There are many experiments on the blockchain right now. But one of the models I'm most excited to see experimented with is democracy. Most blockchain projects are purely economic and take as few stances as possible. The principle usually goes: "We give people the option to make money. And we make it monetarily expensive for them to do things we don't want them to do. Our platform may allow illegal activity, but our decentralized nature makes that not our problem."

That's not how society works.

Society is built on updatable moral codes: shoulds and should nots. How do you balance the need for public roads with the right to private property? What kind of behavior qualifies as "polite" or "kind"? What kind of behavior qualifies as "unacceptable"? And these things change over time. At one point in time in the United States it was illegal to sell a house in certain neighborhoods to a black family. Now it's now illegal to refuse to sell someone a home based on their race. (Even if those racist laws haven't always been taken off the books). How do we experiment with bringing that level of societal discourse to the blockchain?

One answer is Civil.

Civil is fascinating to me for one main reason: it's attempting democracy on the blockchain. Civil has 5 players in their democracy:

• A constitution
  • written by the Civil Foundation and The Public
  • can be updated by the Civil Council and The Voting Public
• Civil Registry
  • collection of all approved Newsrooms
  • kept in check by The Voting Public (via initial approval, challenges, and votes), The Public (through monetary support and readership)
• The Voting Public
  • anyone who buys CVL tokens
  • kept in check by each other and the Civil Council (we'll get into this more below)
• Civil Foundation/Civil Council
  • Civil Foundation currently oversees the set up of the Civil platform and launch. It seems that the plan is to cede judiciary control to the Civil Council within the first ~13 months of the platform launch.
  • the role of the Civil Council will be defined by The Public approved by The Voting Public in the first year after launch. (See more in the Civil Council Initial Iteration section here)
• The Public
  • anyone
  • can enjoy the Newsroom's content in line with a Newsroom's business model
  • can support a Newsroom monetarily

How do the checks and balances in this democracy work?

The Constitution, like any democratic country's constitution, lays out the moral framework for the Civil platform. It defines journalistic standards all Newsrooms much follow in order to be a part of the platform. The Civil Constitution is being crafted by the Civil Foundation with considerable input from The People. The Voting Public can also propose or challenge changes to the Constitution.

In order to publish on the Civil Protocol, Newsrooms must be listed on the Civil Registry. In order to be listed on the registry, Newsrooms must apply: supplying The Voting Public with a information including their mission, business model, roster of journalists, and a signed pledge to uphold the Constitution. The Newsrooms must also stake a given amount of CVL token to apply. The Voting Public then votes on whether or not a Newsroom should be allowed to join the Registry. In addition, any member of The Voting Public can challenge a Newsroom's position on the registry by staking CVL and detailing the ways in which the accused Newsroom has violated the Constitution.

The Voting Public has a variety of roles. In addition to all the benefits of being part of The Public, The Voting Public can vote! (As the name suggests). As mentioned previously, TVP has a say in who gets to be on the platform, as well as accusing Newsrooms of violating the constitution. Once such an accusation has been made, all members of The Voting Public will vote on the accusation. On the outcome of the vote, the losing group's stake will be distributed amongst the winning group. If the Newsroom loses, they will be removed from the Civil Registry. The Council can veto The Voting Public's decision, but the Council's decision can be overturned by a supermajority.

The Civil Foundation and the Civil Council's roles are a little nebulous. It's clear that the Civil Foundation has been responsible thus far for setting Civil up, getting the community together, and launching the platform. However, it seems like that much of the judiciary and executive tasks may fall to the as-of-yet-undefined Civil Council. While it is clear that the Civil Council will maintain a judiciary role (as outlined in the paragraph above), the full details of the Civil Council's role will be defined by a collaboration between the Council and The Voting Public.

In the indirect democracy that is the United States, we have three branches of government: Executive, Judicial, and Legislative. However, Civil is a direct democracy platform. So instead of three branches, all parties have some role in each branch. This is above all an experiment. And I think one of the most engaging and interesting social experiments blockchain has to offer at the moment. There are so many questions:

• Does direct democracy work on a global scale via the internet?
• How does democracy slide into plutocracy and how does one prevent such a thing from occurring?
• Will their be enough engagement among The Voting Public for this to be a healthy ecosystem? What are the thresholds for "healthy" engagement in a democracy?
• The internet taught us to expect things for free. So people created clickbait to draw engagement and sell it. What models will Newsrooms try and which will work?
• How politically divided will discourse get? Will it create gridlock in Civil the way Congress is in gridlock?

I'm excited to see more experiments like Civil. I'm excited for global tokenization to enable collaboration across borders and create social structures around microcauses in ways we haven't even begun to imagine yet. Can democracy work on the blockchain? I'm ready to find out.

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Resources

• Civil official resources: Website | Twitter | Constitution | Whitepaper | Token sale (Sept 18 - Oct 15 2018)
• ZigZag: two journalists document their journey into Civil via podcast.