Chinese Activists Are Using Blockchain to Document #MeToo Stories

All too often blockchain startup ideas don’t really need blockchain. Data integrity is the main benefit conferred by blockchain technology so blockchain makes sense when a company or project has data that is valuable or unique in a way that gives outsiders sufficient economic incentives to launch attacks to try and corrupt or otherwise change it. That’s why a recent use of blockchain technology in China by the #MeToo movement is so interesting. In late 2017, increasing number of stories were being shared on Chinese social media surrounding sexual harassment and abuse of position in Chinese universities. The Chinese government and technology platforms made repeated attempts to filter out such stories by censoring a variety of hashtags and keywords that campaigners used on Weibo and Wechat. As a result, campaigners turned to blockchain technology to record their stories under the name “Every Snowflake”. This is a use-case that fulfills the three criteria outlined above. Victims desperately want to not be censored; other parties have a deep interest in censoring them; and people can only find value in stories of discrimination if they have not been censored.