Wired
published
an
article
alleging
that
DAOs
are
potentially
the
next
major
hub
for
coordinated
extremism
online.
It
says:
“The
year
2024
might
be
the
one
in
which
neo-Nazis,
jihadists,
and
conspiracy
theorists
turn
their
utopian
visions
of
creating
their
own
self-governed
states
into
reality—not
offline,
but
in
the
form
of
Decentralized
Autonomous
Organizations
(DAOs).”
The
author
of
the
article,
Julia
Ebner,
is
an
academic
extremism
researcher
who
writes
books
on
European
political
movements
and
has
apparently
“infiltrated”
(read:
“attend
publicly
advertised
meetups
and
Discord
audio
chats”)
of
a
few
of
them.
These
include
very
controversial,
and
very
public,
organizations
like
Les
Identitaires
and
Reconquista
Germanica.
Academic
research
of
extremist
groups
of
this
kind
is
comparatively
straightforward
because,
for
the
most
part,
participants
of
such
groups
are
a
bunch
of
LARPing
dorks
who
post
edgy
content
for
public
consumption
with
no
opsec.
An
indication
that
an
“extremist”
group
is
possibly
not
as
serious
an
enterprise
as,
say,
Hamas
or
Hezbollah
is
where
the
servers
the
group
utilizes
are
based
in
the
United
States.
In
these
cases,
the
FBI
can
get
a
grand
jury
subpoena
doxxing
a
user
of
those
servers
in
the
space
of
an
afternoon,
if
they
even
need
one
at
all
(many
companies
will
render
voluntary
disclosure
of
these
records
in
emergency
situations
posing
a
threat
to
life).
Reconquista
Germanica
would
have
been
particularly
vulnerable
to
this
attack
vector
as
the
organization
ran
itself
from
a
Discord
group,
and
Discord,
Inc.
is
a
San
Francisco-headquartered
social
media
company
whose
eponymous
application
displays
all
user
communications
in
the
clear
(i.e.
unencrypted),
and
thus
these
communications
are
freely
disclosable
to
law
enforcement,
and
often
are
disclosed.
DAOs
too,
overwhelmingly
use
Discord
for
community
management
and
outreach,
including
the
allegedly
right-coded
“Redacted
Club
DAO”
named
in
the
Wired
article.
I
should
be
more
impressed
with
Ebner’s
assertions
about
DAOs
if
she
had
(1)
mentioned
a
“DAO”
other
than
ones
which
publicly
advertise
their
Discord
presence
on
Twitter,
another
U.S.-based
platform.
More
impressive
still
would
be
(2)
evidence,
any
evidence
whatsoever,
that
any
of
the
DAOs
mentioned
in
the
article
employed
cryptoprotocols,
instead
of
Discord,
to
communicate.
Most
impressive
would
be
(3)
direct
evidence
that
DAOs
in
particular
were
contemplated
or
being
used
effectively
for
nefarious
purposes
by
such
organizations.
An
example
of
a
group
that
meets
two
of
these
three
criteria
would
be
the
Taliban,
which
(1)
doesn’t
use
Discord
and
(2)
is
known
to
use
cryptoprotocols,
mainly
WhatsApp,
to
coordinate
their
lightning
strikes
against
Kabul
and
other
major
Afghan
cities
during
the
U.S.
withdrawal
of
that
country.
As
to
(3),
to
my
knowledge,
the
Taliban,
which
enjoys
total
autonomy
within
the
sovereign
borders
of
Afghanistan
and
presumably
is
free
to
use
any
software
tool
it
wants,
does
not
use
DAOs.
Ebner,
writing
in
Wired,
continues:
“What
are
the
stakes
if
trolling
armies
start
cooperating
via
DAOs
to
launch
election
interference
campaigns?
The
activities
of
extremist
DAOs
could
challenge
the
rule
of
law,
pose
a
threat
to
minority
groups,
and
disrupt
institutions
that
are
currently
considered
fundamental
pillars
of
democratic
systems.
Another
risk
is
that
DAOs
can
serve
as
safe
havens
for
extremist
movements
by
enabling
users
to
circumvent
government
regulation
and
security
services
monitoring
activities.”
This
is
absurd.
Members
of
extremist
groups
of
the
type
Ebner
studies
live
and
work
freely
in
Western
societies.
They
also
happen
to
hold
opinions
that
most
members
of
polite
society
find
repellent.
Most
of
the
time,
at
least
in
the
U.S.,
holding
extremist
beliefs
and
expressing
them
is
not
a
crime.
If
anything,
having
extremists
post
in
Discord
communities
is
useful
as
an
early
warning
system
for
law
enforcement,
who
monitor
these
forums;
the
only
people
who
consistently
argue
that
these
communities’
very
existence,
even
where
legal,
is
dangerous
to
society
come
from
academic/journalistic
extremism
and
“misinformation
studies”
circles,
ideological
opponents
to
freedom
of
expression,
and
their
political
allies.
The
reality
of
the
situation
is
that,
in
the
real
world,
if
you
are
dumb
enough
to
plan
a
serious
crime
or
pose
a
serious
challenge
to
rule
of
law
on
a
public
Discord,
chances
are
good
that
law
enforcement
is
all
over
it
and
that
you
will
go
to
prison.
When
we
see
largely
peace-loving,
crypto-nerd,
not-racist,
“DAOs”
use
virtually
identical
communications
facilities,
we
should
not
also
conclude
that
this
makes
crypto
people
extremists,
or
that
this
makes
DAOs
friendly
to
extremists,
or
even
that
DAOs
are
appropriate
for
extremists.
