Can we use the titanic power of social media to uplift the human community?

Over the past 20 years, social media have largely contributed to shape the minds and as a consequence, the world. For better some times and worse often when it drove to concentration of powers and profits as well as polarization of societies.

Now aware of this phenomenal power, and in a context that is uncertain in many respects, it is therefore legitimate to ask if we could change their design, so that we could systemize their usage for virtuous ends for all while truly giving back the power to people.

Introduction

It’s now obvious for the larger part of the general public that today’s global social media too often spread and amplify misinformation, lead to harmful and addictive behaviors, censor content arbitrarily and contribute more to polarize the digital landscape than to bring people together, which yet was their original claim and mission. And that the influence of these powerful machines goes much beyond the frontiers of the digital world.

We assert with Sinal Aral, director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy that “far beyond family chats, photo updates, and public relations campaigns, social media now has a sweeping impact on nearly every aspect of society and is rewiring the central nervous system of humanity in real time. We’re now at a crossroads between its promise and its peril” — Sin Aral at MIT summit on social media in April 2021.

Taking as a starting point the recognition of what has proven to be the titanic power of social media, the place they have taken in our lives (we spend an average of 7 hours a day on these platforms, or 40% of our waking life, which is far from being synonymous with being awake) and the role they play in shaping (not to say conditioning) minds and therefore the society, it is legitimate and even imperative to ask the question whether it would be possible to use this power wisely, in order to allow us to rise as a human community, without creating frustrations and perverse effects – at least limiting them – or emotional, relational and financial outcasts.

If we want to dig efficiently into what is at stake, we need to identify / remind ourselves of the causes and the logic schemes that brought us to where we are and dissect them. Then, state if there is a way to build different schemes. This calls for a cold analysis of human behaviors and their triggers and we will see that what is ultimately involved is neither more nor less than the purpose of humanity.

We propose the following path:

I] THE RAGE-MACHINE
II] HOW WE FUNCTION AS INDIVIDUALS
III] AWARENESS-BASED MODEL
IV] FEATURING AWARENESS

I] THE RAGE-MACHINE
A sneaky model

It can be established quite clearly that the main problems attributed to social media, whether as a direct cause or as a multiplier, and repeatedly highlighted are, pell-mell: polarization of ideas, violence, fake news, rise of extremes, censorship, threats on freedom of expression, addictions.

All these elements are linked in a scheme that takes us back to the root of the so-called free business model and which is initially based on advertising. Indeed, it is a fact now known to most: to be free, global platforms sell us (sell our data and digital identities) to third parties. Nothing but love (we will come back to this) is really free and as the saying goes “Freedom isn't free”...

Summarized, the scheme is as follows:

• Users give their data to the platforms (by agreeing to the Terms of Services)
• Hyper-targeting data-based algos for advertising purpose
• Separated users’ experiences / different display universes depending on machine learning based on users’ choices and behaviors on the web (“filter bubbles” and such)
• Polarization of ideas and people generated by confirmation biases (same people and ideas in the same bubble)
• Rise of extremes / Fake news
• Violence
• Censorship from the platforms
• And so on…

The loop (the vicious circle) is complete and the machine can get carried away: at the end of the chain, censorship and/or conditioning lead to frustration which reinforces polarization, violence, censorship, etc.

This loop, sometimes referred to as “rage-machine”, is the result of a powerful hybrid human-machine dynamic based on a hyper-sophisticated algorithmic architecture designed to constantly excite instincts and emotions by rewarding the brain with a shot of dopamine at every user action to keep them connected as much as possible. As a friend who specializes in tokenemics reminded me, “the 7 deadly sins and everything that flatters or excites the ego in the broad sense, are the best precursors to get someone to act without thinking”. And outside of any religious connotation, what are the 7 deadly sins if not the figurative version of our instincts...

