Detailed Plan
K. Harrison and A.Leopold in the Harvard Business Review article [1] write that blockchains-based solutions can address the disinformation challenges by
1. Verifying news related provenance
2. Verifying the identity of a content creators and tracking their reputation
3. Promoting accurate information in the media
In our solution we want to focus on the publishers – built the Publishers Info Hub where anyone could verify publisher's identity (built on Atala PRISM framework) and the associated reputation. Publishers Info Hub will contribute more transparency and in this way reduce the possibilities to disseminate the disinformation and malinformation.
Publishers will have incentive to join the hub because:
1. Publishers will be able to post article titles and links back to their websites
2. Publishers would be alerted about scam attempts, fake news, etc
3. Each publisher would have external experts (hub users – readers, other publishers) endorsing the quality of the content it produces.
Readers will have incentive to join the hub because:
1. Receive/read live (blockchain, crypto related) news feed
2. Alert hub users (publishers, readers) and be alerted themselves about scam attempts, fake news, etc
3. In the future there could be more incentives to engage readers like possibility to flag/up-vote articles, etc
Over time, the hub naturally will "accumulate" information and serve as a repository of old/new scams, scam attempts, fake debunked theories and falsehoods, which is one of the challenge's success metric.
The collection of the flagged fake/unreliable news articles will be analyzed in order to retrieve the common characteristics that may be helpful to improve disinformation identification accuracy in the future.
How will you monitor/assess fake news?
1. The hub will monitor/filter for Cardano keywords and check articles with the high probability of containing disinformation, fake news.
2. Hub users (primarily news readers) will have possibilities to submit links/articles with scam attempts, fake news, etc.
Who are the publishers you would notify?
The hub will notify the hub users (publishers, readers) about scam attempts, fake news, etc. We will start working initially with the top 10 publishers (specializing in blockchain, crypto news) and later gradually expand the publisher set.
Relationship to blockchain/Cardano?
1. We will incorporate Atala PRISM decentralized ID technology for hub users to access and operate in the hub.
2. We envision that the hub will grow over time and become the Cardano "oracle" providing news/fake news related information to Cardano smart contracts.
Sustainable Development Goals
In terms of the SDG goals, our solution is indirectly related to all the goals since it helps to handle disinformation. Since the Publishers Info Hub's focus is on blockchains, Cardano, the hub mostly contributes to:
Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.
Cost breakdown
1. Development - experienced programmer's work – 50 USD per hour x 200 hours = 10'000 USD
2. Work with publishers – 0 USD
3. Hub maintenance (for 1 Year) – 0 USD
Total cost: 10'000 USD
References
[1] How Blockchain Can Help Combat Disinformation, <https://hbr.org/2021/07/how-blockchain-can-help-combat-disinformation>
