Financial Censorship is among the most underrated problems of our age, and crypto can be the tool to resist it.
Throughout this article, I’ll show you several glaring examples of financial censorship and show you how it’s not a problem people should take lightly.
It is, of course, ironic that virtually nobody seems to mind this blatant transgression on our liberties and freedom, but I guess that’s part of the collective numbness to these sorts of things nowadays.
But let me give you some examples of what I’m talking about.
Russian News Outlet Meduza Financially Censured: Asking for Crypto Donations
Meduza, a Russian news outlet, was deemed by the Russian Government as a dissident voice, therefore they labeled it as a “Foreign Agent”.
This publication was now required by law to have giant letters reading “FOREIGN AGENT” on its pages, in a font bigger than that of the articles.
Advertisers dropped the news outlet, financial partners limited its activities and Meduza ran out of money quickly – which made it look for supporter donations.
I’m gonna go on a guess here (ironically) and state that this was exactly the outcome the state wanted to silence its opposition.
Meduza issued a request for Crypto donations, adding that this request was being made because the news outlet knew people were afraid to donate through bank transfer or through Paypal.
Julian Assange’s Case: Criminal or Reporter
If this article is about Financial Censorship, then why am I mentioning Julian Assange?
Well, simply due to the fact that in Assange’s case we have the subjectivity we see every day in Financial Censorship, let me tell you why:
- In Assange’s case, the government officials decided Assange wasn’t a reporter, but a criminal violating the Espionage Act.
This was based on…. the information he disclosed and nothing else.
Who decides who is a reporter or a criminal?
If a reporter discloses information officials approve, he is a reporter, if he discloses information the officials don’t approve, they are criminals and must be ruined.
This subjectivity is at the core of Financial Censorship, where the system decides whether someone deserves to have or use money based on his opinions or actions.
WikiLeaks Blockade: Another Case of Weaponized Banking
Another case of financial censorship that ran around the world was the fact that Paypal and Banks blockaded WikiLeaks a couple of years ago.
If an institution, organization, or person is a nuisance to the system in power, the system deplatforms it and financially censors them to ruin when it cannot directly get rid of them either by prison or by… other means.
Suddenly, your money isn’t worth a thing anymore.
Not only that, donations to support you are held and won’t ever reach you, so you’re pretty much hostage of the state, bank, or institution you pissed off.
The Average Youtuber: Demonetized, Censored and Deplatformed
We also had that whole YouTube censorship thing, which by the way didn’t get better, and lots of content creators had to migrate to decentralized platforms in order to work and get paid for their content.
The content creators whose message was deemed, again subjectively, too offensive, triggering or not “advertiser-friendly” (umbrella term for everything else not conforming to the mainstream narrative) got demonetized, de-platformed, and barred from conducting business.
There were countless content creators and vloggers getting barred from using payment processors, dealing with ad networks, collecting ad income, and even accessing crowdfunding sites – how sick is that?
Trump’s Campaign & The Capitol’s Occupation:
Then there are also two other recent and mediatic examples which are related to Trump’s campaign and the adult industry.
Let’s start PG and discuss the fact that after the US Capitol occupation happened, payment processors started to deny processing transactions of people from certain political spectrums, and financial institutions actively politicized money.
This is very serious as it curbs our liberties, freedom and tries to condition our very own thoughts and beliefs.
You’re not popular or you don’t hold the “right opinion”, you’re financially censured!
A short time after this started to happen, Stripe and Shopify de-platformed Trump’s campaign. Now, let me get this clear, I am not from the US and I couldn’t care less about Trump, Biden, or the Backstreet Boys for that matter – what I care about is freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the freedom to use your money or received donations going to you freely!
The Adult Industry and Credit Card Companies:
I’ll give you another example before I close down the shop.
VISA and MASTERCARD decided to financially censor the adult industry by refusing to process transactions that relate to pornography.
Finally, Brooks and the OCC decided to create a rule that forbids institutions from providing services to certain industries – like the crypto sector.
As you can see, financial censorship is a growing problem, but luckily people are starting to have enough of the elites having full control over the statism-backed system.
The system, however, is coming after you, and they aim to decide whether your money is good enough for their plans or not, and if it is not, they’ll steal from you and prevent you from getting back on your feet.
BTC vs BCH: Solving Financial Censorship
Crypto is a great solution to financial censorship and there are a few tokens that come to mind when this problem is considered.
First off, most crypto is decentralized, and most are censorship-resistant as well.
But let’s take a look at Bitcoin!
Fine, I’ll consider BTC as well.
With BitcoinCash (BCH) you can prevent financial censorship from ever happening since the token is censorship-resistant.
Not only that, but BCH also works as money, so you can transact, spend and earn with total freedom and without fear of possible censorship.
No matter what opinion you hold, BCH is still cash in your hands, and you’re free to use it or receive it.
On the other hand, one cannot build a censorship-resistant system on top of a token that is financially censoring already – such as BTC, which has fees that make most of the market unable to use it and certainly doesn’t work like cash.
BTC is cumbersome, has a lot of ties to the system, it financially censors those with less, cannot be used as money, and has some serious problems in the way it works.
Finally, notice how most people getting financially censored respected the law and were punished only by their beliefs or the fact that their actions aren’t deemed desirable by the system.
If we were using BCH as money in the present day, not one of these events would have happened and nobody would refuse to process transactions or prevent someone from using their hard-earned money.
Adopting BCH is the smart move in order to avoid financial censorship, and to go from financially censored to financially free.
Adopt BCH, and when you do… send some my way!
Or don’t, I won’t censor you for it… Got it?
Cheers!
A-Coin, @CryptoBabe , Scott Cunningham- Thank you!
Let's assume that we are all lucky to be here, on a decentralized platform with our BCH. Let our coin grow higher and higher, and thank you that here we freely discuss any topic, without fear of censorship.