Clearly, the LinkedIn recommendations use case is an example of one of these initiatives. It has not succeeded in creating strong social signals anchored in trust models. We are wise to consider what's missing from efforts like this. An even greater concern however, and one that I believe is an essential if we are to realize the transformative potential of digital credentials, is how to design social signals built on trust models that help all people. In a world long-governed by "it's not what you know, it's who you know," the social signals and trust models are overweighted in favor of people with connections to other people, organizations and brands that are all to some degree legacies of exclusionary and inequitable systems. We are likely to build new systems that perpetuate the same problems if we do not intentionally design them to function otherwise. For people (especially those from historically underserved populations) worthy of the recommendations but lacking in social connections, how do they access social recommendations built on trust models?

Hotez, P. J. (2021). America’s deadly flirtation with antiscience and the medical freedom movement. The Journal of Clinical Investigation, 131(7). https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI149072

Worth taking a look at?

Harper, Craig A., and Darren Rhodes. ‘Ideological Responses to the Breaking of COVID-19 Social Distancing Recommendations’, 19 August 2020. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkqj6.

Harper, Craig A., and Darren Rhodes. ‘Ideological Responses to the Breaking of COVID-19 Social Distancing Recommendations’, 19 August 2020. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkqj6.

Harper, Craig A., and Darren Rhodes. ‘Ideological Responses to the Breaking of COVID-19 Social Distancing Recommendations’, 19 August 2020. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkqj6.