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Live Video, Censorship Resistance, and Responsibility

Publisher
The DOB
January 20
One of the core value propositions of decentralized technologies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum is often stated as censorship resistance. Some have gone so far as to say that it’s the only value proposition that matters and determines whether a decentralized system can be advantageous relative to a centralized one, because otherwise the extra costs and complexity of using such systems wouldn’t be worth it relative to efficient centralized alternatives. With the current events unfolding in the world, and the centralized platforms responses to these events being to ban users and limit what may be communicated, many have looked to the set of decentralized technologies, collectively known as web3, to enable trustless platforms which make it impossible for this type of selective censorship to occur. Of course the chorus of financially motivated stakeholders in the projects see this as an opportunity for growth, attention, and “web3’s moment”, however I’d caution many parties here — the project builders themselves, their communities, their financial backers, and their users to tread cautiously. This is a responsibility that should be handled with care.