Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin supported the idea of X developer Wang Haofei about confidential likes and proposed moving the initiative to the Farcaster social network.
He expanded on this proposal by allowing the use of zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs to combat “preference falsification.”
“Preference falsification is a big problem in society and we need to see people's honest opinions. It would be great if Farcaster followed suit and implemented ZK likes,” Buterin wrote.
Zero knowledge is a cryptography technique that allows one party to prove to another that a statement is true without revealing sensitive information. In the context of likes, this allows you to leave a reaction to a post without compromising your privacy.
The co-founder of Ethereum proposed to “borrow” ZK technology from Zupoll, a tool used in the Zuzalu “pop-up city” project. The solution is focused on decentralization and is used for anonymous voting.
Discussions about ZK likes began after rumors that X might start hiding user likes. Haofei confirmed this information.
“Public likes encourage bad behavior. For example, many people feel embarrassed to like “sensitive” content, due to fear of retaliation from trolls or because of their public image,” the developer explained.
Haofei suggested that users will soon be able to react to posts “without worrying about who might see it.” He also reminded users of the connections between likes and the social network’s content selection algorithms.
The proposal met with mixed reactions in the community. Some suggested developing the idea beyond likes. Others pointed out that user reactions help evaluate the quality of the post itself before reading it.
Earlier, Buterin called for the creation of a single interoperability solution for L2 networks.
Let us recall that the co-founder of Ethereum named MEV, liquid staking and the cost of launching a full node as the three main threats to the decentralization of the blockchain.#Bitcoin
