Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has introduced the launch of what he’s calling a “Reality-Test" by way of the corporate’s weblog. In a Could 27 put up
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has introduced the launch of what he’s calling a “Reality-Test” by way of the corporate’s weblog.
In a Could 27 put up titled “Asserting Coinbase Reality Test: Decentralizing Fact within the Age of Misinformation,” Armstrong expressed the agency’s need to fight unfaithful assertions aimed in the direction of Coinbase and the crypto business as a complete:
“We’ll use this part of the weblog to fight misinformation and mischaracterizations about Coinbase or crypto being shared on the planet.”
The put up was subtitled: “Each tech firm ought to go direct to their viewers, and grow to be a media firm,” which he steered elsewhere within the piece is not very troublesome: “Whether or not conventional, social or company media, we’re all simply typing phrases on the web.”
Whereas the title of Armstrong’s weblog put up article means that sooner or later sooner or later the fact-checking will contain some type of decentralization, at current the “fact-checking” merely consists of articles responding to what Coinbase deems as “misinformation”
So in different phrases, Coinbase intends to place out posts expressing Coinbase’s opinion on issues associated to Coinbase and cryptocurrency on the Coinbase weblog.
Some would possibly argue they already do that. Certainly the Reality Test part at the moment accommodates 4 fairly customary weblog posts: Coinbase’s response to a unfavourable New York Instances article about Coinbase, the corporate’s response to “misinformation” about Coinbase executives’ share gross sales, in addition to an opinion piece on Bitcoin’s environmental results and one other on crypto’s use in criminality.
Armstrong claims the weblog will come to be seen as a “supply of reality”.
“To grow to be a supply of reality, corporations will more and more should be comfy sharing details which paint them in a unfavourable mild as properly. There’s nothing like sharing errors, to construct belief.”
Armstrong is famously averse to coping with the media, and in 2020 claimed that firm leaders are more and more opting to attach instantly with prospects versus participating with mainstream journalists:
“Publishing to our personal weblog/Twitter/YouTube lets us say what’s on our thoughts and discuss to our prospects — not get one quote in an in any other case balanced (or typically outright imply/snarky) article.”
Armstrong steered that the corporate might embrace blockchain-based fact-checking sooner or later:
“Sooner or later, it’ll additionally possible transfer to extra crypto native platforms, like Bitclout, or crypto oracles. Long run, the actual supply of reality will probably be what may be discovered on-chain, with a cryptographic signature hooked up.”
Some corporations and information shops have already begun experimenting with fact-checking and verification utilizing blockchain.
In April 2020, Italian information publication Ansa unveiled a blockchain-based information monitoring system to allow readers to confirm the origin of any information showing on any of the corporate’s numerous media platforms.
In October 2020, Verizon launched a blockchain-based, open-source newsroom product that binds and secures the agency’s information publications utilizing “cryptographic ideas,” nonetheless, the agency famous on the time that “solely textual content modifications are at the moment tracked on the blockchain.”