Bitcoin Forum

Hello World

It has come to my attention in the past month or so that the mainstream media are starting to pick up on the negative stories of bitcoin.  In a recent article by the Guardian www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/mar/04/bitcoin-currency-of-vice (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/mar/04/bitcoin-currency-of-vice) you only need look at the url to spot the negative labelling: "bitcoin-currency-of-vice" and the main headline "Bitcoin: more than just the currency of digital vice" but still associating it with vice. There are so many headlines they could have used: Bitcoin: Currency of the future.

The first paragraph of the article talks about Drugs, Criminals and the Silk Road without even a mention of bitcoin until the 2nd paragraph says that is how this bad stuff is all paid for. Not one part of the article specifically indicated the advantages of bitcoin either geopolitically or in regards to how it stacks up against fiat currency. Part of the article offers a slating by a professor of telecommunications at Indiana University Bloomington - who pioneered the economic study of virtual worlds <-- like that gives any gravity to his expertise on bitcoin or world currency. He states that he:


"It just isn't FUN"

Well I never knew money had to be fun to be functional.  And I have to disagree, I think bitcoin or another cryptocurrency will become mainstream exactly because of it's nature.  It's the best alternative to cash on the internet than anything else and that is part of it great power.

Apart from this article, I have seen many negatives articles popping up regarding bitcoin including thefts of just $8000 and the recent one regarding the glitch in the system.  The fact that bitcoin regained after that glitch was a sure indicator of it's strength.

Bitcoin is the currency of the future and if done correctly with the coming together of people's recent rise in global political awareness of our enslavement to banks and dictatorial governments it is just one part of the solution (strong cryptography available to the public is another) that has the power to redress the balance between normal working people and the corrupt banks, governments and large corporations that sit in each others pockets scratching each other backs while raping us of our wealth.

The thing I like about bitcoin is that it takes the power from the banks and government and is another resource we can use to regain our privacy.

Happy mining
Phil.

You should have seen what they were saying last year. Even though they get it wrong often, the press bitcoin is receiving now is the most positive it has ever been. I think they just want the most titillating story. It is hard to beat "secret hacker drug money".

Someone should tell the Onion to do a similar hit-piece on the US dollar.  "It constantly goes down in value, people hate when it's used to pay for legitimate purchases because it takes so long, and its main use is to buy drugs, pay hookers, gamble illegally, and do underground deals".  It's all true.

Would have to agree with this guy.  Instead of seeing dozens of negative articles and one or two positive articles like we did the past two years, we're seeing dozens of positive articles and one or two negative articles.  It's a very big change in attitude compared to the past.  I would say a more accurate thread title might be "Mainstream media mostly done with attacking Bitcoin".

+1

It's a shame but this is the usual reaction when a person sees something as new and strange.

Media distortion? No! Not here in our fair Republic? We have seen some positive stories on our new product: Bitspend.net

We give internet shoppers the freedom to buy anything they want, anywhere online, any time they want completely anonymous if so desired. We even had a guy test us out by giving us his grocery list. He got everything he wanted and it would have been on time but he didn't hear the knock at the door the first time the groceries were being delivered ;-)

Currently established governments and central banks hate stuff like Bitcoin with a passion, so they'll manipulate the media into going after it, just like they do when they're trying to build up war propaganda, we're being told we have to attack Iran and North Korea because they 'may' have developed nuclear capabilities, same thing. Get used to the hate, I personally enjoy it when mainstream media write news articles about Bitcoin because they just show off how utterly ignorant they are about it with every word.

Don't be surprised if you find propaganda against Bitcoin sprouting everywhere like with Bittorrent.

Max Keiser has been pumping this thing for all it's worth this month.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t39jCXXIrY

That goes out on RT RT broadcast through 30 satellite and 500 cable operators to over 100 countries, 25 percent of all cable subscribers worldwide.

Max Keiser would pump anything he's invested in. He did it with Silver , before it crashed.
The guy might be helping the Bitcoin community, but he's doing it out of ignorance and greed.

He practically hates and bashes anything that has to do with capitalism, yet he made his fortune out of exactly those things that the western world has been acknowledged for.

With that being said, any publicity is good publicity :).
 

All publicity is good publicist. Let the haters hate. It raises awareness, and the more people that are aware of it the better. Right now when I tell people about bitcoin, it is for the first time.

let them QQ :p Helps getting the word out.

No such thing as bad publicity, right?

This is coming from someone who lives in the uk

90% of british news is either so well padded to make it look like total **** all they are trying to do is make it so the computer great generation of people seem like a bunch of complete jerks and yet what will this news do.

Make the bitcoins crow and expand more and more people will be searching.

You're understanding the concept properly, you've just got inflation/deflation backwards. Bitcoin is deflating if individual bitcoins are worth more now than they were worth before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflation

This is good. This means they fear it.

We are living in the era of big (okay, huge) changes and I understand that for certain individuals/organizations it might be difficult to cope with the idea of their decline! Changes always carry both threats and opportunities. Can you imagine the situation when the first automobiles where introduced or when first electricity started widespread adoption? The same is here with BitCoin. I think BitCoin has bright future and no matter how the haters try, BTC will make it. I can imagine an old-fashioned banker and his anger on BTC. Or take processing companies that make tons of money. We are overcharged. BTC will put an end to this.

I'd like to sell you a horse.

Everyone's just mad that they didn't cover Bitcoin from the start - opportunity missed.

honestly, until bitcoin solves the block size problem and can handle visa size traffic, I'm still in doubt.

Open Source Romerun :D Open Source.

I think the core concept of 100% transparency prevents cryptocurrencies from scaling to VISA-like volumes. Everyone can't hold a full record of everyone else's transactions worldwide, the block size would get too large to download a chain in real-time, let alone catch up.

But I don't really see that as a huge problem, since VISA doesn't print money. IMHO Bitcoin should be replacing the federal reserve banks, not VISA. Long ago, gold was traded much like bitcoin is today, but eventually the transaction costs made bank notes more practical. I think history will repeat itself, and we'll trust Ripple or Open Transactions networks for everyday business. Those organizations will be the ones paying high bitcoin transaction fees, but to move massive amounts of money belonging to multiple customers at once. With OT, this has the added benefit of truly anonymous digital cash without needing a mixing service.

What will be different this time is that we'll have a publicly-auditable monetary base that you can download on your phone, to be SURE that your old bank sent REAL uninflatable money to your new one. It won't be physically vulnerable like gold is, and won't be subject to seizure and eventual domination like gold was.

+1 again - I would agree, all the shocking news about SR seems to of died down, and seen as we haven't had a big hack in a while (touching wood) they've ran out of bad stuff to say, all the greatly positive press its had these last 6 months or so appears to be the media coming round to a more balanced reporting style on Bitcoin..... but yeah I saw that article myself, there's always gonna be some bashing, they will flame it anytime they can!.

I so hope the blockchain fork makes the news, I doubt it will, but it will be nice if they basically say "look how quickly a new currency/economy can be fixed compared to our old dying dinosaur"

" And we've just seen, culturally, people don't like deflation."

LOL now this guy is either totally brainwashed by the political propaganda of the day, or he's deliberately spreading misinformation. Since when do people like to see the purchasing power of their savings dwindle as they are forced into riskier and riskier "investments" in order to try to at least keep their purchasing power from declining. Ridiculous.

I don't think we have to worry much about bad press from people who don't understand Bitcoin in the least.

It is when we start getting attacks from those who do understand what it is and what it represents, because it represents a threat to their interests, that we have to worry.

The dogs bark, but the caravan goes on :-)