We get robbed, raped and addicted

The end result is a massive addiction (all you have to do is detach yourself from your own smartphone for a second in the metro or in restaurants (when it’s not while driving), to realize that we are almost all under the same hypnotic influence, both individual since it engages everyone, and collective since without the others, it does not work. Aspiring through the process still more data to resell, allowing more targeted advertising and more consumption.

The more our attention is captured, the higher the value delivered to Big Techs and the more we behave instinctively, not to say bestially. This is called attention economy.

The model based on user engagement, as engagement is defined today, therefore results in the permanent and excessive activation of our instincts by disconnecting them from our higher conscious part and our ability to step back in a loop which, if it is not stopped, naturally tends to feed and strengthen itself by capturing always more energy.

It is important to introduce here the fact that we often exclusively overwhelm the model based on advertising but in reality we must dig at a deeper level and it is the model based on instinctive engagement in general that must be questioned: several social network projects surfing on the so-called "Web3" hype, of which the generic principle is to give power back to users, put forward as a value proposition the fact of getting rid of data exploitation by Big Techs as well as of advertising and of rewarding directly users called in the scheme “creators”. It is a necessity (for these reasons as well as regarding the mass surveillance topic, the right to anonymity and privacy), but it is not enough and it does not solve the root problem: the confiscation of our attention by the engagement-based model. Doing so, we only go from the attention economy to what we are beginning to call the “creators economy”, which is nothing other than a derivative of the engagement model whom only the destination changes (users-“creators” instead of GAFA-Big Techs).

If we remain on models of engagement based exclusively on individual profit, glory, etc., even rid of advertising, we remain in this instinctive, selfish model, activated by the “7 deadly sins” and their cousins, both on creators and consumers sides. And none of the pains abovementioned will be eliminated.

We need something else and this something else begins by recognizing that profit should no longer be the first objective of the new model, otherwise the “bestial” engagement remains the primary resource with the effects that we have listed, but, possibly, a consequence. And there is nothing to prevent us from thinking that it will be there in such large, or even greater, proportions, but in terms of philosophical and psychological approach and design, it is radically different.

II] HOW WE FUNCTION AS INDIVIDUALS
A brief history of ego

Before introducing lines of thought for designing a new model, which can have a positive influence on society in general, it is useful to focus briefly on our functioning as human beings, and in particular on what is called “ego”.

The notion of ego is the object of an infinity of definitions and has occupied psychologists as well as philosophers, wise men and other mystics of all kinds since mankind wonders about its nature and origin, and its dissection fills entire libraries. Wikipedia does not help much: “in psychology the ego designates the foundation of the personality, for religions it designates a dimension of human existence, for personal development it is the only reality worthy of interest, for the New Age it is a hindrance to ‘awakening’. In short, general considerations but nothing concrete.

For our purpose, we will remain very down to earth, as concrete as possible and propose the following definition: the ego is the set of somatic (body) and psychic (mind, thought), conscious and unconscious processes which determines the personality, its mechanisms of defense, survival and interaction in general with the perceived world. We retain this approximation because it seems concrete to us, and responds perfectly to what is activated by the “free” model based on engagement.

It results from this definition that the ego is strictly centered on the individual. It may seem naive to point this out, but in fact this remark is crucial to understanding the consequences that a model that activates, boosts and magnifies the ego in all its functions can have on a society, that is to say a community. None at Republike is a psychologist, although we plan to integrate specialists into the project. These reflections are simply the result of our observations and our personal experiences as individuals, whether in everyday life or through our research, even our work on ourselves. However, we do not take too many risks in asserting that, if we remain on the level of the ego and its “survival” instincts, the interests of some often go against those of others.

The ego is therefore the common denominator of these “7 deadly sins” on which rests the entire edifice of the model based on engagement and therefore that of the so-called social platforms that shape the world. If social media has contributed in large proportions to making people narcissistic, self-seeking and self-sick, it is because it has put our egos on continuous infusion of steroids.

