New Grant Application - Lens of Truth

UMA Protocol Funding Proposals
1

Name of Project:
Lens of Truth

Proposer:
arjanjohan
arjanjohan@gmail.com

Summary
Lens of Truth is content verification system for Lens Protocol, which uses UMA Protocol to verify posted content. The initial target users are companies, influencers and other larger accounts, who are willing/able to pay a bond to submit a request on UMA. The functionality is optional, and it can be extended to include other verification methods for smaller users. We believe implementing content verification can be just as valuable for the Lens ecosystem as community notes is for Twitter.

Detailed description
At the EthPrague hackathon we have built a social dapp on Lens, where companies can share their environmental and social impact. The unique feature of our dapp is a verification badge under each post, aimed to prevent green-washing and false claims. Each post first gets created on Lens, and in the background a request is created on UMA Protocol. UMA stakers verify the content of the post, and can raise a dispute if the content is incorrect. After that, the verification status will be visible under the post.

We received a lot of positive feedback, so we continued fleshing out this idea. We want to integrate this functionality directly in Lens Protocol, making it available for all projects building on Lens. We believe that by creating a direct interaction between Lens and UMA, all proposals that will be created via Lens are created in a consistent and uniform manner.

We want to make an additional and optional feature for the Lens createPost function. A Lens dapp can enable verification on the createPost function. For each post, the poster can enable this via a checkbox, after which the post content is sent to UMA for verification. The Lens post will store 2 additional values, the verification method and a unique identifier (UMA request ID). After the verification is completed, the verification status can be displayed next to the post on the front-end.

Value Add
Implementing a direct link between Lens and UMA will result in more activity on UMA. Also, this could be an incentive for Lens users to become active members of the UMA community and start staking and voting as well.

Milestones

  1. Milestone 1: Modify createPost and post in Lens
    Success factors:
    – createPost can send content to UMA
    – Store request Id in the post object.
    – Retrieve UMA status via Lens contract
    Payout: 30% of budget
    Time for completion: 1 month

  2. Milestone 2: Simple proof of concept dapp showcasing these features
    Success factors:
    – A small Lens dapp where users can create a post, which will be verified via UMA, and display the UMA status via front-end.
    Payout: 30% of budget
    Time for completion: 1 month

  3. Milestone 3: Implement in existing Lens dapps
    Success factors:
    – We implement this solution in at least 1 existing Lens dapp (with help of their teams)
    Payout: 40% of budget
    Time for completion: 4 months

Total Budget Requested
6300 $UMA

What percentage of the grant would you retain to secure the Optimistic Oracle by voting
50%

Team
MatĂ­as - full-stack developer
github
Arjan - smart contract & backend developer
github
David - smart contract & backend developer
github

Additional Information
Below are some links with details on the proof of concept dapp we have built at EthPrague:
ethylene devfolio
ethylene github

2

I really like how this proposal builds on top of the Lens’ on-chain posts and can be referenced by any Lens front-end. I think making your verification property fully composable with all Lens posts (newly created and pre-existing) and making the verification status easily shown on all front-ends will be key. I would encourage you to reach out to the Lens team and a few Lens front-ends at the start of your development to help direct your development.

I’m generally in support of this application, but would suggest the payout of Milestone 3 be upped to 50% as I think it would be the most difficult milestone and I want to incentivize the team to find adoption.

1 Like
3

I also think that the proposal should add some more technical detail on how Lens of Truth’s smart contracts would interact with Lens and what specific functionality the front-end will include.

You can see a few other recent grant proposals linked below for reference that have a more detail around technical requirements and milestones:

1 Like
4

Thanks for your response, we appreciate the time and effort you took to provide us with reference proposals.

We will write up a more detailed section on the technical aspects, and will add them to the proposal later this week.

3 Likes
5

I think this is an interesting proposal, and it is always good to see products built on hackathon projects. I suspect web3 social media could become a significant thing as Web2 becomes more and more unusable.

However while I can see the thought and technical skill behind this proposal, I’m hesitant for a couple of reasons.

  1. I’m not sure that brands which are known for greenwashing are really using lens. If I understand the proposal correctly, it aims to broaden it more generally, but it would be good to see some usecases that you feel would be early adopters and any outreach or approaches that you have made to likely candidates for integration.

  2. Marketing claims are notoriously difficult to verify and things can be both technically true and horribly misleading. Writing the ancillary data to give guidance for some kind of general impression test would be tricky, but if only technical truth is verified, a clever marketeer will dodge it with ease.

  3. Also information available in a dispute might suggest truth, but information may later come out that suggests falsehood…can it be overturned (and overturned again if required!) or is it intended as a onetime snapshot of what the “truth” was at the time?

  4. I also agree with @pumpedlunch that the funding should be weighted towards milestone 3, and I’d also like to see either a handful of dapps integrating and some success metrics around no of users/prominence of dapp etc.

  5. I think the proposal would benefit from some kind of exploration of the tokenomics required to maintain and develop the product. (do lens users pay to get a post verified and in what currency? who puts up the bond? can it be overturned if new info comes to light, and if so how does the bond work in that instance? What is the path for Ethylene to become self-sustaining?)

My gut feeling is that this is a kernal of a good idea, but it needs more thinking around who would implement it, for what purpose, and how best to capture the value that verification on lens has.

2 Likes
6

Thanks for the feedback @SlowChimera. Let me respond to each of the points you mentioned.

  1. Indeed, the greenwashing is only one use case, specifically created for the hackathon. We now want to make a more generic implementation, which we imagine to work like community notes on X (Twitter).
  2. Marketing claims are indeed more difficult to verify, but on X we do see that they do put community notes on the paid ads. Marketeers might try to dodge it, but it will be an extra hurdle to prevent false claims. We believe that companies will make more truthful and more verifiable claims, if they know it will be checked by the UMA oracle.
  3. Great suggestion, I have discussed it with the team and we believe this should be easy to implement. I will add it to the project scope.
  4. I understand the sentiment and we will take this into account when updating the proposal.
    5a. Everyone can request a verification on a post, and the requester has to put op the bond. The target audience is larger accounts (companies, influencers, etc) who will benefit from a verification status on their own post.
    5b. The path to become self-sustaining is something that we have not figured out yet. This is one reason why we are applying for a grant to get started.

Currently we are working on the technical details section, and we will update it soon.

7

Are you able to join a community call in the UMA Discord? Please tag me in Discord and we can arrange that.

1 Like