Empowering equality: How Web3 and AI technologies can transform information access in emerging markets

Integrating blockchain and AI revolutionizes information accessibility, empowering user-driven content dissemination and challenging censorship and misinformation.

Carrying digital content on blockchain, REVOX integrates AI to provide enhanced access to information.

The internet revolutionized how people engage with information, offering unprecedented ease of access and communication, which fueled an explosion of digital content. Yet, challenges inherent to Web2 have begun to restrict the public’s ability to access diverse content and news. 

The monopolization of major media companies allows them to disseminate only what they deem acceptable for their business model and relationships, as prominent thinkers such as Noam Chomsky and Ben Bagdikian mention in their books, restricting information flow, especially in the context of journalism. Moreover, governments of many developing nations are actively censoring the internet to manipulate the masses in line with their national agenda or to avoid public repercussions. 

Such restrictions, along with the emergence of deceptive technologies like deepfake, result in the proliferation of fake news and lead to a general distrust of the internet. Thus, people are increasingly resorting to the internet for entertainment purposes.  

In underdeveloped regions, this phenomenon is even more pronounced. The development of mobile internet and social networks has propelled the population of underdeveloped areas, which comprises two-thirds of the global population, into the information explosion era. However, only entertainment content has managed to ride the wave of mobile internet, and the right to equal access to information has yet to be realized, leaving abundant educational resources underutilized. Compared to accessing free dance videos and music, the public remains indifferent to political issues, globalization and climate change. 

Applied first to democratize finance, blockchain carries the potential to provide extended access to free-flowing information and circumvent censorship as well. One project utilizes the technology, along with other cutting-edge technologies, to achieve this objective and mediate the healthy flow of news and information. 

Integrating AI for content hunt 

REVOX.AI is a permissionless ecosystem focusing on decentralized application innovation and online content indexing. Previously ReadON — a Cointelegraph Accelerator participant — the project has upgraded to a modular on-chain artificial intelligence (AI) network to provide equal access to information. 

The rebranded blockchain now utilizes AI for its flagship products. Content Hub, an essential component of the ecosystem, integrates AI to index information from all around the world, categorize content and assess the quality of each category through related evaluation models. 

Meanwhile, REVOX is advancing with its flagship product, ReadON DAO — an AI-powered decentralized content aggregation and distribution decentralized application (DApp). The platform delivers indexed content to audiences worldwide without filtering, censorship, or bias. By doing so, alongside the Content Hub, it promotes the idea of content democracy. 

Language remains a constant barrier to information dissemination. Regions with less commonly spoken languages face “supply discrimination.” Although Indonesia accounts for 2.5% of the global population, the proportion of Indonesian language content on the internet is less than 0.7%. 

A crucial application of AI in ReadON DAO is its ability to provide cross-language content translation. Currently, it supports English, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Indonesian, Chinese, Hindi, Turkish and Vietnamese. 

By offering intelligent assistance to enhance retrieval efficiency, REVOX effectively removes language barriers in the digital content market, bridging information gaps and breaking down silos. This seamless flow of information has the potential to raise awareness and unite global audiences on critical issues such as politics, globalization and climate change. 

A screenshot of the ReadON DAO. Source: REVOX 

REVOX also encourages users to take part in content circulation by employing cryptocurrency economics. Users who discover and disseminate quality content are rewarded with varying amounts of cryptocurrency. Another product, ShareON, is a Telegram mini program that provides a daily content feed and rewards users based on interaction. 

REVOX’s content distribution philosophy for the consumer market leverages crypto economics to incentivize the discovery of high-quality content and its dissemination through social networks. Users can stake tokens using a proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism to “predict” quality content. 

When other users validate the quality of the content, the original stakers receive corresponding rewards. By utilizing crypto economics, users can autonomously control the content distribution process and make democratic decisions about content dissemination. REVOX’s approach eliminates censorship and protects user privacy. 

REVOX incentivizes and autonomously manages high-quality content discovery and dissemination. Source: REVOX 

In this way, users decide which content to show as a priority on the platform. Cryptocurrencies function as a tool that allows democratic decision-making in the ecosystem. Participants can vote on content dissemination by staking tokens, thus bypassing censorship and privacy violations. 

Championing freedom of information 

Currently, ReadON DAO has already established itself, reaching a user base of over 2 million. Its mobile app has been downloaded a million times in Google Play and has become the most popular free news app in countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan and Nigeria. The project also formed a social media network on Telegram and stays connected with ecosystem participants on this channel. 

On how REVOX contributes to the freedom of information in developing countries, a user from Iran said: 

“I live in an area where the only thing people have learned from the internet is to download movies and songs for free and check Insta and WhatsApp stories, and they consider the whole web world a fraud. I intend that these people I want to introduce these to the web world. I want to be a tradition breaker of our city. […] It was a guide, I felt this with all my heart.” 

A mature business model 

Instead of relying on token issuance for revenue, REVOX has developed a stable and mature business model, as demonstrated by their publicly available information. New users serve as fresh blood for the industry, completing their industry education through the REVOX network. 

REVOX established partnerships with exchanges in regions such as Nigeria and Indonesia. Traditional industry giants interested in engaging Web3 users are eager to experiment with new approaches, such as issuing NFTs and granting certain rights to these assets, as a way to capture the attention of younger users. 

REVOX aims to offer significant value in both customer acquisition channels and technical services, with partnerships already established with companies, including LINE and Japan Airlines. 

In the current environment of entertainment-heavy information overload, practitioners of revolutionary technologies like blockchain and AI are gradually taking on greater social responsibilities. High-quality content and information are often controlled by the world’s elite, and decentralization is here to change that. Projects like REVOX work to break these barriers and spread quality content and information to everyone through AI and decentralized methods.