Emotional dictatorship

Even if popular culture would like to give them an altruistic and sacred dimension, very concretely, all emotions are directly and exclusively linked to the ego. They are its manifestations. Indeed, according to Wikipedia again, “emotion is a complex and intense psychophysiological experience of the state of mind of an animal individual related to a locatable object when it reacts to biochemical (internal) and environmental (external) influences”.

Put more simply, it is an instinctive reaction to any stimulus. Stricto sensu, it is therefore suffered. Unlike an action that is conscious, considered, chosen at least partially and has the ability to decorrelate from the dictatorship of the individual by situating itself on a broader level.

Today, more than ever the world is driven by emotions. They even managed to make us admit that emotion was the panacea, the “salt of life”. This is partly true, but only when it remains confined to a personal experience lived with awareness. And we all know how beautiful it can be. But this is certainly no longer true when it gets involved in politics, economics, “social”. Because emotion is not only the state that one can feel when falling in love or looking into the infinity of a summer sky. Emotion is also, and even more commonly, fear, anger, hatred, jealousy, etc. (which in fact all stem from the ego’s fear of not surviving).

From egos to crowd

We all know that today, due to the phenomenal power of the media and in particular the speed that social networks give to information, an image, a few words, are enough to influence public opinion or incite the leaders of a country to make a decision solely on the basis of the emotion generated. And when we list the emotions (see above) it is in no way a guarantee of making a good decision.

By cultivating a context of disempowerment on a large scale, the crowd decreases the level of individual awareness, which has the effect of releasing instincts. Then, the energy released by a crowd uninterruptedly generates stimuli that increasingly excite the instincts in an endless loop. The individual can be smart, the crowd is dumb, beastly, literally. In reality, emotion is the worst of leaders and/or advisors.

This is also why, in his Republic, Plato makes Democracy the penultimate regime in the order of the worst, just before Tyranny. Indeed, for him, Democracy is a dangerous regime that gives excessive power and freedom to the people, whose irrational and impulsive desires risk dissolving the social order in violence.

By going into as little detail as possible Plato considers that the Aristocracy, etymologically the regime of the bests, which does not have here the hackneyed meaning it has taken on for a long time, is the only stable regime because, to put it simply, its leaders are sages who are driven exclusively by a notion of enlightened and immutable justice that goes beyond each of their individual interests. Establishing what the notion of “bests” covers is obviously the thorny problem. Yet, we can already perceive in this approach the notions of self-disinterest and altruism.

If therefore this regime fails, the progressive corruption of politics through 4 phases on which we will pass, will lead an increasingly disunited City to its mere and simple division, the riches opposing the poors. The ground is then prepared for the advent of generalized disorder, which is none other than the democratic regime, which is born of the revolt of certain poor people, who give free rein to their desires and instincts and mistrust any leader who does not would not flatter their most arbitrary impulses. Dissension being at its height, the way is then clear for the tyrant, ultimate decay where the politics has disappeared since there are no more laws than that of the despot (who can be embodied or “systemic” in the shape of dystopia à la 1984 by George Orwell).

We can dispute Plato whose work is 2500 years old and undoubtedly deserves an update in its most contextual aspects, but this is exactly what is happening on social networks where Ochlocracy (power of the crowd) often reigns based on instincts, excited and amplified by algorithms, as our friend and Republike’ advisor, Laurent Gayard reminds us in an analysis of censorship on Instagram.

Are egos the cancer of this planet?

Ego dictatorship does not limit its effects to social relationships, it logically affects all aspects of our world. “I would like to share with you a surprising revelation, I have observed humans for a long time, and what occurred to me when I tried to qualify your species, is that you were not really mammals. All mammals on this planet have contributed to the natural development of a balance with the rest of their environment, but you humans are different. You settle somewhere, and you multiply, you multiply, until all your natural resources are exhausted, and your hope of succeeding in surviving is to move to another place… There are other organisms on this planet that have adopted this method, you know which ones?… Viruses. Humans are a contagious disease, the cancer of this planet” asserts Agent Smith to Neo in The Matrix first of the name.

