--- title: 'The Truth Post Documentation' disqus: hackmd --- The Truth Post === ## Table of Contents [TOC] ## Introduction The Truth Post, an innovative development by [Prove Us Wrong](https://proveuswrong.io/about/), emerges as a silver lining in the realm of news curation, ushering in a revolutionary approach that seeks to restore credibility to the news and information ecosystem through decentralized, autonomous networks. We employ a novel mechanism that filters and curates accurate and relevant news articles without resorting to any sort of trust or compromising the integrity of the information. :::info The following brief document shares the reasoning behind the implementation of this project as well as the current state and roadmap. And if you are itching to see it, then don't hesitate, [**take a look**](https://truthpost.news) at it for a minute. **It's incredibly easy to get started even if you've never used it before!** :wink: ::: ### The Truth Post, In a Nutshell ![The Truth Post](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/SkMkmkCv3.png) - **pseudonymous**: users build a reputation while preventing retaliation. - **fair**: users are rewarded for the quality and impact of their contributions. - **transparent**: anyone can verify any system property. - **autonomous**: operates as programmed, forever. - **decentralized**: no group of privileged users. - **permissionless**: any user can take any role. - **trustless**: no need to trust any other user. In an era where trust in traditional news outlets has waned, The Truth Post is born to stand apart as a beacon of truth in addressing issues like fake-news, lack of incentivization of important (relevant) news reporting, requirement of trust and retaliation threats. In a way, it's a sophisticated multiplayer automation, which operates on principles of concensus and verification, getting inputs from users to output quality, credible and relevant news articles. By providing you with this empowering environment, we set to catalyse a paradigm shift in how news is perceived, consumed, and validated. The Truth Post initiates a level playing field for contributors, journalists, and readers alike, fostering an ecosystem where facts and truth can prevail over sensationalism and misinformation. ## Use cases We aim to revolutionize how news is created, shared, and consumed, amplifying impactful reporting that genuinely matters to you, covering various topics from politics and social issues to science, technology, and beyond. As a project for the public, The Truth Post offers several use cases we believe the ecosystem can grow into. Here are the most likely for now: - **Empowering Citizen Journalism:** The Truth Post empowers individuals to become citizen journalists, providing a platform to report on local events, share eyewitness accounts, or highlight social issues. This user-generated content enables grassroots reporting and facilitates sharing stories and claims that may otherwise go unnoticed by mainstream media. The Truth Post contributes to a more diverse and inclusive media landscape by bridging the gap between traditional journalism and citizen reporting. - **Fact-Checking Hub:** The Truth Post is a fact-checking hub where users can access verified information and debunk misinformation. Our platform strives to separate fact from fiction in an era of rampant fake news and misleading content. Users can rely on The Truth Post to find accurate information supported by credible sources and rigorous fact-checking processes. We help users confidently navigate the digital landscape by promoting transparency and accountability. - **Crowdsourced Investigations:** The Truth Post empowers users to participate in crowdsourced investigations, encouraging collaborative efforts to uncover the truth behind complex issues. Users can contribute their research, expertise, and insights to collectively dig deeper into important stories. By leveraging the power of the crowd, The Truth Post fosters a community-driven approach to investigative journalism, shedding light on hidden truths and holding those in power accountable. - **Enhanced Media Literacy:** The Truth Post promotes media literacy and critical thinking. Through educational resources, interactive features, and thought-provoking articles, users can develop their skills in discerning reliable sources, detecting biases, and evaluating the credibility of information. Empowering users with media literacy tools, The Truth Post contributes to a more informed and discerning society. By encompassing these diverse functionalities, we aim to provide a comprehensive platform that caters to our users’ information needs and aspirations. ## Curation Mechanism The system curates articles in two dimensions: accuracy and relevance. If you think about it for a moment, these are two properties we look for when we read news, exactly. We need, the information to be accurate and also relevant to our interest. In Truth Post, there are two