Presenters
Abstract
Earlier this year Facebook, Google, and Twitter banned all advertising for cryptocurrencies, digital coin exchanges, and initial coin offerings. This paper examines the political economic implications of the decision by Facebook, Google, and Twitter to ban cryptocurrency ads by examining the discourse within digital cryptocurrency communities about who makes claims to authority and power over digital technologies and information. The underlying discourse is rooted in the debate between centralization and regulation. Examining the discourse in response to this critical juncture frames the hegemonic and counterhegemonic rhetorical moves used by digital communities to substantiate their claims to authority.
The structure of the argument of this paper lays the foundation for this critical debate. First, this paper establishes how an online cryptocurrency community has developed to champion blockchain technology and to contest the hegemonic control of state and corporate institutions. Next, this paper argues that the response of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to self-regulate cryptocurrency advertising comes as the result of this moment serving as a critical juncture where contestation for control of digital information and privacy are being waged against neoliberalism and the dominant ideology of the authority of market forces to legitimize hegemonic practices. Finally, this paper examines the modes of recourse the cryptocurrency community exercises to contest the hegemonic ban of cryptocurrency advertising. Making an argument for ideological negotiation in response to this critical juncture, the cryptocurrency community resorts to working within existing hegemonic structures to delegitimize the advertising ban while simultaneously advocating the abandonment of these structures in favor of the creation of new, decentralized structures that use the very blockchain technology they champion.