Financial Censorship by Banks; Why we need Cryptocurrencies
A recent article by NRC shows how banks are engaging in financial censorship. The article is in Dutch but I’ve translated some of it to English below. Here’s from “De complotdenker bankiert maar elders, zegt de bank” (August 17th 2021):
Banks and payment services regularly block accounts of organizations they consider to be spreading fake news about corona and vaccinations. At least eight influential Internet outlets have been put on hold in recent months, or have already been cut off from their bank accounts or payment services. This is the conclusion of a survey by NRC.
The financial ban affects activist group Virus Waarheid, publisher De Blauwe Tijger and evangelist Jaap Dieleman, among others. Banks see the banning of such clients as part of the fight against extremism.
Rabobank, among others, confirmed through a spokesperson that it no longer accepts customers who spread “conspiracy theories and other proven disinformation.” Not because conspiracy theorists would break the law, but because the bank sees their actions as “harmful.” Money flows from these types of organizations are subject to extra scrutiny by banks, invoking the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act.
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Experts say the banks’ policy may be going too far. Some organizations are failing to open new accounts. Triodos Bank, for example, is refusing Virus Waarheid as a customer because the activist group “has called for confrontations that are diametrically opposed to our values,” the bank wrote to the group in an email obtained by NRC.
“Victim of censorship”
The affected platforms claim to be victims of censorship: they are financially duped because of their statements about corona and vaccinations. Without a bank account they can no longer receive donations, which is often their only source of income. Other financial operations also become impossible, which can mean the end of the organization.
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Café Weltschmerz, a popular YouTube channel that presents corona policy as a conspiracy, was also put on hold by Mollie in mid-April. Almost simultaneously, the similar channel Blckbx was put on hold. A Mollie employee told Blckbx that the move may have been due to the channel’s criticism of government policy. When Blckbx put the phone conversation with the employee online, apologies followed. Mollie allegedly made an “administrative error” and is accepting Blckbx back as a customer anyway, a spokesperson said.
Counter Terrorism Finance Department
Of the banks, Rabobank seems to be going the furthest. The bank has a Counter Terrorism Finance department that also investigates corona conspiracy theorists. This is evident from an internal message for bank employees entitled “How does Rabo arm itself against dangerous conspiracy theories and extremism?”
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Banks are more often than not going too far when canceling bank accounts of customers with controversial profiles, says Gijs Bronzwaer, a PhD student in criminal law at Radboud University in Nijmegen. “They sometimes use legislation against money laundering and terrorist financing as an excuse to part with certain customers, while the law is not intended for that.” Financial institutions can, according to Bronzwaer, set acceptance criteria on the basis of which customers are excluded. “For example, Triodos rejected sex worker association Proud in 2015 because the organization would be incompatible with the bank’s mission.”
This kind of censorship has been going on for a number of years already, but it’s becoming increasingly more prevalent around the world. I’ve discussed more examples in my previous posts on this subject titled “Banks Are Being Used For Social Engineering By The Financial Elite” (2019) and “The Financial Elite Are Behind Deplatforming And Censorship On The Internet” (2018). In case you haven’t read those posts yet, I highly recommend taking a look, as it’s very important to know who’s behind this, why they’re doing this, and to be prepared for where all of this is heading.
It’s also important to start looking into private and anonymous cryptocurrencies which will eliminate reliance on banks and other middlemen. Some of the cryptocurrencies that look promising when it comes to private and anonymous financial transactions are Monero (XMR), MobileCoin (MOB) and Pirate Chain (ARRR). These more recent cryptocurrencies improve a lot upon Bitcoin; while Bitcoin has played an important role in starting the move towards decentralized and peer-to-peer cryptocurrencies, the pseudonymous nature of Bitcoin means that you can still be tracked and traced on the Bitcoin network if you’re not being careful.
The financial elite and criminal governments around the world are putting a lot of their resources into developing technology that can track and trace transactions on cryptocurrency networks. They already managed to track most of the Bitcoin transactions. There are plenty of reports online of user transactions being denied and/or accounts being closed by exchanges when they detect that you’re trying to send money to an address that belongs to someone (or an exchange etc.) that is on a blacklist. The criminal IRS has already spent at least $1.25 million to crack Monero (so far unsuccessfully) so that they can continue to extort people who try to protect themselves. The criminal governments are now forcing exchanges to implement KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) policies (‘regulation’) so that they can continue to track and trace financial transactions. As a result, some exchanges have delisted Monero because of its privacy and anonymity. This is all supposedly to “fight crime, terrorism and child abuse,” which is complete bullshit; the true reasons turn out to be to control, manipulate and enslave everyone and stifle dissent.
So there’s a growing trend right now of people moving to other cryptocurrencies that provide more privacy and anonymity. At the same time developers of cryptocurrencies are also working on new technology that will improve the privacy and anonymity of existing and new cryptocurrencies, while eventually completely removing the need for middlemen such as banks and exchanges. The time to start looking into this and getting used to cryptocurrencies is now. Start moving and protecting your financial assets now; it’ll only become more difficult to do so in the future.
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