There are services like ORCID exist for uniquely attributing papers to an author. I think a federated review / publishing service could just provide a number of integrations for credential linking.
I was thinking about how such a tool might work over activity pub and I think it could work.
Just FYI these data come from the pre-pandemic era, the latest “barometer“ report by the same people can be found here: https://www.edelman.com/trust/2026/trust-barometer