As bitcoin gains the attention of a wider audience a consensus will emerge about what bitcoin is. I know I'm not the only one to mention the importance of helping shape bitcoins image and dispel some of the myths. If NBC nightly news (a major US evening news) did a story about bitcoin tonight, what do you think it would say?
I fear it would be about organized crime; i.e. money laundering,drugs, tax evasion, terror. Not because bitcoin is about those things, but because those are the most sensational and easily digestible stories. We need to get the word out about the bigger bitcoin story. About how people are trading in new markets and developing their own convenient, inexpensive and safe economy. As memes go, that's not as sexy as drugs and terror. It is bigger news though.
Any money system is going to attract a criminal element. Consider the Hawala system in the middle east. Trusted for over a thousand years. And had it not been used to fund some terror groups I would have never heard or it. How can BTC avoid being similarly poisoned? The answer is with you fellow peer.
Let's start letting the press know about the bright spot in these bad economic times. There are many positive themes that would make a compelling and interesting story For example:
- Globalization is not dying, it is going peer to peer
- Consumers place faith in math over banks
- bitcoin could open trade to many of the worlds poor
You could easily come up with more of your own and I think you should. I'm not suggesting being deceptive about bitcoins potential use by criminals, but that needs to be in perspective and the mass media is not currently good at perspective. Please use this thread to post your thoughts and musings on how to portray bitcoin when attempting to explain it to a general audience.
