CCN, also known as CCN Markets, one of the world’s largest purveyors of blockchain and crypto related news closed their doors today.
What killed them though wasn’t a hack, it wasn’t a scandal, it wasn’t even, and pardon the pun, newsworthy. It was a little algorithm update. Or so they say. One little algorithm shot their viewership down by 50% in the blink of an eye. It probably took longer to read this sentence than it did to kill one of the most respected names in blockchain and crypto journalism.
Either way, the canary is dead and it’s time to get out of the coal mine.
That’s what centralization can do, it’s not just your information they can look at, it’s the information they can keep you from seeing. Did CCN do something to get themselves axed? An article some CEO didn’t like? Are the tech giants planning to launch their own tokens and they don’t want criticism?
Or sadly, and almost more sinister, could it just be unintentional? Is it right for some tech conglomerate to have the power to kill a business, much less a news agency, with the unintentional flip of a switch? To make almost 60 people jobless, without even knowing?
No.
That’s the price of centralization, and it’s too high a price to pay.
No one organization should have the ability to control what you can and can’t see online.
No one organization should be able to delete your online presence because they didn’t like what you said.
So, let’s get out of this mine, and start thinking about the internet of tomorrow, one that’s decentralized and truly free.
