Humans are hierarchical by nature. Our instinct is to classify out of self-preservation. We are status-seeking. We look for indicators of where we stand on the totem pole of life by comparing our position to others. We are influenced, and subconsciously (or consciously) mirror those we believe to be of high status.
In Robert B. Caldini’s Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion, the author breaks down the 6 principles of influence. They are:
Reciprocation - we hate feeling indebted. If someone gives us something we feel the innate need to pay them back in kind.
Commitment & Consistency - we want to be seen as being people who stand by their word. We will defend our self-image by completing actions consistent with things we have said or done in the past.
Social Proof - we feel safe in the decisions of the herd. When faced with a difficult decision we are likely to follow others. Following reviews and favorites are two prime examples of social proof.
Authority - we are more easily persuaded by those who appear to be in charge. Experts, by way of acquiring knowledge, status, or otherwise, have an easier time getting others to follow them.
Liking - we want to agree with people we like. As much as hard skills matter, you are much more likely to get the job or close the deal if the person can picture grabbing a drink with you after.
Scarcity - we are more likely to act on the fear of losing rather than gaining. It is why you see retailers market “low quantity” in big red letters, or “ONLY 1 PAIR LEFT” to get you to add to your cart.
In social media we see the principles of social proof and authority play out consistently. Individuals are more likely to react in kind when their feeds are clustered around a particular perspective. This can quickly devolve to mob mentality if left unchecked, but that is for another article. Instead, we are going to focus our time analyzing authority.
Authority is currently represented by two aspects of social media - follower count and verification. Both demonstrate high status. The common thinking being that if you are worthy of a massive following, and the threat of imposters is so high the social media overlords need to verify you, then you must be someone worth listening to.
But, what if this authority has not been earned?
What if those followers were purchased or are filled with bots? Twitter has been on record claiming they ban over 1 million bots a day. Even if you claim bots aren’t as big of a deal as Elon Musk will have you believe, the fact we are implicitly giving influence to people based on juiced up followings should be cause for concern.
Which brings us to verification. This status is supposed to denote that you are in fact speaking with an audited and verified individual. The problem? Many verified accounts are being purchased and then used to farm out scams to the public. Over the past several months we have seen countless verified accounts pretending to be founders of NFT projects like Bored Ape Yacht Club, Azuki, Moonbirds, and Doodles. In each instance, the verified account attempted to convince users to interact with a scam mint link meant to drain their wallets. As a result, millions of dollars in scammed NFTs and cryptocurrencies have been lost as users accidentally gave approval to these malicious actors.
Worse still, is that in the past several days we have seen a flurry of influential accounts like Zeneca, Keyboard Monkey, and Franklin get hacked. According to Yuga Labs, these attacks seem to be coordinated by a single group.
Being susceptible to unearned influence that shapes your perspective is bad. Being susceptible to unearned influences that puts your livelihood at risk is downright awful. How do we put measures in place to protect our community? What actions can be taken to regain trust in the individuals and information we receive on a daily basis?
One solution proposed by Zeneca33, whose influential Twitter account with 300k followers was compromised this week, is more education and self accountability. His reason for the latter being that bailing individuals out when their funds are compromised only gives them a false sense of security; that we must take self sovereignty seriously and can no longer rely on the safety nets of Web2.
I tend to agree with Zeneca. We must operate with a healthy level of paranoia when it comes to the security of our accounts and wallets. Two factor authentication, yubikeys, and proper wallet hygiene are all practical steps you should take to protect yourself.
However, this does nothing to validate the reputation of those we interact with online. To that end, authority should not be given out in accordance with broken follower counts and verification statuses. Instead, we need a new system which rewards meaningful contributions in a non-transferrable way.
Enter Soulbound Tokens (SBTs).
