A robust and resilient communication infrastructure is essential to the development of democratic processes and knowledge formation. Decentralized systems have the potential to enable and defend a broad spectrum of constructive speech, if they are able to provide the necessary mechanisms to counteract attacks on the system such as from AI, private interests, and state controlled influence campaigns. How might we design decentralized systems to deal with these issues? Can they avoid context collapse and promote normative coherence, but still allow space for evolving ideas and constructive debate?
Decentralized sociotechnical systems can enable scaled cooperation across communities, from the beautifully small to the formidably global. In order to do so effectively, we must be able to design systems for identity, reputation, moderation, and governance. Project Odessa builds on theoretical designs and provides a mobile app sandbox for such experimental implementations. This work-in-progress allows researchers to empirically evaluate strategies for constructive communication and social cooperation.