What is Telos?
Telos is a blockchain that uses the same principles of eosio (the open source software developed by Block One), the same used by the famous EOS blockchain, the well known project that has gone through some controversies in the past months. The main reason to why Telos was launched is to try and achieve more decentralization, and the will to build a blockchain with different values and beliefs.
The idea.
One of the biggest sectors which hold a good amount of responsibility and power are the media and particularly news media. A huge amount of people consume news media almost every day, in the past the main stream media tools were the TV and the newspapers, but today things are shifting and a lot of people get their news on their smartphones, tablets, computers.
So this includes video news via websites like Youtube, but also websites, blogs and more; the main point of this shift is the raise of independent media that do not take money from any company or do not depend on any government to do their job. They rely on visualizations, advertisement, upvotes, donations, but even if they are not dependent on any company or agency they are still free from any control and the risk of fake news is always possible. How do they fix this problem? Reputation mostly, once their stories and news are confirmed they become trustworthy and hence they get a public that will donate to them, follow them etc.
How it could work.
Trust should be the word at the centre of this Dapp project, there would be 3 categories of users on this platform: the independent journalist, the news confirmer and the readers (each person could fill 1 ore more of those roles). Both the journalist and the news confirmer would have a reputation based on the votes given by the users on the platform, the role of the journalist would be to create news about things that happen and are witnessed by him or some close and trusted information partner, the news confirmer would be the one that has either access to the same event or has the meaning to prove or disprove the news that the journalist has proposed in his article, last but not the least important the readers would be the ones reading the news proposed by journalists with the option of following certain independent journalists and vote for the news proposed. When the news has passed the test of time (at least 2 weeks without news confirmers claiming it is fake) the reward would be released towards the journalist and the news confirmers (in a fair %, such as 85 % to the journalist and 15% to the confirmer).
This would work as a filter both for fake news and for journalists trying to influence their audience, by standing on one particular side of maybe a war or some kind of conflict. The reputation should be displayed on the journalist articles and profile and should also influence how much the votes and following of people will have on the rewards he takes from the platform. A journalist that would try to push fake news or take sides more than one time would be down voted by the news confirmer until the reputation hit a low and that would result in 0 rewards for said journalist.
Why this could attract people.
If you check for the new independent media channels on the main platforms you'll find some channels that have a huge following, both on an international level and on a local level, maybe you already follow some of those as well. The thing is most people are tired of the narrative pushed by main stream media and are starting to follow other channels, but in order to have some genuine news I think a system as the one I described above (without any control from the platform itself) could help the true inspired journalists in doing their job and the public to have a space with news that are not picked up by the main stream or that are depicted in a way to manipulate the viewer.
This requires the people who follow new to finally get into a fair and trustable decentralized system that allows them to have genuine news, the shifting will be a sinergy of the blockchain technology going main stream and the fall of the old fashioned media enstablishments.
Blockchain is the start of a revolution, and as we go on in this revolution we will see many sectors shifting towards this new technology that offers way more transparency and neutrality compared to the old ways. The news have a huge impact on the population, especially if we think about the consequences of particular news that pushed for wars or something worse.
As a last thought I would like to thank the organizers of this contest for their effort and I wish them good luck on their journey!
Telos account name: fardangsdyw1
This post was realized for the Telos Contamination Lab.
