Is Medium the Next Platform To Clamp Down On Cryptocurrencies?

Updated On Jun 20, 2018 by Cameron Bishop

Commercial banks are afraid of cryptocurrencies because the former threatens their profit margins by facilitating a transparent, cost-efficient, and faster mechanism to send money. Central banks are afraid of cryptocurrencies because they will lose the indirect control over public money. Social media platforms are afraid of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology because of the privacy and data security offered by the latter. Furthermore, blockchain technology is fundamentally against all kinds of censorship. Now, Medium, the popular blogging service used by blockchain companies, is now alleged to have joined the long list of companies which are trying to curb the adoption of cryptocurrencies.

Medium is the place where cryptoindustry leaders, developers, and ordinary investors culminate to share the project details, announce partnerships, and exchange views. When it comes to complex subjects such as hashing algorithms, scaling, sharding, casper, etc., most crypto enthusiasts immediately head to Medium to get their doubts clarified. Even project owners announce ICO details, airdrops and other bounties through Medium in order to keep everything transparent and in the best interest of retail investors. However, beginning last week, Medium has suspended several cryptocurrency related blogs. The reasons for suspension seem to revolve around airdrops and bounties.

The team behind Status was one of the few groups to face this issue last week. The Ethereum-based messaging platform has provided the details that led to the suspension in a post titled “Status, Medium, and Censorship”.

According to Status

“Medium is currently one of the primary communication channels of the cryptosphere. Blockchain-based visionaries, both affiliated with projects and independent free-thinking technologists, have all made Medium a critical part of how they communicate. Recently, we attempted to publish a blog post announcing our latest Bug Bounty Program. The post was immediately suspended, followed by an automated email noting a general violation, without detailing any specifics, and a link to Medium’s recently updated policy regarding cryptocurrencies.”

Status further explained

“Though we had not violated any of these policies, we re-submitted several revisions that carefully edited out any potential trigger words, like “bounty”, “ETH,” and “SNT”. The post was never successfully published.”

Almost an identical issue was faced by Blockchain.io’s Medium page, although it was restored later, following the removal of a post related to airdrop. In fact, Medium’s terms of service says nothing explicitly about banning discussions related to airdrops, bug bounties, or anything specific to cryptocurrencies. The terms of service simply states “We can remove any content you post for any reason.”

While there is no concerted effort to curb hate speech, spam, and pyramid schemes, a decision to clamp down cryptocurrency related posts by Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, and Mainchimp, and now blogging service provider Medium looks bizarre.

Cameron works tirelessly behind the scenes ensuring his many US news stories are factual, informative and brought to you in a timely fashion before most other media outlets have them. He is an investigative journalist at heart who also has a fond interest in the money and business markets too.

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