Mainstream media is at it again with reports about Bitcoin that are very far fetched. The journalists of these stories appear to have no clue what they are writing about. This week the Irish Mirror has detailed the rise of synthetic drugs and children buying them with “untraceable” digital currency.
Also read: Politicians & Banks Helped Bitcoin Beat All Sovereign Currencies in 2015
“Ratings don’t last. Good journalism does.”
–Dan Rather
“Teenagers are using untraceable currency Bitcoin to buy dangerous drugs online,” reads the click bait headline referencing a source from over three years ago.
The biggest problem with this story is the lack of attention mainstream media gives to the parents of these so-called situations. What these small-minded journalists don’t question is why children 14 and younger have access to bank accounts and credit cards in order to purchase Bitcoin. There are not many accessible ways to purchase the virtual money without a bank account (traceable) or a credit card (also traceable) or Localbitcoins (unlikely). Now it would be even more far-fetched to assume that these kids took one of the last routes to purchase the currency by Local Bitcoin’s. It’s hard to imagine children under 14 meeting local cryptocurrency sellers in public face-to-face.
But let’s assume they had access to all of these methods. Each and everyone one these methods to gather Bitcoin should be under parents’ supervision. However, it seems these moms and dads have very little control over their children if they have access to any of these purchasing methods. As a parent myself I’d say it’s pure negligence on their behalf if their kids were accessing these tools to buy bitcoin.
“Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.”
–Hunter S. Thompson
According to the article’s “sources,” getting drugs delivered to your door in an untraceable manner is just too easy. “You can have drugs delivered to your door with just a few clicks of a mouse,” the article reads. “You can do this without any traceability on your bank account and those who want these drugs can even have them shipped to a location that is not their home.”
I’m not sure that the fourteen and under crowd are masking the purchase of illegal drugs via the parcel system. Yet the Irish Mirror and its sources would like you to believe this is a rampant problem. They act within the words of this editorial as if this problem is plaguing the young generation and they want you to believe that if it wasn’t for Bitcoin, the illegal drug trade would cease to exist.
Time and time again the media will try and transform things to fit a certain agenda. For example, the stories linking ISIS to Bitcoin were revealed to be misleading, as UK Treasury’s report noted that Bitcoin is at the very bottom when it comes to terrorist funding and money laundering risk. These stories demonstrate how bad the game of “telephone” really is on the internet as information becomes twisted and distorted but still presented as “news.” In the Bitcoin world, this can happen quite frequently and without remorse. When days later these reports are found to be falsified, misleading and blatant lies, the mainstream media never apologizes.
The point of the quick and sensationalized propaganda is to put fear and doubt into the public’s minds. These stories are quite typical and are a dime a dozen to those in the Bitcoin crowd. The articles lack true integrity but, unfortunately, those who’ve never heard of the currency may believe this sensationalism. The best thing we can do is describe the utter absurdity and show the blatant lies from their stories.
“Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once.”
– Cyril Connolly
What do you think about mainstream media’s Bitcoin coverage? Let us know in the comments below.
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