Disrupting Fake News

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Our platform will help eliminate fake news content through identity/credential verification and "trust" scores. Content can then be monetized/licensed using smart contacts.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

We have significant cross-industry experience building systems for global retailers, banks, and media companies. We also have significant experience in CX design, UI, and workflows which will be key to our success. Most importantly, we have a proven track record for delivery.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Our solution is to create a platform where creators are incentivized to publish trustworthy, credible sources for users and media companies to consume.

The name of the solution's platform is JulianX.

Fake news and misinformation is an ever-increasing problem across the globe. It causes people's beliefs to divide for social and economic gains of a person or organization. While we must protect free speech, ordinary people find it difficult to identify information made by knowledgeable, credible people, especially when everyone claims to be them.

We believe current measures to limit fake news are ineffective. News is spread by popularity, not credibility and most particularly, "news" is spread through social channels. Underlying all of this is the lack of evidence and with it the digital rights for that piece of content. Videos are constantly spread without knowing what the source is. Would you trust a news highlight showing refugees in a sinking boat somewhere in the Mediterranean if you knew the source was from an 18yr student from Belarus?

Furthermore, honest and credible media can go viral although the content producer will earn little to no money from their work. Rather, it's the large social companies that reap the rewards based on "hits" and the advertising revenue.

Trust Scores

IT ALL BEGINS WITH TRUST - To load content into the platform, a user must be a verified individual. Much like the direction Twitter is finally going down.

JulianX will utilize a blockchain based identity verification platform to accomplish this goal. The identity of a person will be associated with a “Trust score mechanism” where users will be able to earn trust from the community based on past performance. A trust score will also be associated to the content itself. The content's trust score will also be based on community feedback.

Example- If a user uploads a doctored image of a political event and it is called out by the community with evidence 2 events will take place.

·       The users trust score will be reduced

·       The trust score of the image itself will also be reduced.

Alternatively, the “Trust Scores” of a user and their associated content will increase if there is positive feedback of the community.

A Trust Score is your personal Brand

A user will have their very own trust or reputational score for all to see. This is their "Brand" . If for example, 2 videos came out showing scenes from the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. The first video was released by a person who had a reputational score of 38% and the second video had a reputation score of 91%, which video would you trust more?

Content Trust scores

When loading a piece of content, users will have the ability to load evidence supporting their content. For example, if a user uploads a Meme of Morgan Freeman with the words. “Climate change is destroying this world”, they will, if they choose, can ‘site’ where and when Morgan Freeman said those words. The evidence will influence a potential score. If on the other hand, evidence is produced highlighting that sugar is good for you and when viewed by others, they may push down that overall score based on poor research.

Verifying Content

If a picture is taken of a group of starving children in the Sudan, a verified user will be able to post when and where that picture was taken. Additionally, the platform will also be able to read the meta data details of the photo which captures time of picture taken, camera resolution, type of camera and in many cases geo information. If a picture does not have these details, then it will automatically begin its existence on our platform as a “lower trust image”. We would look to remind content producers to ensure this data is available when uploading content to our platform

High level Summary

Over time, users will be able to gauge the accuracy of the content they are viewing by having the ability to review the trust scores of both the user and the content. There are many more ‘business rules’ associated with the above, but we think you get the picture.

Detailed Solution incorporating Digital Rights and Monetisation

1. Identity/credential verification for all users. No more bots and spam accounts. Real people only.
2. "Trust" scores to guide users on a content's overall credibility. Let's allow the community to vote up similar to Reddit if the content is real.
3. Users attempting to influence or game the system will be called out and their reputational scores will be impacted. We already have a wide series of business rules to compact this future reality.

