Tiny Congress
Trusted communication at internet scale.
Open infrastructure for identity, reputation, and large-scale consensus.
The internet is great at broadcasting opinions, but terrible at expressing trust. TinyCongress is an open-source project to help people understand who they're hearing from, why they should trust them, and where genuine consensus exists.
1. What's broken
- Identity without trust signals. Anonymous speech dominates important conversations.
- Engagement without consensus. Platforms optimize outrage for profit, not understanding.
- Centralized incentives. Ad-driven systems reward noise over clarity.
We don't need more speech. We need better signal.
2. The vision
A different model for mass communication
TinyCongress explores how trusted identity and explicit reputation can enable large groups to communicate honestly, discover agreement, and disagree productively.
- Opinions are signed, not anonymous.
- Trust is personal, contextual, and explicit.
- Consensus is measured, not inferred by engagement.
This is infrastructure, not a social network.
3. The model
A public utility, not a platform
TinyCongress aspires to follow the model of projects like Let's Encrypt: free, open-source infrastructure operated in the public interest. No ads. No engagement metrics. Funded by donations and sponsorships to keep incentives aligned with usefulness, not addiction.
- Open source by default.
- Neutral base layer.
- Designed to be boring, reliable, and cheap to operate.
4. The project
Two components
Identity and reputation base layer
A cryptographic identity system where people can make signed attestations about trust, security posture, and reputation across multiple dimensions.
- Device-based keys
- Explicit endorsements and denouncements
- Personal trust graphs, not global scores
A communication demo
An experimental interface that shows what becomes possible when trust and identity are first-class primitives.
- Structured polling instead of comment threads
- Consensus discovery at scale
- Views filtered by who you trust
5. What this is not
- Not a social credit system. Trust is personal and contextual. Your view of someone's reputation is yours alone. There's no global score, no public ranking, no consequences enforced by the system.
- Not a replacement for elections. This is infrastructure for communication and consensus discovery, not governance. It might help groups understand where they agree, but it doesn't make decisions for them.
- Not an algorithmic truth machine. The system doesn't decide what's true. It helps you see who said what, who trusts whom, and where agreement exists. The interpretation is still yours.
- Not optimized for growth or engagement. No metrics that reward time-on-site, no viral loops, no dark patterns. Success is measured by usefulness, not addiction.
6. Status
Just one dude in a garage
This is a passion project, built on nights and weekends. I'm aiming to have a preview alpha ready sometime in Q1 2026.
Development Activity
Last 30 days on icook/tiny-congress
Recent commits
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7. Get involved
TinyCongress is in early development. If this resonates, I'd love to hear from you.