There is a new internet payments technology that is 100% effective against abuses like this, even when the state decides it shouldn't be possible.

Censorship-resistant payments are an essential prerequisite to a free society, something I have been asserting in public for a dozen+ years.

Unfortunately as of late they have been vilified. If I were a paranoid man, I might point out that this happened right around the time they became known to the mainstream.

It turns out that censorship-resistant payments also attract the worst type of people along with scammers first. If you had paid attention then you would have realized that is exactly what was going to happen long before it did. There is no need for paranoia here, people tend to dislike and go after hives of scum and villainy (unless they are wrapped in pretty corporate words).

To be fair you are vilifying crypto here. You’re just saying it’s justified. Which proves its vilified. Im not even into crypto but it’s value proposition starts to look better in this context.

it's value proposition looks exactly the same as it did before because literally nothing has changed

>independent journalists

The Grayzone is pretty obviously a pro-Kremlin propaganda outlet, Blumenthal was even invited to UN to speak on behalf of Russian state:

https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2023/0630/1392098-un-chay-bowe...

https://russiaun.ru/en/news/290623_n

I think we just need more reciprocity laws in international relations. Russian and Chinese journalists should be equally as constrained as American journalists in their countries.

By that standard, how is say Bellingcat not a pro-NATO propaganda outlet, when the founder was even invited to be a senior fellow of Atlantic Council, a think tank whose members have included luminaries such as David Petraeus, Colin Powell and Henry Kissinger?

The Gray Zone is not a quality outlet, IMO. They're certainly too light on Russia, and worse, bad at distinguishing genuinely damning stuff and spun fluff.

But they should still be able to take the public's funding, if the public wants to fund them.

That affected party looks like more than just an "independent journalist". They look like a kook that probably did something to deserve it. Can we please have some actual "free speech" that isn't another boring fig leaf for crime?