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1. All content will be assigned digital rights. In other words, a verified user will own it and because we know who you are, those rights will remain theirs forever.
2. To maintain the ability for content to spread virally, users can view the content on any social channel linking to our platform but unique users will only be able to watch the content XX numbers of times. If you want to watch that cooking show, again and again, you will need to purchase a small subscription where the vast majority of the income will go to the content producers themselves. We will be offering varying services depending on your need
3. Content producers will also be able to utilize our customizable license agreements through Cardano smart contracts that allows the producer full control of their content. A content producer may charge XXX to a website with <1m users, a different rate for websites with 1m+> users and different rates for schools and universities. Our model is intentionally moving away from the advertising model that is currently hated by many. No ads, no selling. Just content.
4. Sell Income-earning NFTs or ET's as we call them
5. Once content is loaded into the platform and regardless of trust score, the content producer can issue ETs against their content. Holders of these ET’s will constitute part ownership of a digital asset. For example, if I issue 100 ET’s that would constitute 100% ownership. When an ET is sold, 95% of the sale of those micro assets will go directly to the content owner. The remaining 5% will go to the JulianX plus the transaction fee.
6. Users can define exactly how many ET’s they wish to offer. A user can also sell the ETs at a set price, batches and offer them in the form of an auction. 
7. The uniqueness of these ET’s is this. As a holder of the ET, you will be able to earn income based on the monetization of the content itself. Specially, when a content producer is defining the number of ETs they wish will sell, they will also be defining the ownership breakdown of the content itself. 
8. For example, a content producer might issue 100 ETs but only decided to sell 40 of them. If those ETs are purchased, then 40% of the ownership of that piece of content will be in the hands of the community. When that content is licensed or earns income based on the revenue models shown below, 40% of that income will flow to the ET holder.
9. An ET holder will now have the ability not only to hold ETs in the hope of capital appreciation but can hold them as a source of income. Like another asset, those ETs can be bought and sold on the open market. ET holders will also be allowed to further segment their own ETs into segments that can also be bought and sold.
10. In another example, a content producer may wish to fundraise for a particular cause. They will be able to sell ETs to help raise money for their cause. Holders of those ET’s can subsequently be rewarded through whatever means is on offer by the content producer(fundraiser). In our model, this significantly reduces the overheads found in many other “GoFundMe” platforms. As the user has already been authenticated this will greatly reduce fraud. It will also be decentralized meaning there is no way the government can interfere and ‘order the platform to take action against a specific cause if it doesn’t like the cause. This is exactly what happened in Canada during the truckers protest against a mandatory Vax. The government ordered the platforms to disallow this fundraising campaign to continue.

Keeping in line with the Cardano philosophy of decentralization, all content will be stored on a partnered decentralized file storage blockchain which will complement and grow the Cardano ecosystem. As protocols develop, we would look to create a community-driven governance model. Content will not be able to be altered or deleted by JulianX as we will simply not have the capability. We will, however, develop protocols to stop pornographic materials from entering our ecosystem.

Sample Use Cases

Russian Tank Destroyed in the Ukraine – Use Case 1

Imagine you are living in the Ukraine, and you filmed a Russian tank destroyed by a missile. That would be original footage and the rights of the content would be in the hands of the content producer. Video like this is generally published somewhere on the net and if a news agency is interested, they might reproduce it with or without permission.

Under our model, this would change. This video would be licensed in a variety of forms. Again, ETS will form part of this revenue stream

Drone Operator – Use Case 2

While not limited to drone operators, drones are providing CPs with the ability to capture some incredible video footage. This content can also be monetized.

For example, in the film industry, producers spend a lot of money on aerial imagery and footage. Drone operators are in a unique position to capitalize on their stored content and the film industry are seeking to reduce their cost in obtaining the content. Drone footage can also be used as a historical reference when filming a movie based on a past-time period. Imagine making a movie based in the 80’s that requires footage of the city of Hong Kong as it was then. We see a wide growing market in this space that our platform could very easily cater for.

Under our model, Drone Video can be uniquely licensed surveyors, farmers, town planners and advertising agencies to name a few. Again, ETS will form part of this revenue stream

Solo Artists, sound bits, memes, and record labels – Use Case 3

While there are other platforms that are finally giving smaller artists an opportunely to license their content, it will be the strength of our smart contracts that will differentiate us from the rest. For example, I am a Facebook user and I want to use 1 particular song for my video. I will have the ability to license that content at a very low cost as I am not commercial and only make videos for fun. Hypothetically, if that video was to receive more than 5000 views, the smart contract might say, you will need to pay an ‘XX’ amount of additional fee to maintain the rights to use that content.

Under this model, the artist will earn income based on the actual usage of the content. The licensee will win as well as they will only pay a fair fee for what is being used. Again, ETS will form part of this revenue stream

Tradesman How to guides – Use case 4

There are a lot of ‘how to’ guides out there. Our platform will allow CPs to monetize their content through our licensing model for other websites to use. Using our identify management system, a CP can highlight via Atala Prism their area of expertise and provide credentials to validate those claims.

