Civil Council’s Statement on the Blockchain Trailblazer’s Appeal

This first appeal to the Civil Council calls for three decisions. There is the central issue of ruling on the community vote in support of the challenge to Blockchain Trailblazers. Two other issues, discussed below, emerged as Derek Little, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, sought to remedy some of the challenge’s complaints about Blockchain Trailblazers while voting was still in process.

As a result, the Council will address three questions:

• Question 1: Should the community vote in support of the challenge to Blockchain Trailblazers be upheld?
• Question 2: Did Blockchain Trailblazers come into compliance with the Civil Constitution during the voting period?
• Question 3: If a newsroom brings itself into compliance during the voting period, should the Council take that course of conduct into consideration in making its decision?

What follows is the Civil Council opinion.

Question 1: Should the community vote in support of the challenge Blockchain Trailblazer be upheld?

Council’s opinion: YES. The challenge was merited and the community’s vote was reasonable.

The challenger’s complaint can be seen in its entirety here. Below are three key assertions made about Blockchain Trailblazers:

1. They publish third-party content, that is both unverified and sometimes inaccurately bylined by Derek Little

2. They have published at least one press release, and did so under a “Trailblazer admin” byline

3. “No independent journalism anywhere on the site”

The Council agrees that items #1 and #2 are indeed in violation of the Civil Constitution. Specifically, the following provisions:

IV. Accuracy: Newsrooms will aim to operate with journalistic integrity, keeping their responsibility to the public at the fore. They should aim to report and present facts with the highest degree of accuracy possible given the circumstances. This may include:

- verifying information before releasing it (including verifying third-party content)

- consulting first-person sources; avoiding exclusive reliance on third-party reports where possible, acknowledging when this is not possible

- acknowledging where information comes from, and crediting other news organizations where appropriate as sources

One Council member neatly summarized our opinion: “The examples cited by the challenger seem valid in terms of questioning whether this site is practicing journalism the way journalism is defined generally and also under the Civil Constitution.” Another Council member goes farther: “posting press releases is not a small error, it is a fundamental transgression of standards.”

On point #3, the Council finds the challenger’s assertion that there was no independent journalism to be unreasonable. Because we can see the original interviews on the site, which Derek Little flags in his response, we reject that claim. However, Little’s 10-step approach to interviewing business leader for profiles did not help his case insofar as it indicates a lack of journalistic rigor. He goes so far as to cite praise from one of the companies he covered as evidence of quality. That in and of itself points to a lack of understanding of responsible reporting.

Question 2: Did Blockchain Trailblazers come into compliance during the voting period?

Council’s opinion: NO. In fact, some of Blockchain Trailblazer’s actions in response to the challenge put it in violation of other parts of the Civil Constitution.

Derek Little’s appeal is in large part based on his assertion that he remedied issues as they were brought to his attention. “All issues raised in the challenge have been rectified”. More specifically, “Any over-use of third-party content on my website has been removed.”

However, Little removed that content without any public disclosure and editor’s note. This makes the newsroom out of compliance with the transparency and accountability provisions of the Civil Constitution. Further, he fails to respond to the publication of a press release (only saying that it has been removed).

As one Council member put it, “The site wasn’t in compliance with the Constitution when challenged, and the remedy itself betrayed a lack of understanding of the Civil Constitution’s standards (deleting bad articles when called out runs afoul not only of transparency, but of an ethic of permanence).”

Said another of the deletions: “That alone seems a violation of the journalistic norms and the Constitution — and also kind of defeats a core tenet of blockchain verifiability/proof of authorship, etc.”

And finally, “The goal of news groups on Civil is to be self-regulating, which means they should internalize and hold the standards & ethics outlined in our Constitution sacred. These errors are very basic violations, and while Little corrected them, it still meant someone had to hold him to account.”

Question 3: If a newsroom brings itself into compliance during the voting period, should that conduct be the basis for a decision?

Council’s opinion: Decision deferred as alternative remedies are discussed and tested.

This issue is complicated by potentially dueling motivations.

On the one hand, allowing consideration of newsroom improvement during the challenge period has significant crypto economic implications. Specifically, if the Council were to reverse a community vote because we think the newsroom has atoned, it would mean the challenger would lose 5,000 Civil Tokens staked, the newsroom would win 2,500 Civil Tokens, and the voters who agreed to the challenge would lose their reward and instead it would go to the other voters (which in this case appears to be only the newsroom itself). While this could be viewed as a “win” for the newsroom for atoning, it’s also a “penalty” to the challenger who raised a good issue in the first place.

On the other hand, the higher purpose of Civil is to support quality journalism and incentivize good behavior. In that sense, it gives us some heartburn to suggest that errors that are remedied well and in good faith should be unduly punished. One council member suggests that it depends on the “nature/scope/magnitude of the violations.” As another council member put it, “if the violations amount to a small percentage of the site’s content, then yes I think it makes sense for a newsroom to be able to absolve itself by correcting them during the challenge period. But if the errors or violations are fundamental in nature (posting press releases, unacknowledged deletions, practices that don’t include verification, etc.), then no, it doesn’t.”

For that reason, the Council is interested in finding other remedies to avoid unfortunate and unnecessary consequences. We invite further community discussion and potential solutions for flagging problems to newsrooms prior to a formal challenge to avert a bad outcome.

Path forward for Blockchain Trailblazers

The Council makes note of Derek Little’s responsiveness to valid criticism, and his eagerness to bring his site into compliance. We applaud and encourage this kind of openness. He admits that his website “has been a work in process.” That “as my knowledge and number of original articles have increased, the need for supporting third-party content has been significantly reduced.’’ And that “If “any” small changes are still needed, I will gladly make them.”

We would encourage Little to seek support from experienced journalists to help him achieve his goals in ways that are journalistically sound. Once in compliance, he should feel welcome to re-apply to the Civil Registry.

A word about the Civil Council’s approach

In making this first decision, the Council had some discussion about our approach to appeals and our standards of review. In this we analogize our process to the judicial process (but without distinguishing “factual” from “legal” analysis) with the help of Civil Council member, Ellen Goodman, who shares the following options on how the Council might approach its decision-making:

· De novo reviews. The Council is not influenced by what the community decided about the complaint. Instead, we look at the complaint and all the underlying documents/practices and make an independent judgment. This means that in close calls, there’s no thumb on the scale for the earlier decision. Possible justifications for this include be a situation where the challenger cherry picks information without taking into account the broader context of the site as a whole.

· Deferential review. The Council gives deference to the community decision and only overturns it if we find it “clearly erroneous” (most deferential) or maybe not supported by sufficient evidence (a little less so). This means that in close calls, the Council would probably affirm. Possible justifications for this would be that we want this to be community driven and the Council’s role is really just to make sure there is no grave injustice.

It’s the Council’s view that we largely assume a “deferential” posture to review as that is in the spirit of Civil’s cooperative governance. Without it, the community process loses some of its vigor and legitimacy. However, we reserve the right to a deeper review where we may perceive that an otherwise legitimate newsroom is being voted off for relatively minor or transient infractions. We don’t imagine this will happen often, or ever.

We welcome community input on our approach.