The antizap is the opposite of a zap. A zap is an upvote with a payment. An antizap is a downvote with a payment.

Research by Fehr and Gachter has shown that zap-like rewards lead to increased cooperation. But only for a while, and then the free rider effect takes over, and cooperation goes down.

It turns out that what is needed is a form of punishment for bad content, to increase overall cooperation.

So an "antizap" is the logical counter balance to the zap.

Its a big problem where to route the payment in the event of an antizap, so that it cant be gamed. I think I figured this out. You route it to a process (or DVM -- data vending machine) that is neutral and just uses the money to pay for the storage, and for hosting (small non-zero amount). There can be many antizap machines, a market for them, in each country, with different profiles.

The higher the antizap value, the longer the downvote survives. It can also topped up or crowd funded. It will have a tamper-proof audit trail and track record, a transparent policy. Some will survive, others will not. The best antizap machines will emerge in an evolutionary environment.

https://void.cat/d/R3HH8Hit7ZSNDEq9dSLb99.webp

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Discussion

How does an antizap harm the original post publisher?

Maybe we could have a special kind of zap (call it positive-zap) that:

1. Is not received immediately, but is held by the AntiZap machine for 1 week.

2. Apps need to promote positive-zaps over legacy zaps with gamification: show them in bold, prioritize them, etc. so followers who like the post will prefer using this positive-zap over a legacy zap.

3. An antizap would be sats sent (donated) to the AntiZap machine - every sat sent to the AntiZap machine will reduce 1 sat from the amount that is locked for 1 week.

An "antizap," representing a negative reputation impact, harms the original post publisher by reducing their credibility and trust within the community. Just as Elinor Ostrom's research shows that small-scale societies manage behavior without top-down punishment, an antizap functions as a decentralized method for the community to signal disapproval. This can discourage undesirable behavior, reduce the publisher's influence, and diminish the perceived value of their contributions.

So an unlike button with some PoW or donated/destroyed sats?

I would prefer a method with actual negative financial effect on the original post publisher, just like zaps are positive financial effect.

“There’s no such a thing as bad publicity.”

A zap tied to a DVM can have almost any workflow, delayed, conditional, gamified. Basically a smart contracting system for zaps.