When I started publishing material that would debunk many of the myths surrounding Craig Wright, I expected a reaction. And not just a reaction, but a heavy response against myself, and particularly against Dr Wright himself.
Heavily censored reddit forum r/bitcoin in particular did not disappoint. Here is a screenshot of one of the top posts, which had 1254 upvotes at the time of writing.
I wasn’t initially concerned with writing about this, but the sheer response that this post generated, warrants one.
If you were to believe the above post, then you have been played. But allow me to elaborate.
This post features a screenshot taken from a doctored tweet posted by “Alex B.” – @bergealex4, which also generated a large response.
But anyone who performs a quick google search will be able to find the true source of this post, and the original – undoctored, information.
For reference here is Dave Kleiman’s response.
Well it suddenly has a very different meaning.
If false information didn’t spiral into ever growing webs of lies, it wouldn’t require anyone to come forward and state the obvious. The onus is on everyone to seek truth, report on false information, and quash falsehoods.
The issue here is indeed multi-facetted. There is a coordinated effort to intentionally propagate false information which is purposefully aimed at discrediting someone. First a tweet is made, which generates hundreds of likes, and many comments. It is then followed up with a post on the Blockstream/Core aligned reddit forum r/bitcoin, which also generates over a thousand upvotes.
Given the nature of the censorship heavy forum, why would clear false information, which other redditors also pointed out in comments, be allowed to remain? The answer is propaganda.
But that answer in turn raises another. Why would doctored images be needed to discredit someone who they already believe is a fraud? Why is it necessary to hunt down what they call “a known fraud” and why is this ‘fraud’ being perceived as such a threat? What are they afraid of?
In fact, all this now does is raise further doubt about other claims as well.
Eli Afram
@justicemate
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