different mechanisms for these two different properties. ### Accuracy To curate for accuracy, we combine falsifiability decentralized dispute resolution, bug bounties and statistical analysis. News are, typically, a piece of information which are hard to verify but easy to [falsify](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability). One famous example from Karl Popper is the statement: "all swans are white". Verifying that all swans are white would logically require observing all swans, which is infeasible. In contrast, this claim is falsifiable, because observing a single black swan is sufficient to falsify the claim logically. Same with news articles, it's much more practical to look for refutations instead of verifications. Bug bounties, are traditionally used to develop confidence on safety and security of a software. The bigger the bounty and the longer the elapsed time is, the more confident we get. We borrowed this idea to create the following mechanism: - User publishes an article, selects a curation pool and puts a desired amount of bounty. - We assign a *trust score* to each article, which is a linear function of time and bounty. - The more trust score an article has, the less likely we think it's inaccurate. - At any moment, another user can come up with falsifying evidence and dispute the article before the Kleros jury. If challenger wins, the article gets *debunked* and trust score resets to zero - Readers assess likelihood of accuracy of articles, taking account of *trust scores*. - Statistical analysis guides readers on assessing likelihood of accuracy by analyzing past articles. ### Relevance **This feature has not been implemented yet but we are working on it.** Each article has to be published in a *curation pool*. Each curation pool has a curation policy and arbitration parameters. Anyone can create it's own curation pool to describe what's relevant to them. A very similar example to curation pools can be [sub-reddits](https://www.reddit.com/subreddits/) on Reddit. In the Truth Post, contrary to Reddit, we don't have trusted moderators. Instead, in decentralized curation we trust. A random curation jury gets drawn for each article periodically to assign relevance scores to articles. Jury members don't see each others votes and they play a Schelling game to ensure honest voting. Incoherent jury members get penalized and coherent jury members get rewarded. ### Arbitration The Truth Post utilizes the Kleros protocol for arbitration. Kleros is an acclaimed protocol developed by Cooperative Kleros that specializes in decentralized dispute resolution systems. Established in 2017, Cooperative Kleros is well-respected in the legal tech industry and academia for its pioneering work in this field. Kleros operates on the principles of blockchain technology, transparency, and decentralized decision-making. It leverages smart contracts and a global network of jurors to resolve disputes in a fair and efficient manner. The protocol's design ensures that decisions are made collectively by a diverse group of jurors rather than a centralized authority, minimizing the potential for bias or manipulation. Kleros has proven effective in dispute resolution through several notable accomplishments: 1. **Successful Handling of Disputes**: Since its launch in 2019, Kleros has successfully resolved over 1,500 disputes across various domains, demonstrating its real-world efficiency and functionality. 2. **High-Value Case Management**: Kleros has managed high-value cases, showcasing its ability to handle complex and significant disputes. This demonstrates the protocol's capacity to address disputes that carry substantial implications. 3. **Transparency and Accountability**: Kleros leverages the transparency and security of blockchain technology to ensure that the arbitration process is transparent and accountable. All decisions, evidence, and reasoning are recorded on the blockchain, accessible for review and audit. This transparency builds trust and reinforces the protocol's commitment to reliable arbitration. 4. **Decentralized and Diverse Juror Pool**: The Kleros protocol employs a decentralized network of jurors from around the world. These jurors are selected based on their expertise and reputation within the Kleros ecosystem. The diverse nature of the juror pool ensures that decisions are made by a range of perspectives, minimizing the risk of biases and promoting fair dispute resolution. The utilization of Kleros for arbitration reinforces The Truth Post's commitment to trustworthy and reliable dispute resolution, supporting our mission to provide accurate and verifiable information to the public. ## The Integral Parts of The Truth Post: The Users There are three (3) core user roles inside the decentralized news platform that the ecosystem will revolve around: - Readers (Content consumers) - Curators (Challengers) - Authors (Truth reporter) These key actors are crucial to the well-being of the project to reach