We all followed the past few days the Truckers' protests (dubbed as Freedom Convoy by its organizers) in Canada, which culminated with the GoFundMe donation campaign.
For those who didn't - here is a tl;dr about what are the Truckers' protests about
A convoy of truckers gathered in Canada's capital Ottawa to protest as the country's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau implemented a vaccine mandate for truckers crossing the US - Canada border. The new measures would require truckers to quarantine once returning home.
The group gathered support from different parts of the country as they drove from West to East. This included different groups; ranging from Conservatives, to Libertarians, to antivaxxers, to people financially affected by the lockdowns, and those fatigued with the extreme COVID measures the country's Liberal government has put in place.
The GoFundMe Campaign
A fundraiser was launched to support the Truckers from the convoy for their expenditures to go to Ottawa. GoFundMe, the popular fundraising website initially approved the campaign as it considered it a peaceful protest. Thus, when the first target of $1 million was reached it disbursed it to the group. The convoy's cause and fundraiser gained traction and raised another $9 million which was frozen by GoFundMe after pressures from the Canadian government.
Instead, the fundraising platform said that it will donate the money raised to other charities and initiatives drawing the ire of Elon Musk, Jordan Peterson, Canadian and US Politicians, and that of the donors to the convoy's cause.
Under threat of being sued into the stone age for defrauding its users, GoFundMe backtracked and reimbursed all people who had donated to the fundraiser.
The acts of GoFundMe team raise some important questions:
Can we trust the people behind these platforms? For example they allowed funds to be raised even for bailing out violent protestors that looted and burned cities during the BLM protests but blocked the truckers fundraiser even though there was no organized looting or property destruction.
Who are these people and what gives them the right to dictate what to do with your money that you donate for a certain cause?
Why we need Crypto
This situation demonstrated once more the need for permissionless and censorship resistant decentralized platforms and money. After the fundraiser was halted, the truckers cause raised around 16 Bitcoin until today.
This shows how difficult it is to censor Bitcoin and how it can be used to counter government overreach and private corporations attempts to censor groups or individuals.
Bitcoin cannot be suspended nor stopped! The situation that unfolded was a prime example of its importance.
PS: In this article I am not making any arguments for or against the vaccine mandates. This is not my expertise. This up to health experts, doctors, and virologists to decide.
