{"id":92210,"date":"2025-12-15T15:35:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T12:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=92210"},"modified":"2025-12-15T16:09:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T13:09:24","slug":"vitalik-buterin-advocates-for-zk-technology-in-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/vitalik-buterin-advocates-for-zk-technology-in-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Vitalik Buterin Calls for ZK-Proofs in Social Media"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has urged social media executives to adopt cryptographic and blockchain tools. According to him, this would render content ranking systems transparent and verifiable.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I would go further. ZK-prove every decision made by the algorithm (ideally have content and likes\/RTss timestamped onchain so the server can&#8217;t censor or lie about time), and commit to publishing the full algorithm code with a 1-2 year delay.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/VitalikButerin\/status\/2000441734111567873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 15, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>To address the issue, Buterin proposed using <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-is-a-zero-knowledge-proof\">zero-knowledge proofs<\/a>. This technology would confirm the fairness of algorithms determining the reach of posts.<\/p>\n<p>The Ethereum co-founder also recommended:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>recording all posts, likes, and retweets on the blockchain to protect against censorship and time manipulation;<\/li>\n<li>publishing the full algorithm code with a 1-2 year delay.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The initiative was supported by Ethereum Foundation&#8217;s AI lead Davide Crapis.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">if you want to claim X is the platform for free speech, you should disclose your algorithm optimization targets<\/p>\n<p>it should be legible to the users, and tweakable<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Davide Crapis (@DavideCrapis) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DavideCrapis\/status\/2000394686763237800?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 15, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>He noted that the platform should disclose its algorithm optimization goals so that users understand how they operate.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Social Media Under Regulatory Pressure<\/h2>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/sustainability\/boards-policy-regulation\/meta-buried-causal-evidence-social-media-harm-us-court-filings-allege-2025-11-23\/\">Reuters<\/a>, Meta has shut down its internal research on Facebook&#8217;s impact on mental health. This followed the company&#8217;s discovery of evidence of harm caused by its products.<\/p>\n<p>Research indicated that abstaining from Facebook for just a week reduces levels of depression, anxiety, and loneliness. A separate scientific <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/doi\/10.1073\/pnas.2321584121\">report<\/a> from 2024 linked access to this social network with increased susceptibility to misinformation.<\/p>\n<p>The European Union is <a href=\"https:\/\/eur-lex.europa.eu\/eli\/reg\/2022\/2065\/oj\/eng\">tackling<\/a> the issue through the Digital Services Act (DSA), which mandates platforms to be transparent about their algorithms and assess risks to public safety and elections.<\/p>\n<p>The DSA also requires providing independent researchers with access to social media data. <a href=\"https:\/\/digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu\/en\/news\/commission-fines-x-eu120-million-under-digital-services-act\">X&#8217;s refusal<\/a> to comply with this condition was one reason for the \u20ac120 million fine imposed by the European Commission.<\/p>\n<p>Additional complaints against Elon Musk&#8217;s company include:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>lack of transparency in the advertising repository;<\/li>\n<li>misleading users through the &#8220;blue check&#8221; system: the commission emphasized that anyone can obtain paid verification status on X without real identity verification.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In November, Buterin <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/vitalik-buterin-criticizes-geolocation-feature-in-x\">spoke out<\/a> against the geolocation feature in X, calling it &#8220;risky.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Buterin urged social media leaders to use blockchain tools. He believes this will make content ranking systems transparent and verifiable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"Buterin urged social media to adopt blockchain tools for transparency.","creation_source":"ai_translated","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[25,1142,465,200],"class_list":["post-92210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-blockchain","tag-cryptography","tag-social-media","tag-vitalik-buterin"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"166","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"Buterin urged social media to adopt blockchain tools for transparency.","is_update":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92210"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92213,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92210\/revisions\/92213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}