Censorship is a process of prohibiting any form of media/tool that can be controlled by authorities. It can be witnessed both on a government level and in private entities. Self-censorship occurs when a person, such as an author or an artist, participates in censorship of their works or statements. It occurs for a variety of purposes, the most common ones include:
- Protect national security
- Regulate obscene content
- Avoid child pornography
- Discourage the use of offensive language
- Protect children or other disadvantaged populations
- Encourage or constrain political or religious views
- Help deter slavery
In general, censorship can be imposed on any form of media, including art performances and works, the press, television, and the Internet.
The whole concept of decentralization that cryptocurrencies brought into this world is a form of resistance against financial censorship, wherein world governments and powerful institutions control the flow of money.
One of the key value propositions of Bitcoin (BTC) is its resilience to censorship. No nation/state, company, and third-party service have control over the people who transact or keep their money on the blockchain network, according to the concept. Censorship resistance guarantees that the network's laws are established in advance and cannot be changed retrospectively to suit a certain purpose.
Due to the resistance against censorship, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have faced a complete ban on many fronts. The biggest example would be China's crackdown on cryptocurrencies which crashed the crypto markets in May 2021. China banned the crypto mining operations in its country citing reasons such as the lack of real support value and the easier manipulation that can occur in cryptocurrencies, resulting in huge losses for crypto investors. This ban had a huge impact as Bitcoin fell from its all-time-high of roughly around $65,000 to somewhere around $28,000. However, the market turned bullish in the later months, and in August 2021 Bitcoin surpassed $50,000 once again.
Another great example of censorship in the tech world would be Google. The tech giant banned the use of 'Bitcoin' and other cryptocurrency keywords to be used in the advertisements that run on its platform. However, in a recent turn of events, Google is now allowing several crypto service providers within the U.S to run their ads with a strict set of restrictions, which is also a form of censorship. Even now, Google doesn't allow any advertisement on its platform that relates to DeFi trading protocols and initial coin offerings (ICOs).
It is also worth noting that while Google does allow crypto applications on the Google Play Store, like Binance, STEX, CoinMarketCap, and others, it, however, continues to ban crypto mining and trading applications that do not fulfill its ‘standards’.
The future of cryptocurrencies is not affected by censorship imposed by regulatory bodies and private entities as the whole concept promotes the idea of censorship resistance itself.