Every "Rug Pull" is a Marketing Moment for Freedom Technologies

Simply Bitcoin, Pavel Durov... who's next?

Just this past week saw a few “rug pulls”.

First, on Friday YouTube chose to censor the Simply Bitcoin channel to the surprise of the creators and the community. No explanation has surfaced yet as to why yet.

Next, on Saturday we saw the arrest of Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram, as part of an investigation by French prosecutors.

These are each respective examples of corporate and government meddling with freedoms of speech. Now I’m not personally a fan of Telegram and I don’t believe it represents strong freedom technology guarantees. But I do believe that communication technologies like it should be available to all individuals regardless of how good or bad any individual’s ideas might be.

Our centralized technologies like YouTube and Telegram cannot operate independently of the ideas of the corporations or governments that influence them. Even if they espouse such ideals on the surface — as these examples do!

Their architectures prevent them from making good on these missions. You can’t win this battle just by being well-intentioned, smart, or a great marketer. The architecture matters more.

When we see such restrictions on speech in any form we should make a bunch of noise. Each one represents a marketing moment for technologies which can’t be censored and are not subject to the control of 3d parties.

As corporations and governments attempt to strangle speech these moments will demonstrate to more people that alternatives are needed. Nostr couldn’t ask for better marketing.

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I’m reminded of this scene from Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope

“If you strike me down…”

Mess with people’s communication tools and freedom technologies gain even more power.