an open protocol

for trustworthy information

The economics of media completely re-imagined for the digital age

A global system of editorial and peer review for information on the Internet

Distributed, controlled by no single entity and uncensorable by authoritarian regimes

The economics of media in the digital age completely re-imagined

A global system of editorial and peer review for information on the Internet

Distributed, controlled by no single entity and uncensorable by authoritarian regimes

users

Access high quality and trustworthy information on an open ownerless platform without needing a subscription or seeing ads. Show appreciation with micropayment donations and tips instead.

writers

Receive small donations to report on the news, offer an opinion, or conduct research and have them matched by money from institutions to pre-fund your work. Harness new payment technologies to receive micropayment tips after publication. 

writers

reviewers

Writers must stake the money they raise on the writing they produce. Fact checkers and Judges who must also put money on the line rate the writer’s work post publication. Everyone’s payouts are determined by a market.

de know

An Alternative to the Current Media System

Decentralised Knowledge (DeKnow) is a drive to create an alternative to legacy media institutions. It aims to create a new type of media institution based on open internet protocols rather than private or government owned platforms. Corrupted and paywalled information cost society trillions annually by depriving people of knowledge crucial to their advancement.

The DeKnow movement aims to render all non-private information freely available to everyone but at the same time harness advancements in payment technologies to ensure writers and information providers are rewarded for their work.

A Better Incentive System

DeKnow is founded on the premise that the incentive systems that underpin journalism are the primary barrier to high quality information. Currently when news is offered for free, it depends on the corrupting influence of ad revenue. Paywalls reduce access to the news, particularly among the young, and incentivise journalists to write what a particular demographic wants to read. Since there is a limit to how many subs people will sign up to, paywalls are also a centralising force. The media is becoming ever more concentrated and susceptible to capture by powerful interests that can bend the truth to mould public opinion in their favour.

DeKnow aims to introduce a completely new economic model where at the individual level writers are solely incentivised to be factually and contextually accurate, and at the system level the model reverses the trend towards centralisation.

Public Infrastructure and Open Systems of Quality Control

DeKnow aims to build open public internet protocols for funding, collaborating, reviewing, performance tracking, sharing and curating information without intermediaries.

It will harness technological advances in distributed computing networks, decentralized identity protocols, democratic fundraising mechanisms such as quadratic funding and build on the promise of academic studies that employed novel prediction markets such as the surprisingly popular answer technique to improve information quality.

The DeKnow movement believes that with well-designed market mechanisms and anti-collusion protocols we can open up and improve upon legacy systems of information quality control.

how it works