Initially conceived by Vitalik Buterin in January of this year, SBTs can be used to represent accomplishments and reputation on-chain. Vitalik makes the analog to Soulbound Tokens in World of Warcraft. These items require work to obtain (i.e. they cannot be purchased) and once earned they are forever wielded by the user.
SBTs have the potential to impact any industry currently on-chain and many that are not. Some examples include:
\n Banking - an SBT denoting an individual has good credit could be referenced to give them an undercollateralized or zero collateral loan. This would be a massive boom to the DeFi space as it mirrors how most people do business in the real world (e.g. you do not need to put up collateral to use a credit card).
Governance - individuals with varying levels of responsibility could be given SBTs to denote aspects of governance such as what they can vote on and how much their vote is worth. Additionally, rewards could be delivered based on the level of SBT an individual has.
Housing - SBTs could be used to denote if an individual has (or does not have) an outstanding loan. Lenders would read these SBTs to determine if an individual qualifies for a mortgage.
Healthcare - SBTs could be used to denote if a person is an organ donor, has allergies, or has been vaccinated. Given the sensitivity of some of this information we would need to protect the privacy of the information cryptographically. Permissions could be given for users to either be able to see the presence of the SBT, read the SBT, or see nothing at all.
Social Media - Finally, we turn our attention to the focal point of this article, improving trust in authority on social media. We can leverage SBTs as well to solve for botted follower accounts and verification scams.
For example, we could implement SBTs tied to an individual completing a “Know Your Customer” (KYC) application. KYCs are typically required for investors interacting with centralized exchanges in the US. The individual must submit articles that prove their identity such as a social security number, passport, and driver’s license.
Upon completion of the KYC, an SBT could be generated to denote the individual has been verified. The SBT itself would not contain any personal information, and is tied to the individual rather than a single wallet. These SBTs would then be a requirement for social media account creation.
In this type of future there are several benefits including:
Humans only - bots are eradicated outside of special use cases. This would restore trust in both the follower counts we see and the people we interact with.
More challenging to compromise influential accounts - in a world in which your wallet is used to sign into your social media account, verified individuals could only be compromised if someone gains access to their wallet.
Further, we could move away from our reliance on followers and verification to denote authority. Instead, SBTs could be leveraged to reward good actors. Similar to how POAPs are used today, SBTs could be rewarded for attendance and participation. Additionally, rewards could be displayed (e.g. a spot on the NFT100 or Forbes 30 under 30). In this way, our wallets would start to become less about what we buy and more about who we are.
So how do we get there?
Fortunately, many companies are taking varying approaches to tackling reputation online.
Proof of Humanity is an on-chain identity registry where application approval requires others to vouch for you. The application consists of creating a profile including a video submission to prove they are human. After submitting a deposit (a scam deterrent), other users in the network can vouch that the applicant is indeed who they say they are. Once approved, registration is denoted on Ethereum Mainnet. Proof of Humanity hopes human authentication will serve use cases like Universal Basic Income (UBI), DAO voting (i.e. one human can not spread their votes across multiple wallets), and reputation systems (e.g. credit scores and rep points).
Curious Addys is using SBTs to reward individuals who ask and answer questions on their platform. By collecting badges individuals can both receive credit for their contributions and grow their reputation within the ecosystem.
Disco is taking an off-chain approach to reputation. Using Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs), an individual can prove ownership over Verifiable Credentials (VCs) for either themselves or others. These VCs are akin to SBTs and are used to represent identity, reputation, and membership. Relying Parties (e.g. applications) read VCs to inform what action to take. For example, a VC could be used to denote membership in a DAO. Upon the Relying Party recognizing the VC in an individual’s wallet, they are granted access to the DAO’s discord.
If you have the time I strongly recommend listening to Disco’s CEO Evin McMullen and Vitalik discuss the pros and cons to on- and off-chain reputation systems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbyVyVNsyys
Solving for reputation online has the potential to restore trust in our digital communities. By rewarding good actors and rooting out malicious ones, we will build a system based on merit and authenticity.
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