How Blockchain might help in eliminating fake news/forwards on messaging platforms.
Lately, we all have experienced this. There is some vague forward and there is no source of credibility to that forward. In few seconds, that message is forwarded to millions of people. Such misleading forward can create chaos.
To tackle above problem, we might look for solution which provides credibility, immutability and traceability. Blockchain has all these properties. Let me explain how we can incorporate blockchain in our solution.
- Credibility
For any news/forward we need to understand its credibility. eg(we will use this eg throughout this article): You get forward saying school will be closed tomorrow since there is some xyz function happening. When you will trust this message? either you get direct message from principal or your class teacher. In blockchain world, transactions/messages are signed by creator of the message. Hence we know this transaction/message is legit. This way we can prove credibility of a message/forward/news.
2. Immutability
I don’t whether you have experienced this but when you are in multiple groups there are good chances that forwards get repeated and sometimes forwards are missing some details or new details are added to it. so again question arises “ should I trust this”. Going back to blockchain world, like I said every transaction/message which is created is signed by creator and if someone updates message, message gets signed by that person’s name. Hence we can understand this message is not coming from my class teacher/principal and it is manipulated by other folks.
3. Traceability
Why you trace things? to understand its origin. Similarly in blockchain one has ability to trace transactions. This feature can definitely add value in eliminating fake news/forward. If someone is forwarding such messages, authorities can trace back.
Sumit, can’t this be done purely using database?
This can be achieved by normal databases but one needs to take lot of care that database is not getting manipulated by some devops admins. One cannot just updates things in blockchain, there are consensus algorithms which need to agree on change.
I am not saying this every message needs blockchain I am saying important announcements and news can be powered by blockchain technology.
This above argument brings us to implementation section of this article. How can we implement this?
- In existing application: One can add this feature like announcement message type and it will be powered by blockchain.
- New chat application: You can build entire application based on above ideas.
Careful reader might have question that Sumit, if you are giving option to trace things and all? In that case, don’t you think you will be revealing private numbers of folks/high authorities?
To answer this, let’s assume this feature is implemented in facebook messenger. If someone tracks back or see a message is signed by XYZ authority. Message can take them to profile of that authority and if that profile is valid and is authenticated, user can see that in form of blue/green ticks or whatever platform decides to choose for authentication and no private info is revealed.
Hope you enjoyed reading this article. I know my articles are heavily filled with code but in this article I thought articulating the idea was more important than implementation.✌️😊
