Jordan Peterson takes crypto donations to avoid censorship

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The internet has always been hailed as a place to share ideas, and a beacon for free speech. Any perceived censorship will be taken as an affront to this principle. Jordan Peterson, the Canadian professor of psychology and best-selling author, has taken to accepting Bitcoin Core (BTC) donations to circumvent any possibility of his funding being cut for his ideas.

Peterson’s decision to start accepting crypto donations comes after months of uproar targeted at his primary funding platform, Patreon. That site, which allows users to pledge funds in tiers to content creators, banned conservative author Robert Spencer in August due to complaints from Mastercard. The aftermath saw dozens of right leaning content creators distance themselves from the service, accusing Patreon of de-platforming conservative voices, and put out calls to create a censorship-free alternative.

Patrons have also been leaving the service, and Peterson has indicated he’s lost over 2,000 supporters since another prominent conservative, Sargon of Akkad (Carl Benjamin), was banned earlier this month.

In a Youtube chat with Dave Rubin, Peterson explained that he explored similar services, however payment providers were unwilling to cooperate with those relatively new platforms, and they fell apart. He promised a new system with additional features would be forthcoming. Supporters then noticed the BTC address for donations shortly after Christmas. There’s no confirmation as of yet if this was the new system Peterson was working on, so it may still be coming.

Cutting out the middle man, and the potential interference of either a platform or a payment provider, is exactly what the Bitcoin SV (BSV) powered Metanet can help with. This nChain project, built to work exclusively with BSV, will provide a new internet that can allow creators like Peterson to put out secure web content, and accept micropayments directly from his supporters. As it will be integrated with BSV, it will remove all hassle from the creators’ end in managing streams of income, and as it will be 100% payment provider free, no corporation will be able to take away his ability to be funded from the people who want his content.

You can agree or disagree with these content creators ideas, but it just doesn’t seem right that payment platforms can effectively get in between them and their supporters. BSV, and the revolutionary Metanet, will solve this problem.