Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, a coin that has lost nearly 99% of its value since the 2017 crypto bull run, feels that Wikipedia is censoring crypto. During a recent YouTube video, the founder of Cardano went on a rant about crypto censorship on Wikipedia.
What Hoskinson Had to Say
In the video, which is slightly under 10 minutes long, Hoskinson accused Wikipedia of bias. According to him, the site is hostile to his Cardano crypto project and he threatened he would take legal action. He took issues with the proof of stake page, which he claims is outdated. Hoskinson claimed that when a member of Cardano tried to edit the page to include the Ouroboros consensus algorithm on which Cardano runs, a volunteer on Wikipedia would remove the change later.
According to him, it poses an existential danger to the crypto sector when people rely on things that seem open but are controlled by a small click of people. He claimed this small group of people was extremely biased and it was not accountable to anyone.
Who is Hoskinson Talking About?
One of the editors Hoskinson was referring to is Dave Gerard. Many other crypto projects, including Decred, have accused Gerard of censorship. He later tweeted that he had been talking about Gerard. He said that it had been ongoing since the days of Ethereum and he had no idea why he hated Cardano so much or where his ego came from.
However, Gerard is not the only editor that has issues with Ouroboros. Various other editors on Wikipedia have removed mention of the consensus algorithm on Wikipedia. When Cardano members have put it back, it has been taken out again. Even a proposed link to the consensus algorithm was removed.
Promotional Content
According to Wikipedia, the reason they remove the information is that it is promotional. According to a tweet showing Wikipedia’s response, the text proposed was not neutral and the wording was not appropriate for an encyclopedia.
Is Cardano a Target?
Hoskinson claimed that this is not the only time Wikipedia editors have gone after Cardano during his video rant. He noted that Cardano once had a Wikipedia page in November 2018 but it was removed shortly after. Hoskinson noted that some smaller projects, some of which do not currently exist, still had a Wikipedia page. He said this was not fair, especially considering that the Cardano once had a market cap bigger than SpaceX. Hoskinson claimed that Wikipedia was hostile. Each time they tried to add information on the free encyclopedia, Wikipedia would claim they were failing to meet a certain standard. He added that they were not afraid to have a debate with Wikipedia to understand which standards they were supposed to meet.
Wikipedia Denies Claims of Bias
Gerard, the Wikipedia editor, wrote an article in which he denied claims of bias against crypto. According to him, if a project wants to receive coverage on Wikipedia, it has to have received significant coverage in mainstream media sources.
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