It is not possible to censor the blockchain, but businesses that write to and read from the blockchain have a moral and legal obligation to moderate morally reprehensible and illegal content.

Yesterday, an anonymous user posted illegal content to the blockchain using Money Button. Money Button does not provide any mechanism to interpret or display this content, but BitcoinFiles.org does. BitcoinFiles.org received a notice from their local authorities about the nature of the illegal content viewable on their website. BitcoinFiles.org removed the content from their website and then contacted us suspecting that Money Button may have been the tool the criminals used to write this content to the blockchain. We have confirmed that was the case and we have banned the user responsible for creating those transactions.

We believe it is important to be proactive about moderating content. Now that Bitcoin SV has the ability to write large amounts of data to the blockchain, it is likely that criminals will continue to attempt to abuse this technology for illegal purposes. We have updated our Terms of Service to explicitly clarify that Money Button cannot be used to write illegal content to the blockchain, and users who attempt to do so will be banned and reported to the authorities.

Furthermore, we are collaborating with other businesses to create protocols and tooling for sharing blacklisted transactions and addresses. BitcoinFiles.org and others are helping to create protocols we can use, including the possibility of writing this information to the blockchain in authenticated way. If illegal content continues to be an issue, we can build moderation tools into the blockchain. Businesses and users will be able opt-in to blacklists from trusted businesses and authorities.

The vast majority of blockchain users are legal and legitimate. Criminals who use the blockchain, like in the real world, are a small fraction of the community who try to spoil something good for everyone else. We are committed to making sure the blockchain remains useful to the vast majority of users who do not commit crimes and will continue to improve our moderation policies as needed.

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