Decentralized Journalism Protocol

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

The protocol

The dBranch news and information protocol will standardize publication and versioning of raw data, sources, citations, articles, opinions, reviews and fact checks. Each will be published using content addressing from IPFS which will enable permanent, immutable referencing that enhance transparency and audit-ability of content and minimizes link rot (links that break over time).

IPFS alone does not create an audit-able history, for that we need a blockchain. As sources are published, their IPFS addresses (CIDs) are written to the blockchain. This gives us a record of who published what, when. As content is updated the CID representing the new version will also be added to the blockchain which gives us the ability to audit the version history.

The dBranch node

The dBranch node (github) has everything needed to publish and curate content: the cardano node, db-sync and wallet, an ipfs node and the dBranch backend. An author can use the desktop application to draft and publish content and then use the node to submit the CID to the cardano blockchain. The backend uses transaction metadata to add the CID and article name to the blockchain. Currently, the wallet sends ADA to itself, it is a moot transaction that exists solely to announce the existence of the article. The transaction in the future will be used to send a small amount of ADA to a development team for a sustainable product.

The dBranch node can be used to curate articles. It will follow the blockchain and download, store and host (via IPFS) articles from authors or topics the curator is interested in. This approach will allow the growth of cooperative networks that pool resources to expand each actor's bandwidth and availability.

A public goods non-compete protocol

For the web's data to be truly interoperable there must be a non compete layer that standardizes information exchange. The dBranch protocol will be agnostic to the economic model of all participants, this allows dBranch to plug into any social media app centralized or not, any crowd funding platform centralized or not, any blockchain, any currency, anything, anywhere.

A public goods company

Development of the protocol and open source software implementation will be sustained by a public goods company. The business will be sustained by running a cloud hosted service which makes publishing as simple as using a traditional blogging platform. Because the protocol is open, users may migrate their content to another host or self host at any time. The records will be still be on the blockchain but they must host their content themselves. For those who run their own node, the source code will automatically (unless disabled) send a small fee to the company wallet when publishing an article.

A new economic model

The dBranch whitepaper breaks journalism up into several branches: contributors (journalists), researchers (investigative journalists), reviewers, studios, curators and audience. Legacy institutions combine many (if not all) of these branches into one company with aligned financial incentives. The dBranch protocol will enable these actors to separate their financial interest; for example if a reviewer is independent from a news outlet their incentive is not to maximize the reach of a news article so they can be as honest as they like.

While the protocol will be agnostic to economic funding, the long term goal of dBranch will eventually create (but not enforce) tools for crowd funding. Current crowd funding for journalism is limited to funding individuals or small outlets, but if successful, a small outlet will grow into a large one that recreates the problems they set out to solve. dBranch aims to alleviate this by separating financial incentives (and assets) into the aforementioned branches which separates power. dBranch consumers will have the ability to fund an entire ecosystem as easily as existing crowd funding platforms, however, under the hood they are funding potentially separate entities with separate financial motivations designed to limit the negative incentives of each (read this article for more information on the different branches).

The user experience section below will explain this with examples.

User experience

The neutrality of this protocol creates protections for all participants in the news ecosystem.

For the reader

Readers will be able to read their news in a platform that is external from the publisher which means that the publisher will have to follow the protocol in order to reach an audience. Node operators and curators will use the blockchain as their news wire. Only content published with immutable history will be available in neutral platforms. This limits an author's ability to manipulate history because each version of an article or source will be verifiable.

Additionally, because the protocol standardizes citations of things like transcripts and press releases, when an author quotes a source, the protocol will be referencing the source's IPFS content ID. This prevents cherry picking and misrepresentation because the article itself will not actually contain the quoted text, it will will reference the source by content ID and the user interface will load the external citation and put the quote inline. The user won't notice the difference but they will be able to hover their mouse over the quote and load the full, original source to determine for themselves the accuracy of the representation. By making it easier to audit we make it more difficult to get away with misrepresentation.

For the journalist

Trust is a two-way street. An author who uses a transparent system is likely to be viewed as more trustworthy. Ethical journalists need not be afraid of immutable history. We all make mistakes, and audit-ability will help separate authors who make mistakes from those who manipulate history.

The long term goal of dBranch is to support full decentralization as well as have a centralized version for those without the skills (or desire) to run their own node. It will be as easy as using any existing blogging platform but robust enough to deploy your own node and fully customize the software for a particular implementation. Local news outlets will be able to reduce their IT infrastructure costs by migrating to a free and open source framework for journalism. Independents will be able to migrate their work from the centralized service to another service or self hosted node at any time.

Journalists will also be a part of the internet information revolution. A link's half life is estimated to be about two years, meaning half of all links on the internet break after about two years. This is not acceptable for a robust information system, the internet itself needs a Dewey decimal system type of revolution and dBranch aims to build that!

For a news source

News sources such as government agencies, private companies, or any newsworthy individual will gain an advantage from dBranch as well. Official sources will be cryptographically signed on the Cardano blockchain which creates trust assumptions. Raw data, press releases, transcripts, etc will all be published raw, and journalists will cite the sources directly via content id rather than copy and paste quotes and share a link to the source that will break in 2 years. Additionally by verifying wallet addresses, neutral interfaces can give sources who are cited the ability to rebut claims in news articles directly with links that are out of the authors' control.

