To whoever is reading this, if it gets boring just scroll through the memes. They will give you a summary of the blog post is about.
The one-size-fits-all approach to content curation leaves a lot of great content behind. The content on the internet was once curated by “professionals” — people who made sure content published on their platform aligned with the purpose and standards of an organization. When information creation grew exponentially (think of how many social media posts are made every day), organizations turned to AI and complex algorithms to weed out inappropriate, miss-fitting, or fraudulent material. This is the internet we know today.
What’s holding the internet back is a one-size-fits-all approach that stems from companies holding all content on their platform to one moderation level. Companies have one Terms of Service that applies to all content, even though each genre of content should be curated to different standards. For example, content published by scientists should be moderated by other scientists, not click-optimized AI. On the flip side, an online group of members should permit its members to say whatever they want. Uniform curation leads to some content being overly censored and other dangerous content slipping through.
What would the internet look like if people had complete freedom to create and regulate content and the economic incentives to do so truthfully and accurately?
Growing the Web
The vision of KurateDAO is to grow the web 100 times over by:
- Democratizing content curation, and
- Financially incentivizing the curation of “useful” information.
Democratization and Decentralization
What do modern governments and capitalist societies have in common? Decentralization.
The court of public opinion works in many areas of our lives, from juries to stock markets to music playing on the radio. We believe that if decentralization works well for regulating society, the economy, and most everything else about our lives, we should give it a shot for content curation. We dream of the freedom of speech that will be promoted when everyday users have control over content rather than a few corporations. That means no longer should you bend over to fit the rules of a single corporation, aka the unfair Terms of Service.
On the other hand, we also don't foresee a future with perfectly unrestricted freedom of speech online. Accurate information and protection from damaging or offensive material are too valuable. Our goal is to create a system where users can choose where on the spectrum they want to be by choosing which databases they access and create.
Think of a world in which people could choose from a thousand social media platforms and could access news that was 100% verifiable! The beauty of decentralization is that you, the user, can vote for how the internet is shaped.
Financial Incentives
Content curation is currently incentivized by the potential to build a following or attract business. The fundamental problem with this model is that it generates biased information; business articles online and social media posts alike are motivated to share, exclude, or even makeup information that supports their views (exploit the algorithm). As long as something makes you money, who cares if it is true?
KurateDAO changes the game by enabling users to earn cryptocurrency for submitting accurate, useful, and appropriate-to-the-database content. Database users vote on whether the content is accepted, staking crypto tokens to make their votes credible. In the end, those who create unacceptable content lose tokens. The more valuable the content, the more the creator makes. The result of this gamified (and competitive) process is refined databases with “peer-reviewed,” expert, and relevant material.
You can learn more about curation at kuratedao.xyz or by following us on twitter.