It
means
that
DAOs,
like
many
other
online
communities
which
use
Discord
and
make
it
one
of
the
most
popular
social
media
applications
in
the
world,
including
political
movements,
all
emphasize
participation
over
secrecy.
Adding
a
DAO
into
the
mix
does
not
create
a
“safe
haven”
from
anything,
and
certainly
doesn’t
“circumvent
government
regulation
and
security
services
(sic)
monitoring
activities.”
Quite
the
opposite,
in
fact.
What
DAOs
actually
do
I
have
some
experience
with
DAOs,
having
helped
design
the
first
Ethereum
prototype
of
one
in
2014,
and
advised
a
number
of
others
since.
Their
principal
role
is
not
to
communicate.
It
is
to
manage
on-chain
smart
contracts
and
decide
when
certain
administrator-level
permissions
on
those
contracts,
such
as
setting
interest
rates
or
changing
the
feature
set,
should
be
exercised,
amended,
added,
or
removed.
DAOs
are
not
“self-governed
states.”
They
are
self-governed
software
applications.
Most
of
the
time,
DAOs
are
half-baked.
The
DAO
part
of
the
puzzle
is
often
simply
bolted
onto
an
application
to
justify
the
sale
of
a
cryptotoken
to
pre-fund
the
DAO
founders
so
that
they
can
get
some
runway
to
sling
new
code
and
figure
out
product-market
fit.
Rarely,
such
as
in
the
case
of
projects
like
MakerDAO,
the
project
has
tight
product-market
fit
on
the
first
attempt
or
very
close
to
it,
and
token
holders
will
periodically
swing
in
to
vote
on
a
proposal.
Even
in
those
cases,
“governance
portals”
where
relevant
communications
on
these
votes
take
place
exist
in
the
open
and
observed
by
token-holders
who
will
not
want
to
“dox”
themselves
and
create
a
user
account
in
order
to
participate,
although
many
large
token
holders
who
are
in
a
position
to
dictate
the
outcome
of
proposals
choose
to
dox
themselves
anyway.
As
a
general
rule,
by
the
time
a
proposal
for
such
a
change
actually
gets
agreed
on
and
implemented,
considerable
discussion
about
the
proposal
has
already
occurred.
These
debates
are,
overwhelmingly,
conducted
on
the
surface
web,
in
the
clear,
where
they
can
be
monitored
by
law
enforcement
agencies
with
very
little
effort
on
the
agency’s
part,
if
desired.
The
social
media
piece
of
the
puzzle
is
no
different
from
current
social
media
communications.
The
DAO
part
is
even
more
poorly
suited
to
criminality
and
concealment
given
that
(a)
smart
contracts
are
all
publicly
examinable
onchain,
(b)
blockchain
transaction
data
on
the
most
popular
EVM
chains
where
the
overwhelming
majority
of
DAOs
live
is
unencrypted
and
ingested
by
massive
machine-learning
analytics
engines
by
companies
like
Chainalysis
which
work
directly
with
law
enforcement
on
a
daily
basis
and
(c)
for
the
most
part
the
only
thing
DAOs
do
is
coordinate
on
smart
contract
state
changes.
These
state
changes
are
only
communicated
to
the
chain
after
a
rough
consensus
is
reached
among
the
voting
DAO
participants
on
the
state
change,
which
often
involves
a
lengthy
and
drawn
out
debate
about
boring
financial,
cryptoeconomic
and
computer
science
issues.
By
contrast,
the
dissemination
of
“extremist”
thought
on
the
Web
usually
relies
on
the
maximum-volume-and-velocity,
and
minimum-interference,
transmission
of
edgy
memes/propaganda,
something
which
is
not
something
economically
practicable
onchain
given
that
it
would
be
prohibitively
expensive
to
fill
up
a
block
with
a
gif,
nor
is
it
something
which
requires
consensus
to
be
achieved
before
pushing
an
update
transaction
to
a
globally
distributed
finite-state
machine
with
a
money-token.
Even
e-mail
would
be
more
effective
for
this
use-case.
If
extremists
want
a
tool
to
spread
their
poison,
a
DAO
is
not
something
they
should
want
to
use.
It’s
the
wrong
tool
for
spreading
propaganda.
It’s
the
right
tool
for
reaching
consensus
on
whether
to
move
a
smart
contract
interest
rate
50
bps,
and
confirm
that
consensus
by
furnishing
a
cryptographically
secure
proof
of
voting
power
that
will
be
automatically
executed
by
the
underlying
L1
blockchain
once
a
certain
threshold
of
votes
has
been
attained.
When
a
extremist
groups
like
the
Taliban,
rathet
than
a
bunch
of
loser
schizoposters
on
Discord,
start
using
DAOs
instead
of
using
WhatsApp
for
their
communications,
something
which,
for
the
reasons
given
above,
will
likely
never
happen,
we
can
have
this
conversation.
For
now,
anyone
who
knows
anything
about
DAOs
knows
they
are
neither
used
by
nor
useful
to
terrorists
or
extremists
in
any
way,
shape
or
form.
Real
journalism
of
the
type
practiced
by
our
fathers
and
our
fathers’
fathers
before
them
is
not
the
same
thing
as
making
up
random,
defamatory,
fact-free
conjecture
about
an
industry
of
brilliant
hackers
who
are
trying
to
make
the
world
a
better
place,
as
has
been
done
by
Wired
in
this
instance.
