Secure Sharing Governance of User-Generated Content in Blockchain-enabled Virtual Communities

User Generated Content (UGC) is an important repository of knowledge in virtual communities but there are risks to it being widely available and replica. These risks include loss of privacy, unauthorized reuse, experience of misinformation, the infringements of rights, and maliciously distributed knowledge. Current governance on platforms concentrates on the ability to access the knowledge freely but also on reviewing and removing that data once the user generates it and subsequently posts it. Current governance structures cannot sufficiently balance the goals of knowledge sharing, user autonomy, accountability of the platform for the actions of the user, and the security of the user’s generated content. This paper presents a framework for governing UGC using a decentralized governance approach utilizing a blockchain. The technical approach to governance of blockchain was used in developing programmable trust infrastructure. This includes the use of decentralized identity, traceability of UGC content, a chain of evidence prohibiting modification of evidence, the use of smart contracts for providing consent, the ability to provide privacy for access, and providing both the incentive to share and accountability for why that incentive is used. The governance mechanisms will create user autonomy, enterprise accountability, and make use of both on-chain and off-chain collaborative governance mechanisms.