At DSCVR (pronounced discover) which is currently in beta, our mission is to create a decentralized social content aggregation platform where users not only control the content, but also the platform itself. Think Reddit, if Reddit’s development was run by its most dedicated community members.
Currently, the major social networks are controlled by massive companies that often make questionable choices. Critical decisions that drive the platforms happen behind closed doors. This leaves users often feeling confused, frustrated, untrusting, or upset. “Why does this redesign feel terrible? What are you doing with our data? How are these decisions being made?” These are painful feelings that occur repeatedly across today’s social networks. The user is stuck choosing between the lesser of two evils or just turning a blind eye to the questionable parts of a social platform if they want to use it.
But we can envision a different future: a decentralized social content platform owned and controlled by its users. Put power in the users’ hands and allow them to decide the fate of the platform. The people who love, use, and care about the platform most will be the same people who control it. At DSCVR, we’re working to make this future a reality.
Governance will play a key role in reaching this vision. Our governance model starts with 2 very simple concepts:
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These rights will be represented by a Social token. As we continue to build DSCVR, one of our primary points of focus will be architecting meaningful social tokens that give users real influence. It's crucial that we have a way to empower the right users, allowing the good actors to clearly distinguish themselves from the bad. As we work through our feature roadmap, we will create ways for the users themselves to audit the social tokens and together we can tweak the algorithms they’re built upon.
Additionally users can fund the platform, support its growth and earn another type of token: the Service Token. These token holders will focus on creating economic value for the platform itself. Service token accounts for 50% of the governance decision. Below is a handy infographic of this token architecture for the visual learners out there.
As you may have noticed from our diagram, we’re working closely with DFINITY. Integrating with the Internet Computer will be a primary goal and when the Internet Computer’s Network Nervous System (NNS) is launched, it will be our priority to use this network to help drive these user defined decisions.
Eventually we plan to open up this model with Social Fabric, an open protocol that allows users to build self-contained and self-governed communities benefiting from the ecosystem of tools that power DSCVR. With this goal in mind, we are architecting an adaptive social protocol from the ground up that is broadly applicable to a highly diverse set of social platforms. This will equip a community of builders and doers with the tools to follow their own visions and create a wide spectrum of self-governed social platforms.
If these governance details are starting to make your head spin, it’s totally fine to ignore them. For the vast majority of users, using DSCVR will be no different than using a centralized application. But perhaps they will have peace of mind knowing that everything they post isn’t completely owned and controlled by a single centralized corporation and that it is the community they are a part of driving these decisions.
How to participate?
DSCVR is guided by its users: this is our platform that we are building together. Its future is as much in your hands as it is in ours. That being said, we need your help. Our first orders of business are prioritizing early features, finding bugs, and filling the platform with interesting and unique content. This early work will be critical in providing the foundation of a flourishing ecosystem. If this sounds interesting to you, you can start contributing right now. Here’s how:
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We hope you enjoyed this initial reveal of DSCVR, the glimpse into our vision, and the seeds we are planting to get there. If your initial reaction is: “Yeah, right... You overly idealistic decentralization nerds.” Well, we feel you. We won’t claim to have a detailed instruction manual on how to reach our ambitious vision. But we do have some ideas on where to start. And while we may just be planting the first seeds, we are determined to create a platform that gets better over time. If you want to be part of this, share something that brings a sense of your authenticity to DSCVR. If you have any ideas, feedback, dope anime suggestions, or just want to talk - reach out. We’d love to hear from you.
El… Psy… Congroo.