Several people seem to be concerned that the current policy will be too disruptive/constraining. How about I make this modification to loosen it a bit: you can direct people to mixers by name (even in something like a "top 10 mixers" topic), as long as:
- You don't directly post their URLs.
- It's not a paid ad, and you're not representing a mixer.
Would this be sufficient to address the concerns?
It is a step in the right direction. My question remains though - why can't a legit mixer have an ANN thread and market its service? Does Bitcointalk breach some rules by allowing it?
Were there any problems for BTT after CM went down/do you expect to have any now due to Sinbad's situation?
I don't really care about mixers that much - but the thing is that such decisions open doors to more censorship in the future. No KYC? Ban. Discussing VPN? Ban. And that's a fucking scary thought.
is it actually OK that in a forum of such size and significance we have authoritative leadership that simply makes a decision like this without any sort of consulting?
Of course. Bitcointalk isn't a democracy:
theymos as our benevolent dictator
Yeah, I know that's how it currently is. But I honestly think that theymos would be the first to jump at the opportunity to have a better/more decentralized solution.
To quote a post I fully agree with:
Well, I think we are already in such a campaign against everything "freedom": banning mixers on this forum, large pools imposing KYC, and some of them started practicing transaction censorship.
I can't blame theymos just as much as I can't blame some of those pools and exchanges who have no option but to comply with the governments. I think we as a community failed big time.
14 years have passed, and we have not built anything truly decentralized
- No decentralized forum/community platform
- No truly decentralized exchange
- No truly decentralized mining pool
- No truly decentralized mixer
Too much power/responsibility is put in the hands of a few, creating terrible single points of failure. It's only a matter of time before they start banning everything that contributes to users' privacy/anonymity on the blockchain. We need to start looking for alternatives to everything we use today, something truly decentralized by ownership.
We again use what's easy, what's convenient, what's controllable. BTC was a breakthrough specifically because it opposed it, and it feels that we're making a full circle.