Newsblocks is trying to end the “fake news” plague and use blockchain technology in a  meaningful manner. Whether the project will succeed, is a different matter altogether. Building a decentralized platform for trusted news applications will be quite challenging.
The NewsBlocks Concept
It has become apparent accessing reliable andaccurate news is a lot more as of late. Numerous reasons attribute to this worrisome trend. A lot of information is not necessarily correct, and there is a growing online censorship campaign as well. Newsblocks wants to solve this problem by converting the world’s news into verified data and store it on a blockchain.
How Does it Work?
Putting the world’s news on a blockchain is not necessarily a unique business proposal. However, doing so in a tamper-proof manner through verified data is something else entirely. NewsBlocks aims to build a decentralized platform where developers can build their news-related applications and fees. As such, the technology will become accessible to everyone in the world.
What is rather interesting is how Newsblocks acknowledges weeding out fake news is of the utmost importance. The information processed by this blockchain will be put through fact checkers and fake news detectors, as well as chatbots. Building a global news archive will be challenging, but the associated decentralized marketplace for news and data can make good things happen in this regard.
Another interesting aspect about NewsBlocks is how it uses shared rewards to aggregate more data. More specifically, contributors will be rewarded in the native Newsblocks tokens for their submissions one the information is verified accordingly. Incentivizing users to keep using this platform and continue to submit content is a great way to remain relevant, albeit its long-term impact remains difficult to predict.
The NewsBlocks Token
It is not uncommon for blockchain platforms to issue their own tokens in this day and age. NewsBlocks is no different in this regard, as its token will be sold through an ICO in Q4 of 2018. It will serve as a reward for news contributors, albeit other use cases will become apparent over time. The token will play a role in terms of the decentralized marketplace, albeit its exact purpose remains a bit unclear.
The Road Ahead
It is interesting to note how the NewsBlocks team seemingly has a plan in place for the coming three years. The current focus is on attracting developers to build more distributed applications, as well as further building the marketplace infrastructure accordingly. It is a very interesting concept which can transform the news industry. Getting consumers to use these applications however, will be a different matter altogether.
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