That is really general statement. In my opinion Bitcoin most clear cut use case has to do with funding. For example Human Rights Foundation accepts BTC donations which it uses to fund opposition groups in Nigeria Russia Belarus Hong Kong etc. Specifically because moment they speak out against their respective governments their bank accounts will be frozen.

Most true to its "free speech" origins use of BTC has little to do with "posting on social media" and has much more to do with maintaining funding for journalists and dissidents that banks wont work with. It is "free speech" infrastructure, more than payments. Because if the government cuts you off financially you'll soon be silenced.


Build on that: Nostr is a protocol (i.e. nobody owns it). You can build other things on Nostr. For instance, it is already integrated with Lightning so you can tip/zap Nostrers. And if creators post over Nostr directly, they can be tipped over LN, avoiding platform payment processors (which are the basis of the threat to demonetize/remove them). Which is why Jack Dorsey funds it, to push censorship resistant payments to creators.

​Probably the most clear cut example of censorship resistant money being a free speech enabler that has actually happened is the 2022 Canada Freedom Convoy. When the govt froze protesters bank accounts through GoFundMe/tradfi, BTC donations were still coming through. Nothing could stop those since there was no central account.


I took this information from these links

https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/why-bitcoin-is-freedom-money/

https://decentrasuze.substack.com/p/jack-dorsey-backs-bitcoin-and-nostr

https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/875364.0

Had not thought in this, make sense. I agree that the strongest use until now is really the financing of people and groups that are being  censored. With Bitcoin, the financier manages keep privacy and anonymity, what offers more protection.

The example of the Human Rights Foundation and of Canada is very clear. The part of social networks and decentralized messages still  is in the beginning, but also can evolve. The two paths complement themselves.

That is a U.S. based terrorist organization that funds terrorist groups disguised as "opposition" in only certain countries so that these US proxies can carry out regime change operations or at least deal damage. These countries are only those that refuse to bow down to the US regime and its global oppression. Otherwise you never see them say anything about for example France which right now is shooting kids on the streets as we speak and has already maimed thousands of schoolchildren.

All US based terrorist organizations that perform such operations overseas use pretty words such as "human rights", "democracy" and so on.
Be careful not to fund them...

Fair point, I think I was focused on the ability of BTC to fund causes that may be censored (not paying enough attention to who would be on the receiving end, or the implications of that) and agree with what you say regarding the US and what they have done in Iran.

Maybe a better example might be the Canada Freedom Convoy, in that once they got their fundraising cut off, they were still able to receive BTC donations. I think that'd be a better example of funding censorship-resistance, if that makes any sense.

I think that there is a perfectly legitimate use case for bitcoin, however I think you are correct that the Human Rights Foundation example was poor, given the political ambiguity associated with it.

I think that using the term “opposition group” implies that supporting that group is a good thing. And while this may often be true, there might be sinister political interests at work which are obscured in such a portrayal. I agree that I need another example that does not have any of these ambiguities.

‎I think Bitcoin can help in promoting speech by allowing  individual to receive and send money without asking permission from authority like bank or government.

By been your own bank, you got the free space and time to run whatever you want and then decide how ever you want to present your spending and speech about it. That's how this will work.

If user can't decide what will happen to his portfolio, then his speech is silent - that's the case of centralization, you are under the control of the government where your speech has no audacity.

Yeah, that's a perfect example. I remember this being discussed in this board at the time when the Canadian government shut down the bank account of all those truck drivers and pushed them into the open arms of Bitcoin. It highlighted one of the most important characteristics of Bitcoin which is being censorship resistant.

Yes, bitcoin will make support for a lot of different things possible, it's like a tool, it has no fashion on what it's going to be used for,sure it could very well be what's making paying for terrorism possible but it can also be used to promote a good cause even though it is done anonymously, after all not everyone wants people to know they are the one rendering support plus OP is right send money to the wrong person (perspective) and your assets could be frozen, we have to be careful with how we do things these days.