#MeToo On Blockchain : Chinese Activists Are Using Blockchain to Document #MeToo Stories

Speaking out about a personal incident, especially something pertaining to sexual assault is an emotionally draining experience.When the pressure of “society” pushes the victim or block them to silence, the turmoil henceforth is more grueling. To somewhat aid the victims in speaking about the injustice without being stopped, a Blockchain application namely, Every Snowflake has stepped in.

Blockchain Technology has a multitude of use cases, most prominent of them is the cryptocurrencies. One key beauty of blockchain technology is it’s decentralized approach that marginally aids in data integrity.  For instance, imagine a digital currency that can be distorted by someone be it a highly skilled user or the currency creator itself. Owners of such digital tokens will always be at a risk of losing their money at any given moment. Thankfully that is not the case, the first use-case for blockchain, cryptocurrency could not be corrupted or distorted as far as their data is concerned.  Thus cryptocurrencies are being considered as a transparent and efficient way of managing currency transactions.

Data integrity is the one of the biggest advantages of blockchain technology. Following are few questions which can help determine whether a particular problem/buisness requires blockchain technology or not:-

1. If the data collected is corrupted, how much do people suffer?
2. Do outsiders (perhaps hackers) have incentives to distort or change the data that the business is based upon?
3. How much does the business depend on other people being able to trust the data on which it is built?

Blockchain technology is being adopted in various business sectors across the world. Be it healthcare,fintech,real estate, etc. In short where there is a need for protection of data, there will be blockchain. One of the recent use case for which Blockchain is being used is about crime reporting.

#MeToo Cases On Blockchain

The data integrity feature of Blockchain has recently provided a platform for victims to come out and report their sexual assault stories without the fear of being shut down. Victims started to raise their voice in unison around late 2017, the Chinese social media was observing a rise in a number of stories surrounding sexual harassment and abuse of position in Chinese universities.

Initially, the movement was named, “Woyeshi”, the Chinese spelling of “Me Too”. In order to avoid an uproar, the Chinese government and technology platforms started to censor a variety of hashtags and keywords used on Weibo and Wechat to filter out such. First, woyeshi was censored, and then #MeToo, and finally “Rice Bunny”, which has the same pronunciation as “Me Too” in Chinese.

Forging a way out, blockchain technology was employed to record stories under the name “Every Snowflake”, as reported by HBR. The platform basically records sexual harassment stories on blockchain ledger, which makes it tamper-proof and the data cannot be censored.Thus, facts does not changes which is one of the essentials when it comes to crime reporting.

Though its not entirely foolproof, the site can be blocked, but blockchain will still have those records and could be directed to another site.

The Positives 

This particular use-case let the victims, to tell their stories uncensored, influential parties could not censor their voices, thoughts or delete the stories. The candidness provides a blunt and truthful version of their story, solving the data integrity issue of such cases via employing Every Snowflake.

The Negatives 

There will always be a flip side, Blockchain in a way guarantees the data lives forever; no corrections, alterations can be done. While good for some scenarios, in some cases that can be a big issue. Such as this case, supposedly the victim said something in the heat of the moment and wants to retract that particular public statement or if someone is wrongfully accused. Records cannot be deleted from blockchain which could be the best and the worst thing depending upon one perspective. Also, since facts or figures cannot be changed/altered, the victims may even misuse it.

ZTips: Blockchain Technology Based Crime Reporting Platform

As discussed above, blockchain technology can be useful in the case of crime reporting as well. In accordance to that, we have a new platform that helps facitilate just that: ZTips.

ZTips, founded by Opinder Preet Singh, is a blockchain technology based decentralized global platform that facilitates anonymous information exchange. Crime reporting is one very obvious use case where information seekers (law enforcement) and information providers (tipsters) can connect across the globe. It paves the way for a vast, interconnected crime solving and crime deterrent framework. Law enforcement agencies and tipsters interact on a platform that will provide data privacy, computational privacy and user anonymity.

ZTips will be launching their DApp on the Ethereum blockchain soon and have possible plans to deploy smart contracts on other blockchains and also create their own blockchain.

As mentioned on the website, ZTIps is the first of its kind to deploy Zapp, Ethereum decentralized applications (dapps) that use privacy tech built on the zero knowldge proofs. On having discussion with various blockchain developers in India and understanding their projects, I realised that ZTips is extraordinary and a one-of-a-kind blockchain project.

We have seen so many use-cases of Blockchain Technology in recent times, but decentralized crime reporting could be one of the biggest.

Also Read:- India Ranked At Position 2 In The List Of Countries With Most Number Of Blockchain Developers

Watch this video to understand more about Ztips:-

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