-
In
the
past
few
months,
many
meme
coins
have
appeared
containing
racist
terms. -
Panelists
during
a
discussion
at
BUIDL
Asia
debated
on
how
to
best
deal
with
this
problem.
As
funny
and
irreverent
as
meme
coins
are,
the
category
also
has
a
problem
with
an
explosion
of
tokens
with
names
containing
the
N-word
and
other
racist
themes.
During
a
panel
discussion
on
meme
coins
at
the
recent
BUIDL
Asia
summit
in
Seoul,
panelists
debated
how
to
deal
with
the
problem.
Should
wallet
apps
and
decentralized
exchanges
screen
out
banned
words?
Or
do
the
nodes
have
a
duty
to
stop
these
tokens
dead
in
their
tracks?
“Choice
means
the
right
for
a
wallet
developer
to
institute
a
block
list,”
Austin
Federa,
the
Solana
Foundation’s
head
of
strategy,
said
during
the
panel.
“Almost
every
wallet
in
every
ecosystem
filters
out
spam
NFTs
and
spam
tokens.
Users
always
have
the
ability
to
reveal
something
if
they
want
to,
but
the
core
network
needs
to
remain
permissionless.”
Federa
made
an
analogy
to
the
internet:
It’s
unreasonable
to
expect
an
internet
service
provider
(ISP)
to
filter
out
content
that
some
might
find
offensive,
he
said.
After
all,
the
internet,
like
crypto,
operates
on
a
largely
permissionless
basis.
“No
one
expects
Verizon
to
have
a
legal
obligation
to
prevent
a
phishing
email
from
landing
in
your
inbox
or
to
prevent
you
from
accessing
something
that
is
potentially
racist
material,”
he
said.
“Solana
is
all
on
the
application
level.
It’s
wallets
making
decisions
about
the
kind
of
content
they
want
to
show
and
display.”
Marc
Zeller,
founder
of
the
Aave
Chan
Initiative,
an
Aave
DAO
delegate
and
service
provider,
had
a
different
perspective,
pointing
out
that
under
European
Union
law,
there’s
an
obligation
to
filter
content.
“In
France,
for
instance,
there
are
legal
obligations
for
ISPs
to
block
certain
content,”
he
said,
giving
the
example
of
Holocaust
denialism.
“I’m
not
saying
it’s
a
good
thing,
nor
am
I
trying
to
be
political.
It’s
interesting
to
point
out
that
different
cultures
have
different
approaches
to
the
same
issue,”
he
said.
“Focusing
on
the
blockchain
ethos,
we
tend
to
support
free
speech
and
believe
that
censorship
resistance
is
more
important
than
eliminating
displeasing
content.”
Federa
said
that
some
validators
and
nodes
believe
they
have
a
legal
obligation
to
censor
some
content,
citing
the
U.S.
Office
of
Foreign
Assets
Control
(OFAC)
imposing
sanctions
on
Ethereum
Tornado
Cash
transactions
and
North
Korean
and
other
crypto
wallets.
This
wasn’t
without
significant
debate
within
the
Ethereum
community,
and
some
proposed
countermeasures
to
slash
–
or
sanction
–
nodes
that
participated
in
“censoring”
transactions
in
line
with
OFAC
guidance.
Federa
also
mentioned
that
despite
the
attention
racist
meme
coins
have
gotten,
in
the
grand
scheme
of
things,
they
are
minuscule
compared
with
crypto’s
scale.
“This
is
very
much
akin
to
in
the
United
States,
when
there’s
a
hate
group
that
has
20
members
that
goes
and
protests
in
front
of
a
church.
And
they’re
on
national
news,
and
it’s
a
big
thing.
But
if
you
look
at
it,
there’s
20
people,
and
all
they
want
is
attention,”
he
said.
CORRECT
(March
29,
14:59
UTC):
Corrects
Federa’s
job
title.
An
earlier
version
of
this
story
said
he
was
head
of
communications,
a
position
he
previously
held.