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I'm 75, Building an OSS Virtual Protest Protocol

Details

External ID
47014380
Source
HN
Company
—
Product
I'm 75, building an OSS Virtual Protest Protocol for digital activism
Website domain
github.com
Launched
Feb. 14, 2026
Cohort
—
Upvotes
8
Upvotes percentile
0.4393530997304582
Tags
—
Fetched at
Sept. 7, 2026, 9:25 p.m.
Updated at
Sept. 7, 2026, 9:25 p.m.

Description

Hi HN,I am a 75-year-old former fishmonger from Japan. Currently, I work at the compensation desk for the Fukushima nuclear disaster (TEPCO). Witnessing deep social divisions and the limitations of bureaucracy firsthand, I realized we need a new way for people to express their will without being "disposable."To address this, I’ve designed the *Virtual Protest Protocol (VPP)*. It’s an OSS framework for large-scale, 2D avatar-based digital demonstrations. I recently shared this with the *Open Technology Fund (OTF)* and received an encouraging "This is great" response. Now, I am looking for the HN community's expertise to turn this spec into a reality.*The Concept:* * *Beyond Yes/No (Avoiding Polarization):* Introducing an *"Observe"* status. Modern social media forces people into binary "For or Against" camps, deepening social division. VPP allows the silent majority to participate by simply "being there," visualizing the scale of public concern without forcing a polarized stance. * *Cell-Based Scaling:* To handle thousands of participants, avatars are managed in "cells" of 50 units. New cells instantiate as the crowd grows, ensuring compatibility with low-spec devices and low-bandwidth environments. * *Privacy by Design:* We only collect anonymous attributes (age/gender/region). All event-specific data is wiped immediately after the demonstration. * *OIN Membership:* We have joined the [Open Invention Network (OIN)](https://openinventionnetwork.com) to ensure this remains a patent-free global public good.*Why I’m doing this:* At 75, I belong to the generation that will soon "retire" from society. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to leave a better infrastructure for the next generation?one that isn't burdened by the financial and social "debt" we've accumulated. I am not looking for personal gain; I want this to be a sustainable, global infrastructure.*GitHub:* https://github.com/voice-of-japan/Virtual-Protest-Protocol/b... *Project Site:* https://voice-of-japan.netWe are looking for collaborators with expertise in: * Scalable Web Architecture (Node.js, Go, etc.) * High-performance Canvas/WebGL rendering * AI-based real-time moderation (LLM integration)

Enrichment

Theme
niche social and community platforms
Vertical
Horizontal
Function
Communication
Audience
B2C
AI stance
Not AI
Project type
Hobby / open-source project
Normalized one-liner
virtual protest protocol
Manually corrected
False

Could you build this?

Partial Building a basic web-based coordination tool or forum is trivial, but architecting an open-source decentralized virtual protest protocol that is Sybil-resistant, privacy-preserving, and censorship-resistant requires advanced cryptographic and distributed systems knowledge.

What it would actually take: A robust implementation requires a decentralized identity (DID) or zero-knowledge proof system (such as Semaphore or WorldID) to prevent botting while guaranteeing protestor anonymity. The underlying network relies on peer-to-peer or federated communication (e.g., Nostr, Matrix, or Libp2p) resistant to state-level traffic analysis and blocking. Designing game-theoretically sound voting/participation mechanisms without central points of failure requires seasoned cryptography and distributed systems researchers.

Discussion

1 comment analyzed.

Competitors

Other products that read as similar to this one — 31 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.

Attention rank: #25 of 32 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).

Launched 101 days after the earliest competitor.

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