critical mass and global adoption as a trustless, freely accessible, and relevant truth pathfinder. ### Readers As a reader on our platform, you are at the heart of what we do. You have the privilege of being a read-only user, which means you can explore and consume articles published by our diverse community of authors. We curate the content based on its quality, relevance, and popularity, ensuring that you have access to the most compelling and insightful pieces. By distilling information from our vast array of articles, we aim to save you time and effort in sifting through the noise. Our curated approach ensures you receive articles that align with your interests, allowing you to stay informed and engaged on topics that matter to you. ### Curators In The Truth Post, a curator plays a crucial role in maintaining the quality and credibility of the content published on the platform. As a curator, you have the opportunity to make a significant impact. You can challenge articles that may need more accuracy or meet our content guidelines. By challenging an essay, you contribute to the quality control process and have the chance to win the "bounty" associated with it. This incentivizes curators to conduct rigorous fact-checking and ensures that only credible information circulates within the ecosystem. Moreover, curators can participate in relevance curation juries, assessing articles’ suitability and relevance for different curation pools. By actively participating in these juries, curators can earn rewards for their valuable insights and contributions. However, it's important to note that curators also carry a responsibility. If their judgments are consistently inaccurate or biased, they may face penalties, reinforcing the importance of maintaining a fair and impartial curation process. Your efforts contribute to building a trusted and reliable platform where diverse perspectives can be shared, challenged, and critically examined. ### Authors We firmly believe in the power of collective knowledge and diverse perspectives of the human intellect. This is why we ensured a streamlined process that allows any user to become an author and share their insights, reportings, and stories with the world. Without question, authors will make The Truth Post platform lively, engaging, and valuable. Our platform is designed so that any user can publish an article and benefit from the decentralized architecture. You only need to fill out a simple form to write, format and publish an article, providing the necessary details and content in `plain text` or `markdown` format. Authors who publish on our platform build reputation and gain recognized, letting their work speak for itself while their identities stay confidential. But that's not all – we also believe in rewarding our authors for their contributions. We introduce a security deposit known as a **bounty** to incentivize quality content creation. By putting up a bounty, authors can earn rewards based on the engagement and impact of their articles. This approach motivates authors to produce thought-provoking, informative, and valuable content that resonates with our readers. :::info Through the collective efforts of authors, readers, and curators, we create an ecosystem where the truth prevails. **We invite you to join us on this exciting journey of knowledge discovery, exploration, and curation.** Together, we can shape a platform where every user has a voice, where accurate and relevant information thrives, and where the pursuit of truth is at the forefront of our shared vision. ::: ## Crypto-economic incentives The system incentivizes actors to ensure quality and fairness. Curators are economically incentivized to challenge articles accuracy by offering them the bounty in case they win the dispute before a Kleros jury. They are also incentivized to assign fair relevance scores to articles to be able to earn rewards and not get penalized. Relevance curation rewards are paid by treasury. Authors are rewarded by treasury with respect to their articles' trust and relevance scores, which incentivizes them to publish accurate and most relevant articles. Also, in addition, authors and curators accumulate reputation and fame by past activity. ## Treasury Treasury pays rewards, collects taxes and accepts donations. Challenging an article is taxed at the rate of ``1.5625%`` and penalties (*if any*) during a relevance scoring, are taxed at the same rate. Tax rates are subject to change to fine-tune the economy of the system, and currently that's the only privileged action on the smart contract. But we plan to introduce a governance mechanism in future. Onboarding === ### Get Started in 1-min **Step 1: Connect a wallet account** - Navigate to the homepage of [**The Truth Post**](https://truthpost.news/). - Click the `Connect Account` button at the screen’s top right corner. > Connect with your most preferred wallet. Metamask works perfectly. **Step 2: Understand Your Role** - In The Truth Post, you