This database of the verified source material is where I believe blockchain technology can lend a helping hand. Of course, there would need to be an official government regulatory agency, like the FCC or IFCN, to act as the gatekeeper to vet parties before they are allowed to join this alliance of trusted content providers.

How this could work is that news publications (or individuals that choose to) can register with this alliance or standards committee. Let’s call it “The Virtuous Content for Democracy Group” and it has clear guidelines such as, “fake news is not permissible and will result in the expulsion, or potentially even prosecution, depending on the severity of the offense” etc. (To be clear, organizations like this already exist and Facebook is working with them but there is no blockchain component.)

Content producers could choose whether or not to join this group. However, if they don’t join, then every piece of content they publish on Facebook will have that red warning label above it alerting readers of the potential danger of reading their content. Facebook would obviously need to endorse this new model and build the requisite technology to support it if this were going to work, but they have already shown a willingness to take measures to combat fake news.

Continuing with this example, “The Virtuous Content For Democracy Group”, could provide all of its members with a blockchain address that is registered under their corporate or individual name. Content that is produced by group members would be hashed and uploaded to a global smart contract owned and owned and managed by the VCDG.

Any person or social media platform could easily check articles published on their platform by cross-referencing the VCDG global smart contract. If the article is not registered in the smart contract then up goes the warning label, or perhaps it is removed altogether depending on the severity of the violation. Internal teams within social media platforms will still need to monitor content on their platforms. But this type of organization would at least reduce the monitoring workload.

The benefit of using the blockchain is that a database does not need to be hosted, and the record is immutable and will live forever. Furthermore, while writing to public blockchains like Ethereum costs a little bit of money in gas fees, reading from the blockchain is totally free. Which means access to this repository would be open and unrestricted for all.

The blockchain in this scenario can help to provide transparency and utility for the public good. But we must remember that a blockchain is just a tool. Ultimately human beings are the ones that need to coordinate their efforts in order to achieve societal goals in conjunction with blockchain technology, not the other way around.