Tru creates a forum for honest exploration of all viewpoints, where everyone has a right to speak their own truth, a responsibility to hear others, and a space to respond skillfully.
“In most arguments, both sides are correct in what they affirm and wrong in what they deny.~ John Stuart Mill
“The problem isn’t what we don’t know. It's what we do know for sure that just ain’t so.”~ Mark Twain
Tru does not use an algorithm to distribute content to “users” by tracking their individual interests and behavior, nor a “social graph” to connect individual users to each other.
Tru creates an entirely new model where people form real social groups, groups publish their best content, and each group subscribes to other groups to get filtered content.
Each person can prove they are the same actor overtime. Forcing real identity is not the solution, persistent pseudonymous identity is required for free speech.
Each person can choose what to share and how to interact without being tracked and profiled.
Each person is responsible for their own behavior and others can hold them accountable over time, including what they choose to post, repost and publish.
The chain-of-custody for content can be traced back to the party who first posted it and each party that published and promoted it can be verified.
Content can be checked and either verified and corroborated, or disputed and invalidated, by other 3rd parties who also build reputation.
Tru combines these principles in the Tru Line™, a chain-of-custody based on digital identity, privacy and reputation that provides the foundation for validating content.
Publishing on Tru anchors the author’s copyright and builds their reputation in networks of trust. This also provides a foundation for publishing credible content on the internet.
On Tru, people create and join “Hubs”.
A Hub is the basic social unit on Tru. Each Hub represents a real social group who can interact privately inside the Hub’s “forum”.
Hubs subscribe to other Hubs to receive published content in their forum.
The Tru Line™ is the backbone of Tru – a digitally signed record that shows where content was first posted, published and republished, and by whom.
People can join Hubs as members, and people can also subscribe to a Hub to receive its published content in their Home feed.
People can create Hubs as an individual blog, for family or friends, to convene a group conversation, or to publish on a topic.
Organizations can create Hubs to represent any legal entity, or group within one or more organizations.
Each Hub has curators who decide which other Hubs to subscribe to, which people become members, and what content to publish.
Curation – Tru delegates the responsibility, authority and power to convene and curate a social forum to the curators of each Hub.
Publishing – The curators of each Hub decide which other Hubs to subscribe to, and also thereby list as trusted sources.
Reputation – The curators of each Hub are responsible for what it chooses to publish and their Hub builds a reputation based on those decisions.
Each Hub builds a reputation based on the quality of the content in the posts it chooses to publish and republish.
Each Hub also vouches for the other Hubs that it subscribes to and creates a network of trust made up of its own list, connected to the lists on those Hubs.
Each account on Tru and builds a reputation based on what they choose to post and repost on Hubs where they are a member.
Each person builds a personal reputation based on how they behave as a member in forums.
People who have been asked to leave by multiple Hubs develop a reputation and other Hubs may not allow them to join.
Content and sources can be checked and either verified and corroborated, or disputed and invalidated, by other Hubs, including those curated by other 3rd party verifiers.
People who post or repost a lot of content that is discredited by highly respected Hubs develop a reputation for bad judgement, or worse.
Content
Content must be published and republished by multiple Hubs for it to move across the network at scale. This means that content which has little basis in fact comes under repeated scrutiny where it can be refuted, disputed and critiqued before it reaches a large audience. This makes it difficult for fantasy “theories” masquerading as fact to get traction, and makes it much more likely for people who have been sucked into cult-like loops to be exposed to other contradictory views and real information.
Networks
Tru will only allow content to be published privately between Hubs within "networks", which may represent large organizations or networks of organizations, movements and associations. Networks enter into a more highly scrutinized commercial relationship with Tru, where the terms explicitly prohibit intentionally promoting disinformation and lies. Violation of those commercial terms can result in suspension or revocation of the network’s capacity to circulate content privately between hubs, or ultimately the dissolution of the network.
Troll School
Tru is designed to be a learning system that creates game rules that support personal evolution and growth. So, as part of that ecosystem Tru recognizes independent Hubs where a person who flunked kindergarten and has been kicked out of too many Hubs for “troll-like” behavior may be allowed to join as a last resort to get honest personal feedback, learn how to behave better and thereby earn a reputation as a graduate from “troll school” – analogous to going to traffic school.
Violence and Hate Speech
Tru does not tolerate advocating, planning, organizing or celebrating physical violence against people and specifically prohibits "hate speech". If you feel compelled to argue about that, you should probably go somewhere else.
Any Hub that is consistently identified as engaging in activity that violates the above prohibition on hate speech will be warned, and if numerous credible reports of that activity continue, the Hub will be shut down. The individual account responsible for the Hub will also be suspended, and accounts of individuals active as curators on that Hub will also be suspended.
Trafficking
Trafficking in people, endangered species or weapons is strictly prohibited on Tru.
Tru will run automated image processing to detect evidence of any such activity, and will seek credible, independent, non-profit organizations whose mission is to stop such activity globally or in a geographic region where such activity is discovered. Tru will turn over any evidence discovered to appropriate independent non-governmental entities to investigate. If such an entity finds credible evidence of such activity, then Tru will assist that entity to infiltrate the group and authorize that entity to pass on the results of that investigation to the appropriate authorities for criminal prosecution.