Obviously, the line is voluntarily put bold, but is it that much when we look at the consequences the Western consumerist model which has spread widely throughout the planet has on individuals and the environment? We actually destroy what is bigger than us, what we belong to and what we have in “common”.

If we agree that the business model of engagement at the heart of the main social platforms is based on triggering our egos in its broader expression and that a world based on the ego is heading towards its loss in the more or less long term, we can try to determine if it is possible to design a different model, favoring the expression of other capacities, which are not purely or primarily instinctive, in order to allow us to rise together as a free community instead of propelling 8 billion solitary hamsters indefinitely in 8 billion wheels (filter bubbles)?

III] AWARENESS-BASED MODEL

If individuals come together in society, it is because they find an interest in it, which is certainly not that of spending their time fighting against each other or killing each other. There must therefore be somewhere a hidden link between the interests of the individual and the purpose of society, otherwise the latter would be an absurdity. And this link is therefore not the sum of contradictory particular desires or interests.

However, everything is linked. Let’s try a little intellectual exercise: what can you do best for yourself? Testing your ideas, enriching and improving them at the contact of others or trying at all costs to impose them on others without ever questioning your validity, their “scalability”, that is to say on the consequences that their application to the whole planet would have, including on you?

In other words, is your ambition to impose your business for your own profit at any costs without consideration for others and the planet, or on the contrary to create a business that benefits the greatest number over time? In the first case, do you have the courage to affirm it publicly, to assume it, and are you comfortable with the resulting image of yourself, or do you feel shame? Why? are you going to do this by presenting a benevolent hypocrite facade? What if everyone did like you? Would the world be a better place, even only for you? Is it tenable? In the end, isn’t it more profitable, at all levels, to choose the collaboration vs division?

Actually, it is obvious that the setting in motion from the point of view of the ego, if it is generalized, is harmful for all and that there is a link between what is good for each as an individual and each as a whole, as a member of a community.

The notion of Common Good can enlighten us.

Common Good

As for Wikipedia, the common good is “a notion first developed by theology and philosophy, then grasped by law, the social sciences and invoked by many political actors. It designates the idea of ​​a heritage good shared by the members of a community, in the spiritual and moral sense of the word “good”, as well as in the material and practical sense (what we possess). In everyday language, the common good often has a less spiritual meaning, but always corresponds to the idea of ​​a material or immaterial heritage of the human community (sometimes extended to other living species) necessary for life, happiness or collective growth.”

This definition also remains quite general and lacks concreteness. Nevertheless, the idea emerges that what is good for us in common is beyond individualities, but concerns us all. In other words, the Common Good refers to our common nature: It is the one that responds to the aspirations that we all share, not to the varied and contradictory desires and whims of each of us.

For Aristotle, where this notion is of major importance, the search for the Common Good is the very reason for the existence of society. Therefore, the Common Good must be sought by each individual and each community.

This is the focal point: what are these aspirations that we all share? For millennia philosophers and brilliant minds have devoted works if not their lives to this subject and this is not the place to attempt a real philosophical essay but, without risking too much, we can probably include:

• Loving and being loved / exchanging / socializing
• Contribute to the community and be recognized for your contribution
• Learn / Progress

(To this should be added the exploitation and preservation of our natural habitat. If everyone agrees on exploitation, less on preservation, it is again because particular interests do not converge).

Surprisingly, this is exactly what platforms based on the engagement model seem to offer. So what makes the difference between these same motivations seen from the point of view of the ego or that of society?

We postulate that the difference lies in the fact of performing acts exclusively for oneself versus in attempting to perform them first for others and the community, while indirectly reaping the fruit of the contribution of all the others. No one is fooled, we are not in a society of sages, we can only aspire to it by starting from very far away, and egos retain a preponderant place, at this stage of our evolution in any case, but the nuance is in the effort, which supposes taking a step back vis-à-vis one’s own primary reactions and therefore some awareness.

