Three aspects in which blockchain technology can change the communication industry
Although blockchain technology has been revolutionizing all industries, the pace of change has not been the same in all sectors, with the media area one of those that has been slow to implement significant changes taking advantage of the advantages of new ecosystem.
On this, some experts, such as influencer Spanish blockchain Alberto Gómez Toribio, has cited some shyness of the participants in this industry to get ahead or at least to assume innovations more quickly, which has caused the sector to be surprised by the technological breakthroughs, as happened with the development of Internet and the social networks at the beginning of this century. Despite its reactivity, the way of doing journalism ended up changing and journalism 2.0 is a reality.
Now, in the same way that the Internet did at the time, the blockchain technology Once again, it reconsiders the way in which the sector operates, especially in relation to the production and dissemination of content (especially news). What also proposes some solutions to several of the problems that afflict this industry, among which Three aspects stand out: the veracity, the attribution and the censorship .
On this, Gómez Toribio anticipates that within five years the media sector will undergo a great transformation . "A large platform, such as Uber or Airbnb, will emerge, which will disintermediate them, just as Uber has done with the taxi," said the expert in an interview published in CriptoNoticias in 2016.
The chain of blocks before the false news
The term fake news (false news) refers to the practice of disseminating facts that are not real but with an information montage that gives them the appearance of reality. Although it is not a new activity, since they have existed for many years all over the world, it has gained popularity thanks to the reach of social networks, generating public difficulties among the public for the true news of false ones.
The previous situation has been affecting those who want to distribute truthful content and build credibility around a means of communication, mainly by increasing the influence of platforms such as Google with social networks. In this regard, a study conducted by Stanford University on the fake news , at the end of 2016, determined that The influence of the main media on the public has been decreasing in recent years . A significant event at a time when "anyone can publish a story, real or not, with nothing more than imagination and access to the Internet," according to the research.
On this topic, Ricardo Trotti, executive director of the Inter-American Press Association, pointed out last year, during a video conference with Venezuelan students that the platforms of Facebook and Google work on "identifying the algorithms of traditional media to filter the real news".
However, thanks to the decentralization that characterizes the new technologies, the blockchain could be more useful to counteract the actors that spread false news. So, through the development of applications in the chain of blocks that facilitate the identification of false news and establish mechanisms for the dissemination of quality content could reduce false news. All this linked to an adequate attribution of contents that allows the authors to build a reputation around their publications, being qualified according to their quality and veracity.
Parallel, Fake news could be avoided by using reputation tokens for source verification , as posed by journalist Michael Casey, author of the book The age of cryptocurrency: how bitcoin and digital money challenge the world economic order , for whom the fact that the writers or content producers are evaluated and rated by the public according to their veracity, can avoid misinformation.
Likewise, Casey talks about a Verity confirmation mechanisms of data based on blockchain, linking different sources of information delivered digitally, with hashes of cryptographic identification that allow people to verify them quickly.
The attribution and protection of contents
The correct one attribution of the authorship of the work is another issue that affects the business of mass communication . The common practice of copying and pasting content from the web, often without respecting copyright, can contribute to the dissemination of false information, while at the same time removing the recognition of the creators.
In order to find solutions to this trend, some projects for the production and distribution of content in platforms Blockchain have been working. Such is the case of Po.et. It is a startup that aims to help solve the problems of ownership and attribution that are presented on the Internet.
The idea of the site is to allow the registration of creative works in the block chain of Bitcoin , in order to make clear to everyone who is the author of work, who owns it and even know if the use of the work is authorized or not, as indicated in the Web page of the company, where it is added that the platform uses cryptography to give publishers and content creators the tools to automate the licensing process , without relying on third parties.
In this way it seeks to offer alternatives to the difficulties for recognition of authorship faced by many creatives, when they seek to manage the ownership of their materials through Getty Images Y Creative Commons , for example.
On the other hand, it is necessary to reiterate what experts have said in the subject, who have been pointing out that a change in the model of communication companies (promoted by the irruption of blockchain) will also contribute to resolving problems of authorship. This is due to the fact that it eliminates the means of intermediation between author and public and encourages a more direct relationship between writers, journalists or authors with the recipients.
In this regard, the conclusions of the report "Communication in the blockchain era 2018", first of its kind that is registered in a blockchain platform in Spain, with certified files in the Nodalblock platform. It is a publication in which several authors with extensive experience in the area of communication and new technologies, who mostly indicate that the new communication business will tend, as almost all sectors where blockchain bursts, to "tokenization".
This implies not only that the authors of the content must be well identified and obtain recognition of their work, but also that they may receive, from the public, financial compensation for their work, earning tokens which can then be exchanged in exchange houses. Parallel, the author gains recognition and reputation, to the extent that his works are true and original , also contributing to the decrease in the spread of false news.
This operating scheme can already be experienced in platforms such as Steemit Y Decent , where it is also possible to generate content that evades another of the problems of the industry: censorship.
Decentralization against censorship
Censorship is one of the problems that has most affected the communication industry, since its origin, mainly because it is a sector dominated by highly centralized companies, which, in the interests of their interests, can determine what is published and what is not, this combined to legal, judicial and administrative restrictions imposed by governments that limit freedom of expression.
Before that, the blockchain technology bursts with opposite concepts: decentralization and disintermediation. New projects are emerging in the block chain (such as those cited above) that offer an open network to social activists, writers and independent journalists , giving the possibility of publishing information, which is often vetoed in traditional media.
This is how emerging technology has already begun to change the business model of creation and distribution of content, establishing some clear differences in terms of how to publish on the Internet. In this way, blockchain will not be so easy to publish any idea and then modify or delete it, because the traces will always be available and can be tracked in the chain of blocks.
Outstanding image by pio3 /stock.adobe.com