# The Revolution in News Curation: The Truth Post Launches on Ethereum Mainnet!

The Truth Post by [Prove Us Wrong](https://proveuswrong.io), a revolution in news curation, launched on the Ethereum Mainnet in June 2023. This inaugural release on the Mainnet represents a partial roll-out, encompassing the accuracy curation mechanism and a partial relevancy curation. A more sophisticated relevancy curation and a reward distribution mechanism are set to be incorporated in subsequent versions.

## What Is It?

### A Bit of Background on Curation

Curation is the invisible hand guiding our access to information. Every time we seek knowledge, we turn to curated sources. Consider Wikipedia, where each article is a distilled collection of information, or the Nobel Prize, an annual recognition of outstanding contributors to human progress and knowledge.

For instance, if you’re in the market for a new car, you would likely consult curated lists of "top reliable cars" or "best value vehicles under $30K". Choosing a restaurant or hotel? Platforms like Booking.com, Google reviews, or even the prestigious Michelin Guide all serve curated selections.

Without such curated information, we would be left to conduct exhaustive research independently, consuming vast amounts of time. Curations are serving for us as productivity multipliers. However, this convenience comes with a catch, more on this in the next section.

## So What's The Problem With Curation Then?
Every curation has a curator. In relying on curated content, we place implicit trust in the curators' honesty and competency; and very often, we regret it. Not only because the curation can be biased (e.g. pay to get a higher rank in the list) or misleading, it can also be intentionally manipulating (e.g. dishonest Google reviews). When incentives of curator and reader do not align, bad things happen...

- **Misinformation Leading to the Iraq Invasion:** The Iraq invasion was justified by claims that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction and posed an immediate threat to U.S. and allied security. It was later revealed that much of the intelligence supporting these claims was flawed or misrepresented, and no operational WMDs were found in Iraq.

- **Tobacco Industry's Disinformation:** For decades, tobacco companies waged disinformation campaigns to discredit scientific research linking tobacco use to cancer and other diseases, leading to widespread misinformation about the dangers of smoking and delaying critical public health interventions.

- **Climate Change Denial:** Persistent disinformation campaigns have attempted to cast doubt on the scientific consensus on climate change, significantly complicating global efforts to address this critical issue.

- **Cambridge Analytica's Data Scandal:** Cambridge Analytica exploited data from millions of Facebook users without their consent for political advertising, impacting the Brexit referendum and the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.

## Curation on News
News is a subset of curation domain. In the context of well-functioning democracies, access to reliable news is essential for citizens to stay informed and make educated choices. Regrettably, the news sector faces a myriad of challenges that can impede its ability to fulfill its crucial role effectively.

### Fake News Problem
Fake news refers to the deliberate creation and distribution of false or manipulated information. The intent is often to deceive or mislead audiences, with the aim of causing harm, influencing opinions, or creating confusion. This phenomenon has been amplified in the digital era, with false information spreading rapidly across social media platforms and other online channels.

One response to this issue has been the implementation of centralized fact-checking systems. However, this approach has its own inefficiencies. Centralized fact-checking is often an arduous and time-consuming process, struggling to keep pace with the speed at which misinformation can spread online.

Furthermore, these centralized systems can face issues of bias, credibility, and transparency. Who determines what is true or false? How can these fact-checkers be held accountable, ensuring their impartiality and transparency? The risk is that centralized fact-checking may become another tool for controlling information, rather than a mechanism to combat misinformation.

### Lack of Incentives for Important News Reporting and Auto-Censorship
In today's media landscape, the pursuit of profit often drives editorial decisions. There's a prevalent incentive to prioritize sensationalist or clickbait content that guarantees viewer engagement over more substantial, investigative, or complex stories. This trend tends to sideline crucial but perhaps less 'engaging' or more 'risky' news, focusing on what sells rather than what benefits the public.

Alongside this, self-censorship further complicates the media's role. Journalists, fearing potential retribution like legal actions, professional repercussions, or personal harm, may withhold critical or controversial information. This practice compromises the integrity of news reporting, obstructing the public's access to comprehensive, accurate information. In this way, both a lack of appropriate incentives for vital reporting and self-imposed censorship contribute to an increasingly skewed media environment.