A little anecdote that everyone will remember or not illustrates the mechanism that underlies the order of things and conditions the existence of the Common Good. One of my friends who received the French Légion d’Honneur said in his speech for this occasion: “I learned with experience that life often ends up reinjecting you with what you injected into it”. This is another colorful way of talking about karma, a term that is too often overused and precisely means action.

Still according to Aristotle, “for a community to be part of the Common Good, it must strive to be a just society. How to define justice according to him? It is the one based on friendship. Friendship, for the ancient philosopher, is this relationship between individuals which is itself based on the Common Good. It is the action by which each individual turns to the other, altruism. In Aristotle, acting for the Common Good therefore means exercising one’s reason and will to accomplish what is right for oneself and for the community as a whole.” As long as there is mismatch between the two terms, there is injustice and thus, we are out of the Common Good field.

Redefine engagement

Also, to get out of the “egoic” loops of the model based on the instinctive reactions as well as the addictions that result from it and to free the users, the engagement has to:

• Be ours, not the one of algos
• Be chosen, not suffered / triggered
• Be community-driven rather than ego-driven in the first place
• Uplift us, not make us addicts

We must therefore redefine the notion of engagement and design a model and mechanisms that promote the emergence of this awareness. The question that will then arise will be that of organizing the economic viability of such a model since the raison d’être of the “rage-machine” (or Hype-machine, see Sinal Aral) was precisely to offer a model effective income wise.

At Republike, we believe that awareness can be organized and designed into a revenue model and “featured” into a product.

Constitution

Just like a State, a social network engaging the consciousness of its users must be based on a social contract in which all users are parties. Unlike terms of use that no one reads, or even a State Constitution that we do not choose at birth, this contract must be built with users and consciously validated by them during onboarding.

Republike proposes to introduce a Constitution around Principles that will frame behaviors, moderation and rewards all at the same time. These Principles define the DNA of Republike and are considered intangible in their essence, relating to our common nature and not individuals first.

As a conscious “society”, our principles place themselves above particular interests and will attempt to promote the emergence and development of the Common Good as outlined above. In their current version, they are:

• We are not our ideas, the mindset is first: we are all conditioned by our environment and the point of space-time where our existence takes place. So don’t feel threatened by questioning your ideas, you won’t die of it, try to understand before convincing. What we have in common, the support of our ideas and our conditionings, our nature, is “prior” to these.
• No hatred or violence or incitement to hatred or violence: by virtue of the first principle, ultimately nothing justifies hatred or violence because we share a common nature prior to the causes of these emotions. Hatred and violence are inappropriate responses to incomplete understanding.
• Everything can be said with respect, nothing can be said without.
• Altruism benefits everyone by nourishing our Common Good, it must be cultivated.

These principles promoting the perspective necessary for awareness, which may look like a vain declaration of intent, can to a certain extent be introduced by design into a platform, in the same way the “rage-machine” of dominant social (and not just social) media is designed to eliminate this distance between stimulus and consciousness.

Governance: Fair Meritocracy

This upsets our champions of “individual freedoms” and egalitarianism a lot, however, we are pushing open doors and today, a sign of the times, it is too often necessary: ​​if we take a class (in mathematics, for example), there is a good chance, if not almost a 100% chance, statistically speaking, that the teacher is more competent in mathematics than his students. And fortunately. Otherwise, he/she would have nothing to do in this position. So, statistically still, it is normal that if we have to decide on the mathematics program, the voice of each teacher counts more than that of each student. And in reality, this observation is valid in all areas because nature is unequal and, pyramidal. Here, it’s of utmost importance to keep in mind that equality is not equivalent to fairness and even that most of the time egalitarianism drives to unfairness.

The world is “unequal”, full of differences and asperities. What a richness! To dispute this fact is still a pernicious distortion of a look carried exclusively from the point of view of the ego which would like to have a say in everything.

