Research

[Analysis] Bitcoin could help stop news censorship from space - Alyssa Hertig

Messari

Jul 15, 2019 ⋅  1 min read

A group of developers are building orbital communication technologies that leverage bitcoin to provide a means for stopping governments from suppressing news media content, explains CoinDesk journalist Alyssa Hertig. Technologists have long tried to chip away at this problem with technology that ranges from privacy browser Tor to the walkie-talkie messaging app Zello, writes Hertig. And a more recent effort comes from Blockstream by sending messages via satellites that were initially launched to give people worldwide access to bitcoin even if they didn’t have internet. A Twitter bot broadcasts all of the messages transmitted via the Blockstream satellite. Ultimately, other creative censorship-resistant communication tools will inevitably debut, but the Blockstream satellite messages represent an important communication medium that prioritizes openness and proper user incentives.

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