Blockchain for Social Good: Combating Misinformation on the Web with AI and Blockchain

Abstract

The spread of deceptive or misleading information, commonly referred to as misinformation, poses a social, economic, and political threat. Such deceptive information spreads quickly and inexpensively. For example, with the hype around blockchain technologies, misinformation on “get rich quick” scams on the Web is rampant, as evidenced by sophisticated Twitter hacks of celebrities and many social media posts that bait unsuspecting users to visit phishing websites. Unfortunately, AI technologies have contributed to the growing pains of misinformation on the Web, with the advances in technologies such as generative adversarial deep learning techniques that can generate “deep fakes” for nefarious purposes. At the same time, researchers are working on a different set of AI technologies to combat misinformation, akin to “fighting fire with fire.” As there is no clear way to win the online “cat-and-mouse” game against fake news generators and spreaders of misinformation, we believe social media platforms could be fortified with blockchain and AI technologies to mitigate the extent of misinformation propagation in various communities worldwide. Tamper-proof blockchain techniques can provide irrefutable evidence of what content is authentic, guaranteeing how the information has evolved with provenance trails. Various AI models that could be used for detecting fake news can be served on a blockchain for the effective and transparent utility of the model. Such a synergistic combination of AI and blockchain is a burgeoning area of research. This paper outlines a proposal for combining blockchain and AI techniques for handling misinformation on the Web and highlights some of the early ongoing work in this space.