Culture Wars: Preserving Digital Content on the Blockchain

Freedom of the press, freedom of expression and personal privacy are essential for an open, free and prosperous society. On the one hand, journalists and writers must be able to communicate privately and anonymously. On the other hand, they must be able to speak freely without fear of consequences. In both cases, they must be able to back up what they do. Internet censorship, hacking attacks on large institutions and civil society, systemic piracy, data mining, Edward Snowden's revelations and targeted surveillance through blockchain technology have driven people who build good democracies to seek anonymous, encrypted and monetized communications. These tools allow them to mask their identities and scramble information in transit and storage so that only authorized people can access them in exchange for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

Governments that wish to suppress the truth will find blockchains harder to stifle than the internet for several reasons. First, journalists and photographers can use public key infrastructure (PKI) to encrypt messages, hiding their identities from impersonators and attackers. Second, governments cannot destroy or alter information recorded on a blockchain; therefore, citizens can use it to support their leaders and hold them accountable for their actions. Third, where governments crave reliable sources of funding for journalism, journalists, especially stringers in the world’s most dangerous places, can raise money on a blockchain, casting a wider net for news executives and investors who prefer to remain anonymous.

For example, veteran Chinese journalists could try a distributed peer-to-peer crowdfunding platform like Koinify, PKI, Lighthouse, or Swarm, which uses PKI to protect sender and receiver identities better than a single network system. Another great blockchain tool is the free mobile app GetGems, which secures and monetizes instant messaging through the Bitcoin network. With GetGems, users can securely send all kinds of files, like private emails, not just text messages. These apps are just the beginning of what is possible to thwart regulators and thieves.

Another solution is to build a decentralized platform for document structure in an immutable ledger, so that the ledger is unique, such as Factom, which aims to implement this scheme in the developing world. Users can buy credit cards, which create entries in Factom's ledger. As with Bitcoin's ledger, everyone gets the same copy, and anyone can add it to the ledger, and once they are filed, no one can change the ledger. Factom has a "commit/show commitment" scheme that acts as an anti-censorship mechanism: for example, a server in China cannot prevent other documents from being validly entered due to its content. If a user adds a credit entry to a document, it will be recorded. Governments can identify certain entries when they are offended, and when the Chinese government operates on Wikipedia, it cannot be deleted or blocked. If an official court orders a change to the ledger, the court official can make a new entry to reflect the ruling, but the history will be witnessed by everyone.

A third solution is to enable distributed peer-to-peer microblogging, without centralized servers. Stephen Pair, CEO of BitPay, described how reinventing Twitter or Facebook would give users control over their own data. "Instead of just one company like Facebook, you could potentially have many companies plugged into this public database [blockchain] and participate in building their own unique user experience. Some companies might ask you, or might need certain information to be shared with them, so they can make money from it. But as a user, you have full control over the information you share with that company." This is how Tornado, Twitter's clone of free software functionality and the BitTorrent protocol, leveraged free software to implement Bitcoin and the BitTorrent protocol, deploying encryption and end-to-end communication links so that no government can snoop on users' communications.

Through the lens of blockchain technology, journalists and authors see the outlines of a world where culture is protected, cherished, and fairly compensated. We should all care. We are a species that survives by thinking, not instinct. When cultural industries thrive and content creators themselves can make a living, we all benefit greatly. Moreover, these are the bellwethers of our economy, revealing how producers and consumers will adopt and change technology to adapt to life faster than any other industry. Every business executive and government official can learn a lot from this about the new era of the digital age.

Don and Alex Tapscott are co-authors of The Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World (Penguin, 2016). Don Tapscott is CEO of the Tapscott Group, one of the world’s leading authorities on the impact of technology on business and society. He has written more than 15 books, including Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, which has been translated into more than 25 languages. His son, Alex Tapscott, is CEO and founder of Northwest Passage Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in the blockchain market. In his seven years in the Canadian and U.S. capital markets, Alex has worked tirelessly to help entrepreneurs achieve their goals, raise hundreds of millions of dollars in critical growth capital and provide sound advice and counsel.