Publiq, Disrupting the Media Industry with Blockchain Technology

This article is mainly focused on the third talk ‘Reshaping the Media Industry using Blockchain’ given by Alexandre Tabbakh from PUBLIQ. Alexandre is the CEO of PUBLIQ and he is an expert in Fintech and Blockchain technology with in-depth knowledge of derivatives from his experiences at Société Générale and JP Morgan across Paris, Luxembourg and Hong Kong. He has been working with several Fintech startups, where he was in charge of building Blockchain-based workflows and Proof-of-Concepts protocol. His passion has grown into a drive to change many aspects of our global social, financial and media ecosystems to be more efficient, transparent, and secure.

Alexandre shared how he started with PUBLIQ. As we know, the population of human in the world today is around 7.476 Billion, and as of June 2017, 51% of the world’s population is on the internet. According to Alexandre,”‘Every 2 days, we create as much information as we did form the beginning of time until 2003’”.

This shows the enormous amount of data that is communicated every single day; coming from social media, websites and emails. Therefore, it is very important to make sure that the data is in very high quality and get filtered for its relevance and credibility. The unstoppable rise of the online media industry is crucial in transferring large volume of data, yet at the same time, most of the information are not checked or if checked, go through rigid censorship process that it doesn’t even see the light of day.

There are few problems emphasised by Alexandre, including unfair publishing and payment practices, over-centralization of current platforms with systematic censorship, the wealth generated is not transparently redistributed, micropayments solutions did not manage to convince readers, and ”Fake News” & “Alternative Facts” becoming powerful communication weapons.

So, how to make a content free and of high quality? How to rebuild trust into media? Below are the solutions that Alexandre discovered:

1. Reinvest using new technologies to improve the independence & impartiality of information.
2. Set a fair and transparent remuneration mechanism.
3. Enhance publishing & reading experience.

Alexandre explained Blockchain technology through explaining 3 things. Before Blockchain became a technology, it was a technique of encryption where blocks of data are tied one after another and are hashed, and have a cryptographic code. Next is about a distributive ledger, which means you share the same Blockchain throughout the network. And last is smart contract, a piece of code that automates an execution of action.

PUBLIQ is a non-profit foundation established to support and guard the interests and rights of both authors and users while maintaining a free media environment. The Blockchain-based decentralized digital content distribution network is for anyone who wants to share or publish news and any type of articles. It also offers an experience where merit-based rewards are distributed instantly, facilitating the experience of authors who are incentivized to fulfill their passion. PUBLIQ implements a sustainable model by using its utility tokens (PBQ).

The figure above shows the democratized media architecture that Publiq adopts. Publiq uses DApp (Decentralized applications) on DECENT blockchains. Its native token (PBQ) structure is a new business model valuable to the ecosystem. Encrypted at author’s level, PBQ gets distributed into the blockchain, and data are distributed offchain via peer-to-peer data distribution protocols.

The most important thing that ensure the ecosystem is healthy is the lifetime reputation. It is how the system ensures that the contents do not diverge from the reality. Using blockchain is one way of making sure that the reputation is there and remains permanent. Readers can give rating to the authors and this will affect the rewards distribution of the author. It works as both a gatekeeper and incentive for authors to publish only high quality content. The figure below is how the author’s workflow in this system.

To summarise the talk given by Alexandre, PUBLIQ is a very secure protocol, where users gain independence, direct and frictionless access to publish content into the ecosystem, the wealth is fully distributed and a lifetime reputation acts as incentive. Publiq has a sustainable business model that is free for users to broadcast in any channel and it also acts as a gatekeeper in PUBLIQ community.

As a conclusion, Blockchain technology is the future not just for one industry or country, but for several industries and jurisdictions. It is time to bring this opportunity forward and find the right solution to address current issues that we have in this world.