Latest news about Bitcoin and all cryptocurrencies. Your daily crypto news habit.
Itâs no secret that not everyone in the world of bitcoin shares the same opinion. Heated debates, and all out flame wars, play across social media every day. But what happens when the debate goes beyond mere words, and individuals resort to dirty tricks such as hacking and vote rigging? Thatâs exactly whatâs been taking place on r/Bitcoin, Redditâs most popular bitcoin board, with over 430,000 users, according to one redditor.
Also read:Â Someone Just Helped Themselves to $600k of Bitcoin Cash from Segwit Addresses
He Who Controls Information Controls the World of Bitcoin
Moderators on the thousands of subreddits that make up the so-called âfront page of the internetâ have a range of powers at their disposal. These include deleting and pruning threads and banning users found to have been in contravention of the siteâs rules. The vast majority of these unpaid admins perform their duties diligently and tirelessly. But what happens when moderators overstep the line and abuse their privileges?
According to the appropriately named censorship_notifier, such behavior is rampant on r/Bitcoin, with one or more mods routinely using their enhanced access to control the flow of information. While such antics may sound trifling and the stuff of message board bickering, the worldâs most popular Bitcoin subreddit is relied-on by hundreds of thousands of people for information. Underhand tactics do nothing to advance the cause of bitcoin and sully the communityâs reputation.
Busted by a Bot
Ironically, the behavior that certain r/Bitcoin moderators stand accused of wasnât detected by a human whistleblower â it was uncovered by a bot. The Censorship Notifier Bot (CNBot) trawls Reddit boards to detect threads that are deleted and to uncover data that points to censorship. After redditor BashCo revealed large-scale vote manipulation on r/Bitcoin a week ago, the CNBot was despatched to investigate. Reddit threads attain visibility through upvoting. Conversely, when threads are downvoted en masse, they all but disappear from view.
The first thing the CNBot detected is that posting threads containing the words âcensoringâ or âcensorshipâ on r/Bitcoin automatically resulted in thread removal. A lengthy post on r/btc â Redditâs other primary bitcoin board, and one typically frequented by bitcoin cash supporters â delves into the matter in forensic detail. It explains:
The bots which were downvoting comments and posts on /r/Bitcoin and upvoting posts on /r/btc began their attack on 11/14/2017 at around 18:00 utc. A similar unusual pattern of voting appeared on /r/btc around the same time the day before, though less dramatically. The bots seemed to be pushing people to buy Bitcoin Cash in such a blatant way that it even left a bad taste in the mouths of Bitcoin Cash supporters.
The post then outlines compelling evidence to show bot-orchestrated vote-rigging and widespread censorship. The individuals behind the campaign donât appear to have stopped there however, for censorship_notifier continues:
We also noticed that an extremely high number of /r/Bitcoin and /r/btc users were reporting that they themselves were hacked and part of the bot attack. We identified 35 such users, but the highest number of votes seen on a single thing indicate between 250-300 accounts involved with the attack.
Mods Are Gods
Not content with merely presenting the case for unethical moderator behavior, censorship_notifier goes on to point the finger of blame, identifying redditor nullc who also happens to be CTO of Blockstream. Elsewhere on r/btc, users have accused the Blockstream team of having âwaged a distortion campaign in this very subâ. The same poster opines: âBlockstream, Inc. and Core have aligned BTC against everyone who wants peer to peer electronic cash. They did this by setting very high fees, through SegWit, which isnât even much of a capacity increaseâ.
The merits of bitcoin cash, bitcoin core, and segwit are another debate for another time. It would be fair to say, however, that every bitcoiner, whatever their preferred chain, board, and scaling solution, should be entitled to speak their mind without risk of censorship.
So What Now?
Censorship_notifierâs lengthy exposĂ© finishes by saying: âAfter the massive amount of research we put into this, we believe that at least one moderator of /r/Bitcoin must have been either aware of the botâs plans (and allowed it to place blame on others), or have executed the attack themselvesâŠWe encourage the Reddit admins to carefully review our claims and to validate them. If our claims here are true, surely some type of strong action is warranted.â
One of bitcoinâs greatest strengths is that it is censorship-resistant. Bitcoiners from all sides of the spectrum would do well to heed this as they engage in debate on Reddit and elsewhere. Criticize? Sure. Flame? If you must. Downvote? Go on then. Delete, censor, hack, and manipulate? Hell naw. Weâre better than that.
Have you experienced comments being censored or deleted on r/Bitcoin? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock.
Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.
At News.Bitcoin.com all comments containing links are automatically held up for moderation in the Disqus system. That means an editor has to take a look at the comment to approve it. This is due to the many, repetitive, spam and scam links people post under our articles. We do not censor any comment content based on politics or personal opinions. So, please be patient. Your comment will be published.
The post Forum Wars: r/Bitcoin Mods Accused of Hacking and Vote Manipulation appeared first on Bitcoin News.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Bitcoin Insider. Every investment and trading move involves risk - this is especially true for cryptocurrencies given their volatility. We strongly advise our readers to conduct their own research when making a decision.