On the other side of equation, a user can comment on the videos highlighting the pros and cons of a given approach. Additionally, if a user highlight there are in fact also a qualified electrician, then their feedback should be of greater value than the average person. Like the content producer, they will need to provide evidence by providing their licensing details via the Atala Prism. This would automatically give the electrician a high trust score in this particular topic than others.

Under this model, how to guides can quickly become practical training guides. CP’s will then have the ability to bundle these videos and offer them in a subscription manner. Again, ETS will form part of this revenue stream

Documentary Videos and other interesting content – Use Case 5

A CP creates a political video highlighting that the Rothchild’s and other secret organizations have infuriated our government bent on controlling our life’s. Like any other content on our platform, the system will ask the CP for evidence. Users can then comment on the quality of that evidence. If no evidence is provided, they will start with a lower trust score.

Under this model, a CP could simply open their content to all and forego any licensing fees. They will however receive revenue based on the number of times their content is viewed. Again, ETS will form part of this revenue stream

In summary, we have already put in a significant amount of time and research into the project. Also attached to this proposal of our whitepaper. We know that our platform will not fully solve the fake news problem but we due believe this is the single best idea to begin tackling this problem. The Cardano community is known for its focus on details, facts and rigor. All team members have been supporters of this ecosystem for about 4-5 years and all belief in the principles it is trying to accomplish. This project will help achieve that goal

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

Blindly building an app is senseless. What is important is to have an accompanying and realistic business model which is what we are proposing here. We are in fact, refining an existing business model utilizing the Cardano ecosystem that will begin to diminish the power of these large tech and social companies we currently use. We are creating an even playing field where content producers will be financially rewarded for honest and accurate content. Without financial incentive, there is literally no way to stop fake and stolen content from spreading with overbearing government intervention.

Our eco-system will allow other app developers to build on this eco-system that is sitting on top of the Cardano eco-system much like a pyramid. This is exciting. It amplifies the development base expioentailly

Our solution is a win-win for all.

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

We don't see any extreme or high risks. We are an experienced team and have done this before.

A medium-risk we do see is creating the ability to build smart contracts with the ability to be customizable in real-time. This 'customizable feature' is unknown to us. To mitigate, we would build a series of non-customizable smart contracts content producers could simply use and iterate over time. To do this, we would define a set of use cases based on probability and develop contracts based on a perceived mix of value based on the paradigms of both the licensee and licensor.

Another medium risk is finding a like-minded partner to provide us with a distributed, blockchain-based file storage platform. To mitigate, we would simply store the data ourselves encrypting both the transmission layer and the storage layer to ensure security is upheld

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Phil Grech is an experienced Program Manager who has successfully led software development projects for some of Australia's most iconic brands for over 24 yrs. Phil is an agile practice leader with a strong focus on CX and solution architecture.

Julio Medeiros is a software engineer with over 5 years experience in emerging network technologies, with a passion for blockchain applications. Julio has run multiple secure, reliable stake pools and has also minted various native tokens on Cardano.

Clearence Wissar is a true wizard. Some believe his development skills come from the Gods but we think Clearence found the “One-Ring” that unites them all, and with it the immortal power it beholds. Clearence cut his smart contract stripes on the Ethereum ecosystem but has since moved over to the Cardano ecosystem. Clearence is big into mountain biking, hiking, and Tinder.

Joel Denning is the ultimate Sherpa. He just gets things done. We honestly don’t know how but somehow he turns ideas into deliverables. Joel has over 20 years of experience in the field of project planning, business development (partnerships) and business administration such as procurement and HR. In his spare time, Joel is a family man who isn’t scared to throw back a few cold ones and listen to live music.

Nicholas Stanley is a graphic designer who is across the latest and most modern designs trends found on the web today. He isn't behold to any dogma and takes a fresh approach to his work.

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

Once the objectives of this stage are in full flight, we intend to launch an ISPO to raise further capital. While we would like this to remain on option, our preference is move to the next level and allow Catalyst funds to help others.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

We will work in 2-week sprint cycles

After the first 60 days, we will create showcases at the end of every sprint cycle and present them on youtube highlighting our successes against our road map. We will then promote those showcases via social media such as Reddit, discord, Twitter and others.

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

Success will see:

1. CX / Design
2. A proof of concept app built
3. Smart contract licensing Model defined
4. Enterprise-Grade solution architecture defined
5. Partner with a Distributed file-sharing solution

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

This proposal is the first we've submitted for Catalyst. We are hopefully looking to submit further ones in the future to continue the development of the platform.