Sep 22, 2017 at 08:20 // News

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Media Sifter is a news aggregator with a decentralized investigation platform on the blockchain. The platform, that is currently running a presale for their SFT token, allows users to better navigate, investigate, and validate information delivered by agenda-influenced publications.

The problem with the news industry



The last few years have seen a lot of consolidation in the publishing and news industry resulting in centralisation of influence. In addition, the attention economy business model, plus biased and agenda driven journalism, has caused historical lows on readers’ trust on media.



The advent of the blockchain and tokenized business models now provides the possibility to build platforms that are owned and governed by its users. Thereby aligning interests of content providers and consumers.



Media Sifter ’s news aggregator seeks to counter the centralisation of power in the news industry. The platform allows users to consume different opinions and to increase trust in the content through community-driven investigation and rewards for qualitative content.







Bringing the Blockchain to the News Industry



Media Sifter started in 2015 at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design by CEO and founder John Ferreira while investigating how one could prevent misinformation and disinformation in the media. Unable to find a solution that solved this problem, Ferreira decided to build his own platform that would help him and others consume news more critically.



“We exist to empower people to find their own truths in the world and redistribute influence through technology. Starting with the news.” said Ferreira. “Providing a tool so that people can create and consume fact-checked news means giving the power of information back to them.”



Ferreira also said that, at the moment, Media Sifter does not focus on content creation, but on aggregating existing content putting a “community-driven validation layer on top.” This approach not only allows users to consume content from day one, but also enables them to keep on reading their usual sources of information. They can be sure they are getting fact-checked information from the same publications they’ve always consumed.







Blockchain-powered crowd investigation



To power Media Sifter’s validation platform the team is developing the SIFT Protocol, a community-driven network that will allow participants to source information from the crowd and qualify it through blockchain-powered user-consensus.

Built as a decentralised and self-governing system it will make the application resistant to censorship and abuse by the powerful entities that currently control other publications.



In addition, the SIFT Protocol will be developed as a stand-alone, decentralized tool available for other projects to use. While Media Sifter will be the first application for the protocol, anyone else will be able to develop further applications for it with its same functionalities.



Through the protocol, Media Sifter will reward users and contributors who bring evidence to back up claims and fact-check information on the platform.

Investigation and validation incentives model All of the incentives and bounties in the SIFT Protocol are settled via the SFT Token, a central element of the system. The token allows participation in all stages of the information sourcing and qualification process.



The purpose of the token is to create a system that incentivises contribution to the community, like the delivery of useful information or fact-checking statements. However, it will also act as a security mechanism preventing spam and making malicious activity on the platform economically pointless.



The project founders think of the SIFT Protocol as an information marketplace and envision several different applications that could be built on top of it. Examples of these could be a tokenized, on-demand Wikipedia; a niche community wiki; sports information communities; investing forums; or even political tools to control and investigate public activities.







Product Development and Roadmap



The team has recently announced their roadmap for the next 12 months , which includes a first Alpha prototype of the news aggregator this October 2017.



According to the document, they will be upgrading the platform with two additional releases through the end of 2017 and by 2018, introduce testnet functionality to the platform. A mainnet release of Media Sifter is scheduled for the last quarter of 2018.



The whitepaper for the project has not been released yet and is set to be published during November, some time before their ICO.



To secure a fair distribution that allows a proper use and governance of the platform the team is being very careful on its selection of investors.



Although not a lot of details have been disclosed regarding the token sale which is set to launch in December of this year, the team is currently hosting a limited SFT Token Presale for handpicked investors until next week.



About Media Sifter

Media Sifter is a news aggregator build on top of a community that validates the aggregated content through blockchain-powered user-consensus. It allows users to better navigate, investigate, and validate news. Its mission is to empower people to find their own truths in the world and decentralise influence through technology. Starting with the news.



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