## What's the Solution?
We believe that the solution is to remove the trust requirements and decentralize curations, to have a transparent, permissionless curation system that belongs to public. Developing decentralized, community-based fact-checking systems and rewarding contributors in line with quality and impact of their contributions is the way to go.

## Enter The Truth Post

The Truth Post is an innovative project designed to offer a platform where reporters, readers, and curators can engage in the reporting, reading, and curation of articles in a trustless environment. By leveraging cryptoeconomic techniques, the platform aims to guarantee the provision of accurate and relevant news articles. Moreover, it offers reporters the opportunity to publish articles pseudonymously and earn rewards commensurate with their contributions' impact.

In essence, The Truth Post is:

- **Permissionless**: Any user can adopt any role within the system.
- **Pseudonymous**: Allows for reputation building while preventing retaliation.
- **Trustless**: No need to trust any other user.
- **Transparent**: Every aspect of the system can be verified by any user.
- **Decentralized**: There's no privileged user group.
- **Autonomous**: The system functions as programmed, indefinitely.
- **Fair**: Users are rewarded in line with the quality and impact of their contributions.

Born in response to issues such as fake news, under-incentivization of significant news reporting, trust prerequisites, and auto-censorship, The Truth Post is essentially a news automaton. It receives input from reporters and curators, outputs classified articles with respect to accuracy and relevance, and rewards authors and curators in accordance with their contributions.

## Curation Mechanisms

When articles are published, they're accompanied by a security deposit or "bounty", set by the author. This bounty is forfeit if a curator successfully debunks the article before the Kleros court.

Articles accrue Trust Scores as long as they maintain their bounty. Authors can unpublish their articles and reclaim the bounty. However, they first have to initiate a timelock and wait for its expiration, a feature designed to preclude sudden author departures when an impending article challenge is noticed.

Any user (referred to as the challenger) can dispute the article at any time by presenting falsifying evidence to the Kleros jury. If the challenger prevails, the article is deemed debunked, the Trust Score reverts to zero, and the bounty transfers to the challenger.

Trust Score computation follows this formula:
$$
\sum_{{i=1}}^n t_i \cdot s_i
$$

$n$ denotes the number of distinct periods of an article,
$i$ denotes an individual period of an article,
$t_i$ denotes the length of an individual period in terms of Ethereum blocks,
$s_i$ denotes the security deposit amount in an individual period.

For example, lets calculate for a scenario of an article which was submitted with 1 Ether. After 200 blocks, author increased the bounty to 2 Ethers. The Trust Score after 300 blocks from this last increment would be 700 Etherblocks:

$$
\sum_{{i=1}}^2 t_1 \cdot s_1 + t_2 \cdot s_2 = 200 \cdot 1 + 300 \cdot 2 = 700
$$

This scoring method mirrors common practices in bug bounty programs. As the bounty duration and amount increase, so does the confidence level. The Trust Score formalizes this principle.

Initially, readers will assess an article's accuracy likelihood based on the Trust Score. However, the plan is to introduce statistical analysis to assist users in interpreting Trust Scores once a substantial dataset is available.

### Curation for Relevance

In The Truth Post, diverse interests are accommodated through the implementation of curation pools (similar to sub-reddits).

Each curation pool is composed of three core elements: a curation policy, an arbitration guide, and a designated [Kleros subcourt](https://kleros.gitbook.io/docs/products/court#courts-and-sub-courts). This robust structure ensures fair and efficient curation of content, suitable for a diverse range of user interests.

Key to the nature of these curation pools is their immutability. This guarantees their integrity and consistency over time, regardless of shifts in user behavior or interest. Furthermore, every user is empowered with the ability to create a curation pool, adding to the democratic and user-driven nature of The Truth Post.

The forthcoming version of The Truth Post will introduce a more sophisticated mechanism for relevance curation where curators will also be scoring items according to their relevance. While the specifications for this feature are ready, they're being withheld until the official release to maintain a competitive edge.

## Rewarding Mechanism
Authors build reputations by publishing accurate and relevant news, pseudonymously. The current version does not include an economic reward mechanism for authors since it depends on the yet-to-be-introduced relevance mechanism. In the subsequent version, authors will be rewarded with respect to relevance scores and bounty amounts for their articles. This will also incentivize them to put higher bounties.

