Pledge to the Ethereum Classic Community With Regard to the @eth_classic Twitter Account

Various community members have stated that they would like to see some official pledge from the ETC Cooperative with regard to the new @eth_classic Twitter account which is currently in possession of its executive director, Bob Summerwill.

The background of this situation is that the previous account with the same handle had more than 600,000 followers, but it was in control of Charles Hoskinson, the founder of a firm called IOHK. After a fallout between Hoskinson and the ETC ecosystem, the account remained inactive for a long time and was eventually transferred by Charles to the community of another project (Ergo) which he actively promotes. This stripped Ethereum Classic of one of its most valuable social media assets, so it is only reasonable that the new @eth_classic account be managed under a sort of social contract in the form of this pledge to provide some guarantees that events like the mentioned here will not happen again.

Details about the fallout between Hoskinson and the ETC community may be found in this thread.

What happened with Charles Hoskinson could, technically, happen with the ETC Cooperative as well. Bob Summerwill, in his role as executive director, has admin key control of the account and could, technically and legally, as demonstrated by the previous event, do anything with it, however unlikely. So it would be responsible to see some social defense against that possibility in the form of a public statement of the ETC Cooperative’s intentions of being a good ETC community member and citizen with regard to the matter.

It is for the above reasons that we make the following statements:

1. Bob Summerwill, in his role as executive director of the ETC Cooperative, is in control of the account on behalf of the ETC Cooperative and ETC ecosystem as a whole.
2. We declare ourselves just stewards but not owners of that account on behalf of the ETC ecosystem as a whole.
3. Although difficult to define, ownership of the account is of the ETC community, perhaps better described as a public good of Ethereum Classic.
4. The ETC Cooperative, through any of its board members, employees, or contractors, will never use the account for any other purpose.
5. If Bob Summerwill ceases to be the executive director of the ETC Cooperative, then he will pass the account to his successor or to another ETC ecosystem participant who will be willing to make the same public statements prior to transfer.
6. Any other present or future board member, employee, or contractor of the ETC Cooperative who holds or will hold, or shares or will share, admin keys to the account must comply with this pledge.
7. We request Twitter, Inc. and its subsidiaries, as the social media companies that run the Twitter social network where the account is hosted, to regard this pledge as an official agreement between the ETC Cooperative and the ETC community, and to act accordingly in the case that a similar conflict as described in this pledge arises with the account in the future.

We acknowledge that as with any kind of technological admin control, this pledge does not physically prevent errors, misdeeds, and negligence by whoever has admin control of the account in the present or the future, but at least there will be a clear violation of this social contract if that were to happen.

As an additional reassurance, legally, the ETC Cooperative is an IRS-reporting non-profit whose sole purpose is support of the Ethereum Classic protocol, network, and ecosystem, so its incentives are completely aligned with ETC.

Bob Summerwill

Executive Director

ETC Cooperative

Thank you for reading this article!

To learn more about the ETC Cooperative go to: https://etccooperative.org

To learn more about ETC go to: https://ethereumclassic.org

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