Problem

The incentives of the advertising model led us to an Internet full of hate speech, filter bubbles, polarization, clickbait and endless distraction.

Paywalls are no alternative but rather highly problematic themselves: - with them, quality journalism is hidden behind walls, while "fake news" spreads freely. - In addition, only the wealthy gain access to high-quality information, thus reinforcing existing inequalities.

New Business Model.

At the open source project Butterfy, we are working on an alternative non-profit business model, with the goal of democratizing the Fourth Estate.

All info about the Butterfy model can be found in this video, specifically around minute 01:40.

With the help of this new incentive system we set out to build a web application (a.k.a. smart website) where people will be able to submit, discover, and curate (filter) meaningful content in the form of URLs. These links can include anything in terms of content: Podcasts, articles, videos, useful websites, etc., as long as it is something that has been of real value for the submitter over a sustained period of time.

Technical part of the Challenge.

We started with the website we had already built with no-coding tools à la Airtable and with a list of already submitted links (also filed on this hack platform, under records: "1179 potentially meaningful links...").

Our fantastic technical wizards Pae and Stefan have miraculously built a first prototype of the open-source web application Butterfy. Now, you can share at the hackathon and automate it so that submitted links can be viewed directly.

Conceptual part of the Challenge

Besides programming the web app, we took a closer look at the wireframes as well as the logical structure of the Butterfy system and improved the concept with new ideas and especially with the highly valuable journalistic input of Nina and Simon.

Help us with the next steps

• Test the prototype at https://butterfy.herokuapp.com/ and send in new links you believe could be meaningful to others.

• Give us feedback, critique, new ideas, etc. via email to support@butterfy.me

• Help us improve the code of Butterfy at: https://github.com/butterfyme

Thank you so much to everyone who contributed. You are the best!

Vardon

Co-Founder, Butterfy 🦋

www.butterfy.me

support@butterfy.me