Note: You may read the dBranch whitepaper here which has more information, but it is outdated. The general vision is the same but details and execution will change. Notably, I am shifting from running the development team as a DAO to a public goods company.

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

Category: Dapps, Products & Integrations

This solution integrates an external protocol with the Cardano blockchain. It fits into several of the subcategories mentioned. It could be considered a marketplace for journalism, it will eventually integrate with social media, and nation states could use it for official statements that when combined with social media can help prevent the spread of misinformation. And journalism itself fits into the miscellaneous category.

To be clear, the protocol and software is a prototype and not fully developed so the funding would cover protocol development and its first integration with any blockchain. See below for more specifics.

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

I can think of two potential risks. Right now I am the sole developer of this project that does not have much of a following. The first risk is that I may not succeed in building the large team necessary for the full scope of this project and the second is that it may not get enough traction to have a large user base.

To solve for the first problem the scope of this proposal is designed to take the project from the current prototype to a beta project ready for a larger scale investment. Part of the grant would go to my salary to enable me to develop the feature set of the product. And another part would go to consultation with others who have managed large scale development teams to help form a detailed, sustainable plan to present for a larger funding round.

The second problem is intrinsically linked to the first, part of building a successful team includes creating marketing and outreach to spread the word. Some of the funding I am requesting will go to consultation with others who have built teams in the past.

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

First month

• integrate IPNS with web app
• integrate IPNS on desktop app for article index
• modify cardano tx metadata to reference IPNS addr + current CID instead of article name + CID
• integrate IPFS swarm on desktop app
• Deploy production system on main net
• seek business and engineering consultants/partners

Second month

• add raw data, sources and citations to JSON protocol
• integrate sources and citations to article text editor - allowing writer to insert citations to external data+sources (create custom embed type with quill-js)
• integrate sources and citations to article viewer (desktop+web) - front end will pull sources via CID + reader will be able to easily view raw information
• consultation on scope of an engineering team to maintain long term development

Third month

• add article versioning to protocol
• integrate versioning with cardano tx metadata
• integrate versioning with writer interface
• integrate versioning with reader interface - allow readers to see previous versions and a git-style diff showing what changed (use diff logic from quill-js)
• consultation for long term business model
• consultation on what types of legal, regulatory and accounting for a business

Fourth month

• optimize and refine codebase
• create unit tests for each repo
• create integration tests
• create stress tests to determine upper performance bounds
• finalize business plan including employees, timeline and how much additional funding would be needed

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

See this data in spreadsheet form here.

Cloud costs

cardano-db-sync* $260/mo x 12 months = $3,120

web server** $65/mo x 12 months = $780

ipfs node** $65/mo x 12 months = $780

block storage~ $50/mo x 12 months = $600

Servers will run on digital ocean droplets (VMs).

* General purpose droplet with 32GB RAM and 200GB SSD

** General purpose droplet with 8GB RAM and 50GB SSD

~ 500GB SDD storage to be attached to IPFS node

Developer costs

$75/hr x 30 hrs per week x 4 months = $36,000

Consultation costs

business development = $100/hr x 100 hours = $10,000

engineering team = $100/hr x 100 hours = $10,000

Subtotal

$61,280.00

Margin

10% = $6,128.00

Total

$67,408.00

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

Brad Corlett

Project founder

10+ years in the media industry

5+ years as a doc filmmaker

6+ years as a full stack software developer

github | linked in | twitter

I'm a jack of all trades whose goal is to plug all of the pieces together for a robust beta app that decentralizes written journalism in the short term, and video news in the long term.

Building a team

During this round of funding I will be looking for one or two others with experience in business development and building engineering teams to create a sustainable business plan including engineering and marketing teams. See the timeline for more details on the current vision.

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

I would likely return for more funding. This proposal is designed to be a stepping stone. I recently received a micro grant from IPFS to sustain development of a prototype. The goal of this proposal is to create a beta product and plan to create a sustainable business model. If successful there will be more funding needed to launch the company.

[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?

Because this proposal seeks to create a beta product and business plan, metrics like user base and readership are beyond the current scope. To track progress, the community will be able to audit the open source code and check to see if I have implemented the features I have outlined. They can download and use the software to verify that it is functional, reliable and bug free. I will also post YouTube videos where I demo using the software.

For the business and engineering plans, we will publish them publicly so that the community can see it was created and examine the work. We will also take public feedback on any of our work to ensure the community continues to approve the direction the project is headed in.

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

The long term vision of dBranch is to create a world with more trust in journalism. This is a two way street where citizens have more trust in journalists and journalists have more trust in their readers' ability to inform themselves. Sensationalism, cherry picking, attacks and the weaponization of information will be minimized. Information dissemination on the internet will be standardized so that it is freely exchangeable. Link rot will be minimized to near zero so that the internet can be the robust medium for information exchange that was promised.

Lastly, the fact-checking and review process will more closely match that of science. Science is humanity's best method for determining what is true and what is not true. Scientific consensus emerges out of a decentralized network of academic institutions, research labs and publication journals; in order for truth to emerge out of journalism, its fact checking and review process should mirror that of science.

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

This is a new proposal.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

SDG goals:

Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

SDG subgoals:

Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements

Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels

Key Performance Indicator (KPI):

Universal Human Rights Index (UHRI):

#proposertoolsdg