can take on three roles: Author, Reader, and Curator. - As an **Author**, you can publish articles, add and/or increase your bounty. - As a **Reader**, you can access and read curated articles _anytime_. - As a **Curator**, you can challenge the accuracy of articles and/or participate in the curation process. ### Start Publishing **Step 1: Navigate to the [Report](https://develop.truthpost.news/0x5/report)** - From your dashboard, click on the `Report` button. **Step 2: Create Your Article** - Fill in the article details in the provided form. You can do this in `plain text` or `markdown`. **Step 3: Select a Curation Pool and Set Your Bounty** - Select the relevant curation pool and set your bounty. **Step 4: Publish Your Article** - Click on `Save and Review` to view your article - Click `Publish`. Your article will now be live for readers and curators to interact with. ### Curate for Accuracy and Relevance **Step 1: Find an Article** - Browse the published articles and select any you wish to dispute or curate. **Step 2: Dispute an Article** - For disputing, click `Prove it Wrong` and provide your evidence. The **Kleros jury** will take up the case. **Step 3: Curate an Article** - For curation, participate in the process outlined by the specific curation pool's policies. Explore our dapp on any device for a seamless browsing experience. However, to engage in transactions, we recommend **using Metamask.** (If you don’t have Metamask yet, get it [**here**](https://metamask.io/download/). Setting up a wallet is easy - check the written tutorial [**here**](https://www.creatorbread.com/blog/how-to-set-up-a-metamask-wallet-step-by-step-guide) or a video tutorial [**here**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAStJtjYI_c)). :::info > Remember, your active participation in curating articles for accuracy and relevance helps make [**The Truth Post**](https://truthpost.news) a reliable news source for everyone! ::: FAQs === 1. **What is the trust score?** Trust score is the critical metric for the likelihood of an item being accurate. The bigger the trust score is, the more likely the article is accurate.
 2. **How do you calculate trust scores?** Trust score is a linear function of time and bounty amount. Items accumulate in *Live* and *Challenged* states with respect to their bounty amounts. There is a linear relationship between accumulation speed and bounty amount; for example, if you double the bounty amount, accumulation speed also gets doubled. Trust score is a sum of time intervals multiplied by bounty amounts in given intervals.
 3. **How much trust score is trustable enough?** Depends. We leave the interpretation to readers. In the future, when we have enough datasets, we plan to give statistical estimates based on past events.
 4. **How much trust score is trustable enough?** Depends. We leave the interpretation to readers. In the future, when we have enough datasets, we plan to give statistical estimates based on past events.
 5. **What happens if an article gets challenged?** Challenger pays the arbitration fee (plus ``1.5625%`` tax) of Kleros jury, and a dispute between the challenger and the author gets created. After each side submits evidence, the jury will be asked whether the article is accurate and will decide according to the rules of the respective court, the laws of the Truth Post, and the evidence presented.

 There are three (3) possible outcomes:
 * Tie * Author wins * Challenger wins
 If the author wins a tie, the security deposit remains, and the article returns to the live state. In case the challenger wins, the article gets debunked, and the deposit is awarded to the challenger.
 6. **How exactly the arbitration works?** Arbitration relies on [Kleros protocol](https://kleros.io/). It is a decentralized dispute resolution system where disputants can resolve their disputes quickly, cheaply, fairly, and transparently. Each dispute is assigned to a subcourt in Kleros Court, and a random jury is assigned to each round. A dispute round consists of five different periods, with respective order:
 ![Arbitration Details in The Truth Post](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/Hks_BKWF3.png) 1. evidence 2. commit 3. voting 4. appeal 5. execution A dispute starts with an **evidence period** when each side submits their evidence and arguments; also, Kleros Court randomly assigns a jury in this round.

In the **commit period**, the jury cast their votes hiddenly. If the relevant subcourt does not support hidden votes, this period will automatically be skipped.

In the **voting period**, the jury reveals their votes (or cast them if the **commit period** was skipped). If all jury cast their votes, the period can be passed before the deadline.

In the **appeal period**, disputants can review and appeal the jury decision.

 > **Things to note:** :::info * Appealing in favor of winning the ruling option is cheaper, and the deadline is more extended. This is to prevent ***appeal wars***.
