Beyond the Upvote

Why Random Juries will Save Online Trust

Most online platforms in today’s world rely on broad participation. Anyone, anywhere, can upvote or downvote content based on their personal inclinations. While this approach is excellent for surfacing interesting material, it’s inherently susceptible to manipulation by interested parties. Trending content isn’t necessarily trustworthy—it’s often just sensational or appealing to the loudest clickers, people who care enough to show up and click a “like” or “upvote” button. Small groups of hyper-partisans can therefore massively distort attention markets.

This model works for viral memes and hot takes but fails when our goal is finding explanations that everyone—not just one side of the debate—can understand and trust. If we want to incentivize the creation of clear, credible information, we need a new mechanism: a system where small groups of randomly selected individuals from diverse perspectives deliberate and agree on what’s reasonable. Beyond that, a system where the people producing those clear and credible explanations understand that’s the ruler by which their work will be measured so that they are continuously pressured to follow that standard.

Some of you may be saying, “but that’s the old system!” and for what it’s worth, we agree. Our radical proposition is that the things humanity has historically done to establish truth simply need to be brought to the internet. If what follows seems complicated, just remember we’ve already done all of this before.

The Case for Impartial Juries

Enter the jury system, but with a digital twist. Instead of everyone weighing in on whatever they want, a randomly selected, demographically balanced panel reviews the evidence given to them in a queue. Their job? Decide whether an argument or explanation is compelling and credible. No one is allowed to choose which content they are going to review. You’re assigned content to review.

So long as the content is in the public interest, it can be put up for review.

This system as a whole mirrors the ancient principles of blind review and adversarial audit, combined with modern insights into group dynamics and incentives. Here’s how it works:

1. Adversarial Evidence Presentation: Just like a courtroom, two opposing parties (pro and con) present their strongest arguments and evidence. Both sides are incentivized—not just with reputation but also monetary rewards, ie they are paid more if they win—to do their best job. The jury knows that each individual presenting the evidence was given maximum reward to put forth an honest effort.

2. Jury Deliberation: The jury doesn’t just vote; they deliberate. Their task is to weigh the evidence and agree on whether the presented information meets agreed-upon standards of clarity, trustworthiness, and balance. The vote is secret, ensuring group dynamics do not result in peer pressure.

3. Transparency and Accountability: The jury’s final decision isn’t hidden. The reasoning behind their verdict, along with the evidence, is published in an accessible format. Anyone can review the evidence they were presented as well as their conclusions.

Incentivizing Honesty

To make this system work, participants need clear stakes:

• Reputation Scoring: Just as the Trust Assembly concept suggests, individuals and groups gain or lose reputation based on their performance in these debates. This is not a system where a lie told one time profits the liar over the long run. A deliberate lie discovered at any point is devastating to reputation. Like in real life, reputation is slow to build and quick to lose.

• Monetary Rewards: By compensating participants for thorough, honest engagement, we align economic incentives with truth-seeking behaviors. High reputation means higher payout and low reputation means higher costs.

Unlike current systems, where trust often depends on loudness or tribal allegiance, this approach forces opposing sides to grapple with the actual substance of an argument. Success requires convincing not just their allies but also skeptics in the room.

Why This Matters

The traditional upvote-driven model incentivizes what’s popular, not what’s true. A jury system breaks this loop, creating a feedback mechanism that rewards clarity and reliability. It’s about moving away from sensationalism and fostering a culture where trust is built through rigorous, transparent adjudication.

At its core, this vision isn’t about silencing anyone—it’s about amplifying explanations that can survive scrutiny from all sides. If the goal is truth as a direction rather than a static end, this might just be our best bet.

And if new evidence comes to light, the process is open for continual adjudication. However, this is all economized, with well tested claims being more expensive to dispute than low faith claims. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. While we assume truth to exist, we also humans are imperfect and can only move toward truth slowly.