded progress in social networking, global marketplaces, and massively collaborative self-governing systems, including the recent invention and development of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and cryptoeconomic business models.”

“We propose a solution called Civil, an Ethereum-based decentralized platform that can be used to create “newsrooms” and “stations” — blockchain-based marketplaces where citizens and journalists form communities around a shared purpose and set of standards, financially support factual reporting and investigative work, and substantially limit misinformation through effective collaborative-editing methods. The net result is a self-sustaining global marketplace for journalism that is free from ads, fake news, and outside influence.”

The whitepaper also acknowledges the breakdown of trust between the corporate media and the people.

"our deeply divided society no longer shares the same picture of reality: 62% of the public believe the media is biased and 55% believe news organizations are “often inaccurate”."

"until a self-sustaining form of funding quality journalism is widely adopted, everyday people will increasingly distrust the government, the media and each other."

I find the project fascinating and it is another example of the diverse uses for blockchain technology, Civil will no doubt advance the cause of open and honest journalism, whether it can revitalize corporate media is another story.

Corporate media has been on a steady decline for years and the recent ratings bump from this year’s election is waning. Viewership and readership continue to plummet as people seek alternative sources for information. The internet and platforms like youtube, U stream and even steemit are already allowing individuals to be their own newsroom. Civil may allow established media to become more competitive with the alternative media but I do not think it will be enough to stop the changing paradigm. What is encouraging is the prospect of raising the quality and integrity of information by using the blockchain. The “fake news” bombardment has destroyed the credibility of many networks and publications, eroding many of the last vestiges of trust, between the media and the people. Can that trust be rebuilt on the blockchain? If this can allow for a more honest news system, the media may be able to regain some of the people’s favor.

Source Coindesk

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