Actually, everyone has a zone of “fluidity” (flow), a perimeter of skills where they are most comfortable expressing themselves and giving the best of themselves, thereby contributing in the most effective way to an overall harmony of the Community that benefits everyone in particular. However, society too often prevents us from doing so by placing us in a “monoplane” competitive model centered on individual profit or power, and therefore egocentric competition, where everyone should attend business or engineer schools in order to earn more than the other (or else, be an influencer on Instagram to garner more notoriety). Instead of harmony, it’s about struggle and… mess. And as a result, we can say with Saint-Exupéry,

“What torments me is not this misery, in which, after all, one settles as well as in laziness. What torments me soup kitchens do not cure. What torments me are neither these hollows, nor these bumps, nor this ugliness. It’s, in each of these men, Mozart assassinated.”

Another small personal anecdote on this subject: a few years ago, during one of my “out of the world” retreats, I expressed to another participant my concern about not knowing exactly how to put my talents (or supposed to be) in practice. He replied “these are not your talents but ours”. It has been an epiphany.

In fact, it would be infinitely better for everyone and for the whole Community to have a context that offers the opportunity to excel at what one is comfortable with and to perform it happily than to suffer all one’s life trying to do badly what we were asked against our deep aspiration. This calls for a model that places creativity, altruism, inclusivity, self-fidelity, in the fundamental sense, well before self-centered competition and the infernal circle of other people’s gazes.

Another down-to-earth example, the reality of which is nevertheless increasingly disputed today: in a family, it should be normal, statistically, for parents to have more weight in decisions than children. If in a family made up of 2 parents and 3 children, we ask every evening whether we should do homework or play the PlayStation, in an egalitarian regime, there is a good chance that the children will not learn much. Unless they are properly educated, in the sense that we want to give to this term, that is to say put in a context which awakens them to the stakes and the consequences, even remote, of their choices and their actions. And that is what true democracy is all about.

We can try to think about governance mechanisms that would open up new avenues by combining several variables. One of them could be a measure of altruism (real and not forced, otherwise it is not altruism). Indeed, the less the ego and individual instincts are involved in a decision or action, the greater the lucidity and the less likely they are to interfere with what is good for the community. Another could be involvement in the functioning of the community (society or social network) because it is logical to think that those who invest the most (as long as there is no discriminatory barrier to those who want getting involved) are the most affected by the issues. Finally, another, demonstrated experience in a field.

We believe that such a model can be designed and translated into a product. And it can be the foundation for fairer (not more egalitarian) and simply smarter governance [link to be added soon].

However, everyone must be able to express themselves because it is in our nature and since everyone has something to contribute. There must therefore be a decorrelation between freedom of expression and decision-making power.

Freedom of expression and mindset

Freedom of expression is a subject that many take for granted while agreeing that certain things cannot be said. For example, we can be condemned, rightly in our opinion, for “homophobia” or “anti-Semitism” when at certain periods of history we could be condemned for “sodism” or “witchcraft”.

On a strictly conceptual level, however, this does in fact pose limits to freedom of expression. Contextually, this highlights the relative aspect of this freedom over time. And therefore, the implicit danger of a model that would like to formally define this notion leaving us the choice between the two extremes that would be the total license underpinned by the concept, including lack of respect, insults, etc. and an arbitrary bias induced by the context leading to censorship and containing the germ of a totalitarian drift. Who will decide what can be said and what is forbidden? And who is going to appoint these people?

Democracy claims to solve this problem by putting it to the vote, but as long as it is not protected from demagogic or ochlocratic excesses, actually, democracy remains a question of egos. And if one day, out of jealousy, revenge, collective anger, it suits the majority that we can ostracize this or that component of society, ban this or that current, “freedom of expression” will be amended in this sense. Most of the time under cover of an ad hoc “justice” made incontestable by the Legislator. Similarly, the censorship sometimes observed on social networks, without necessarily being ideological at all, in any case that is not our point here, demonstrates by itself that freedom of expression is not self-evident.