 * Appeal funding is actually crowdfunding. So anyone can contribute to the financing, not necessarily disputants. The incentive is that the ruling option that is contributed to wins the dispute, contributor receives back the contribution plus a reward. The return on investment ratio depends on the last round’s jury decision, so it's potentially more profitable to fund the previous round’s winner.
 * Incomplete funding contributions are refunded.
 * If only one ruling option is funded, this ruling option wins by default.
 * If two ruling options are funded, a new dispute round starts with a twice as big jury size, and the dispute goes into evidence again.
 * Finally, the execution period starts if no appeal happens in the appeal period. This is the period when the consequences of arbitration are executed. If the challenger wins, executing the arbitration decision will transfer the security deposit to the challenger and mark the article as debunked.
 ::: > There is much more going on behind the scenes: for example, a crypto-economic game occurs between jury members during a dispute to ensure fair outcomes. For the sake of conciseness, we won't explain all the inner mechanics of Kleros protocol here. If you want to know more, please look at [**Kleros protocol documentation**](https://kleros.gitbook.io/docs/).
 7. **Will there be a token?** Yes. The relevance curation solution involves a token.
 8. **What you do is excellent. I loved it. How do I donate?** First of all, thanks. We build this with love. And we really appreciate your help. Please send your contribution [**here**](https://etherscan.io/address/0x387e8B40e332831b7a8ad629966df3E9f969C6ad). ## Roadmap ### Recently Completed 1. **Platform Development**: We've created a decentralized platform for submitting and curating news articles. 3. **Integration with Kleros**: We have integrated decentralized dispute resolution through the Kleros protocol. ### In Progress 1. **User Onboarding**: We're developing a robust onboarding process for authors, curators, and readers to help them use the platform effectively. 2. **Community Engagement**: We're working on fostering a community of active and engaged users and promoting high-quality content. 3. **Feedback Collection**: We're gathering and analyzing user feedback for continuous improvement of the platform. ### Planned 1. **Relevance Curation**: We plan to implement relevance curation mechanisms to filter the quality of news content further. 2. **Crypto-economic Incentives**: We plan to incorporate in The Truth Post a system of rewards and penalties to encourage accuracy and relevancy in news submission and curation. 3. **In-app communication and debate features:** We plan to incorporate these features to foster more user interaction and engagement within the app. 4. **Platform Refinement**: We plan to continuously enhance user experience based on community feedback and usability testing. 5. **Education**: We plan to increase user understanding of decentralized systems and the benefits of Truth Post through comprehensive guides, blogs, and FAQ sections. ### Exploring 1. **Partnerships**: We're exploring collaborating with news organizations and independent journalists to bring a broader array of news articles to the platform. 2. **Decentralized Governance**: We're investigating ways to introduce a system of decentralized governance that allows the community to contribute to platform decisions and development. 3. **API Development**: We're considering the development of an API for external developers and platforms to access and contribute to the Truth Post platform. With the ambitious faith and vision in decentralized curation as the access pass to information freedom, we are tackling these things step-by-step with you. :::info Please note that while we've categorized these items to the best of our ability based on current progress, some things may move between categories as our work on the project progresses. We'll make sure to keep [**our community**](https://discord.gg/hRfvAfNxyE) updated with the latest developments! ::: Status === Although we explain the relevance curation for completeness, it is not yet implemented. A live work-in-progress of the web application resides at [truthpost.news](truthpost.news) and operates on Ethereum Testnet Görli and the Mainnet now. > #### Connect with us: ![we build the next cool thing](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/H1eN4bCD2.png) > [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ProveUsWrongIO) | [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/prove-us-wrong/) | [Discord](https://discord.gg/FvDrdDtYAV) | [Blog](https://blog.proveuswrong.io/) | [Website](https://proveuswrong.io) Spread the word. **The REVOLUTION has begun!** ## Build with us! We are building publicly on [**Github**](https://github.com/proveuswrong/) where our codes live. Your contributions are welcome. Reach out on [**Discord**](https://discord.gg/FvDrdDtYAV) to discuss access to our subgraph. All source codes are MIT licensed.