The crypto world is now widely aware that blockchain companies are being targeted by the giants of online advertising — Facebook and Google — in 2018. This is the classic response of powerful centralized entities to competition from decentralization. The good news is that, no matter why they are saying they’ve banned crypto advertising, this is really because they are now perceiving blockchain ecosystems as a threat to their bottom line.
We really enjoyed @pedrofebrerojr’s piece called Cryptocurrencies and the Distribution of Power in the Age of Google and Facebook (which included a BitClave shoutout!):
There are people building decentralized search engines, decentralized social networks, decentralized supply-chains and decentralized everything. This means that economic incentives ARE included with the platform. You, as a user, will get money (in the form of tokens) for using those platforms or for sharing content on those platforms. The basic idea is that you always get something in return.
This is the true power of distributed ledger technology: when you associate it with economic incentives, virtually any product or company can be decentralized. Users of those products or companies will have more added value because there is an economic incentive working on the background to improve their experience by giving tokens for data, which can exist in many forms and shapes. Just look at:
BitClave, a decentralized search engine: with this product you’re able to get tokens for sharing data. It is literally a web browser that pays you for searching and sharing data.
It should come as no surprise that in 2018, the giants of advertising are starting to get worried about their profits because there are real, decentralized alternatives emerging. This should signify that the revolutionary nature of blockchain is starting to change how we interact online. The internet was intended to be a peer-to-peer network, and blockchain is fulfilling that promise. Centralized entities like Facebook are alarmed to see their power slipping away.
Unfortunately, BitClave has already fallen victim to the Facebook ban.
We can’t get a straight answer out of Facebook, and even with 30,000 followers on our original page, we haven’t been allowed to appeal the decision. But with the latest news about Facebook suppressing crypto pages and advertisement, the reason seems clear: we had a successful ICO and are on a mission to replace big advertisers like Facebook, so we had to be taken off their platform
This completely illustrates the point of an decentralized ecosystem like BitClave. Centralized platforms want to maintain their power to grab user’s data and resell it to advertisers, and an open network built on blockchain is direct competition.
As Febrero guessed, Facebook’s response to BitClave was not:
This isn’t the only social network we’ve been banned from. Here, see that we are currently blocked from our Pinterest account, which also doesn’t allow a democratic appeals process:
You can still find us on our other socials and our new Facebook page. It’s also inspired us, because it shows the real empowerment that comes from decentralization, that stops this kind of censorship. This could happen to any page or community. Still want to be controlled?