Curators are incentivized by potential economic gains by debunking an article. In the subsequent version, there will also be another incentive for curators for classifying articles by assigning them a relevancy score.

Readers are naturally incentivized to use the platform since it provides free, accurate, and relevant information to them.

## Arbitration
The Truth Post entrusts its arbitration process to Kleros, an acclaimed protocol by Cooperative Kleros. This esteemed organization, established in 2017, is a pioneer in decentralized dispute resolution systems and is well-respected in both the legal tech industry and academia.

Kleros, launched in 2019, has successfully handled over 1,500 disputes and managed high-value cases, showcasing its real-world efficiency. It leverages blockchain technology's transparency and security, ensuring fair dispute management and reinforcing our commitment to trustworthy arbitration.

In essence, our partnership with Kleros epitomizes our dedication to providing a reliable platform for our users, built on a globally recognized standard of excellence in dispute resolution. Our content curation system directly benefits from this proven arbitration system, supporting our users in their pursuit of veritable information.

## Treasury

The Treasury serves three main functions: paying rewards, collecting taxes, and accepting donations. If The Truth Post establishes itself as a reliable source of accurate and relevant news, it will likely be considered a public good and attract benefactors. As of June 2023, a tax rate of `16/1024` is applied to article challenges. Tax rates are dynamic and subject to adjustments for optimal system economics.

## Decentralization of Admin Rights
Although The Truth Post aims to be fully decentralized, there are some privileged actions in this version can only be executed by the admin. These exceptions are scheduled for elimination through either governance measures or automation in future versions. These actions include:

- [Altering the tax rate for challenging an article](https://etherscan.io/address/0x87aade1067ed0276ec9bef6db8e17abe27a6b454#code#F1#L365)
- [Altering the unpublishing timelock length](https://etherscan.io/address/0x87aade1067ed0276ec9bef6db8e17abe27a6b454#code#F1#L423)
- [Altering Kleros dispute resolution appeal stake multiplier for winning ruling option](https://etherscan.io/address/0x87aade1067ed0276ec9bef6db8e17abe27a6b454#code#F1#L405)
- [Altering Kleros dispute resolution appeal stake multiplier for losing ruling option](https://etherscan.io/address/0x87aade1067ed0276ec9bef6db8e17abe27a6b454#code#F1#L411)
- [Altering Kleros dispute resolution appeal window multiplier for losing option](https://etherscan.io/address/0x87aade1067ed0276ec9bef6db8e17abe27a6b454#code#F1#L417)
- [Enabling or disabling publishing new articles](https://etherscan.io/address/0x87aade1067ed0276ec9bef6db8e17abe27a6b454#code#F1#L384)
- [Altering treasury address](https://etherscan.io/address/0x87aade1067ed0276ec9bef6db8e17abe27a6b454#code#F1#L399)
- [Transferring admin rights to another address](https://etherscan.io/address/0x87aade1067ed0276ec9bef6db8e17abe27a6b454#code#F1#L391)

Note that these actions are not playing a key role in the system, therefore their negative effects on decentralization is miniscule.

## Conclusion
At a time when disinformation is rampant and trust in media is dwindling, The Truth Post emerges as a beacon of hope. By providing a platform where truth, relevance, and quality are rewarded, The Truth Post aspires to revolutionize the way we consume news.

Built on Ethereum, it harnesses the power of decentralization, ensuring transparency, reliability, and most importantly, trust. By shifting the power from centralized entities to the hands of the community, The Truth Post stands at the forefront of the future of news curation.

So why wait? Join Prove Us Wrong and be part of the revolution today!

For more details, please visit our [website](https://proveuswrong.io) or join [our community on Discord](https://discord.gg/FvDrdDtYAV). Stay tuned for further updates by subscribing to [our blog](https://blog.proveuswrong.io/) or [our Twitter](https://twitter.com/ProveUsWrongIO)
and join us in our journey towards a more accurate and trustworthy future in news curation.

Don't forget to spread the word about The Truth Post. The revolution has just begun!