This is an incomplete thought, but a friend of mine has this idea around reputation built through a sort-of key signing. You get a key, your friend gets a key, you sign each other's keys. The key can serve as an indicator of trust, or validity that an individual's contributions are meaningful (or something). And if your friend suddenly turns into a corporate shill, you could revoke that trust. And if the people haven't established their own trust with that person, their trust goes when yours does. Transitive trust.
It obviously has some flaws, and could be gamed in the right circumstances, but I think it's an interesting idea.
Sounds like following people on a social media platform and only reading posts from in your network. Which is exactly how most people I know use Bluesky.
It works better than Twitter's algorithmic feed but it's still not foolproof because not everyone has the same idea of what sort of content they are willing to trust/ track.
It obviously has some flaws, and could be gamed in the right circumstances, but I think it's an interesting idea.