To the question “can we laugh at everything?” French humorist Pierre Desproges answered “yes, but not with anyone?”. We actually think it’s not about the person, it’s about the mindset. Which in purely logical terms points toward the same thing but goes further in precision, a person being able to demonstrate several states of mind: we postulate that we can discuss everything, talk about everything if the criteria of intellectual honesty and respect are met. And ultimately nothing if anger, jealousy or judgement predominates.

At Republike, we believe that the state of mind can be designed into a product and thus guarantee a total AND healthy freedom of expression: in a word, uplifting.

IV] FEATURING AWARENESS

Republike is a network model designed for the Common Good as we have tried to define it, which offers values ​​/ principles, tools and intends to create a context that favors the deep and real development of everyone, rather than a product in the first place.

Now that we have outlined a model for using the power of social media to contribute to the community, we will propose some features that can translate this model into a product.

On the top of classic and basic Web3 features such as:

• Users rewards for contribution
• Privacy

Republike goes further by featuring awareness and mindset in a meritocratic fair governance based on 4 values: Altruism, Respect, Quality (of content), Skills (measure of individual skills), each of them being quantified through brand new mechanisms while keeping users totally free of their choices and behaviors.

In line with these ideas, Republike aims to truly get rid of pure financial investors such as VCs by setting up a Foundation owning and ruling the platform, Foundation itself being owned by users.

Republike intends to establish a link between meritocracy and ownership by establishing an equivalence between its native token earned or from subscription and shares of the future Foundation.

Design awareness

• Commonly Built TOS (Constitution)
  Constitution defined by users and experts of the sector — Improved by users.
• Exit Filter Bubble
  Algo-transparency slider and discovery of new horizons suggesting content outside of users’ bubbles.
• Open-Source Algorithm Equalizer
  Full control of each variable by users.
• Virality Friction
  No repost content without complete reading and adding a few words. Impossible to see up or down vote metrics before you vote.
• On the web powered by Flint
  Avoiding Fake News with full control over a media Feed and adapted to your preferences (Aggregator RSS feed, Real Time Hot Topics engine)
• Anti-Addiction
  In most traditions, fasting favors minds uplift. We will feature “mind fasting”. Monthly Detox Day — disable publish, like or share once a month / Incentive minimum offline time — tokens distribution for 18 hours / day offline time.

Design mindset

• Intelligent Democratic Moderation (Blockchain)
  Easy and fast disruptive moderation based on commonly agreed values (Intangible Principles and Constitution) and carried out by users themselves.
• Ethic A.I. Monitoring
  Bodyguard solution designed around Republike’ Intangible Principles (above-mentioned).

Design altruism

• The more you give, the more you get (voting power, other rights)
  It’s the opposite logic than the one of taxes: users are not obliged, they can keep all what they have (money, power, knowledge) for themselves. But the return from the Community and their weight in it are diminished by the same proportion. Proportional to what they have, not what they pay.
• Donation to charity voted by DAO

Designing fair meritocratic governance

• Unique Id and Reputation (NFT profiles)
  Based on what users do and how they interact — NFTs evolve and so do Voting Rights. Experts Thematic — Open Minded — Moderator
• Decentralized Governance
  Every major steps are “blockchain-voted” by users into the DAO* — Features — Tech — KPI — Reputation — Reward — Charity. Capped voting power to prevent oligarchy

And obviously…

Get rid for good of “engagement” model

How to finance all that? Take full ownership of your platform:
1 USD / Month Social Network.

CONCLUSION

We assume that a 180° turnaround of the so-called engagement-model is possible, and that this new model can fix each of the pains of today’s social media while making similar revenue.

By fixing the pains and reversing the dynamic, we think that this model has the capacity to positively influence the society in the broader sense, in similar impactive proportions as the old model did in mixed ways.

A LOT MORE TO COME SOON…

Etienne de Sainte Marie, cofounder and CEO at Republike.