Political Cartoonist Accuses NFT Platforms Opensea, Rarible of Being ‘Tools for Political Censorship’

NFT

While non-fungibe token (NFT) collectibles have been very popular, NFTs have brought a slew of unique debates to the table and one of them has been censorship. The artist behind Stonetoss Comics, a series of political cartoons, has been censored by two very prominent NFT marketplaces — Opensea and Rarible. Stonetoss has told the public on social media that the artist fears these NFT platforms are being used as a “tool for political censorship.”

2 major NFT markets accused of political censorship

Censorship of any kind was hated in the early days of cryptography, but nowadays acts of censorship slip through the cracks. The very nature of Bitcoin and blockchain technology is touted as ‘censorship resistant’ tools and non-fungible token (NFT) assets are intended to provide censorship resistance for things like works. art, online creations, collectibles, virtual items, etc. However, while NFT marketplaces allow users to connect their wallets and buy and sell NFT assets such as decentralized exchange (dex) platforms, unlike dex applications, web portals hosting NFTs are considered centralized. Although some dex apps have also been accused of centralization and censorship.

On November 22, the pseudonymous conservative cartoonist known as “Stonetoss,” told the public about censorship issues the artist was dealing with on the biggest Ethereum NFT marketplace platform Opensea. “Hello Opensea, I am reaching out because I fear your platform is being co-opted as a tool for political censorship. I also sent this message to your support page. My collector community would like a reply,” Stonetoss tweeted. Stonetoss also sent outreach to Rarible as well, as the NFT marketplace also banned the pseudonymous cartoonist’s NFTs.

OpenSea Platform NFT Flurks, Rarible

NFT flurks saw Support by conservative cartoonist Ben Garrison, internet comedian Ricky berwick and the actor Sam hyde. This weekend, artist Stonetoss spoke with Bitcoin.com News and spoke to our press office about some of the censorship that occurred with the recent Stonetoss NFT collection.

“On November the 20th, me and a team of mine launched a sale of 5,000 NFT art pieces connected to my work,” Stonetoss explained to our newsdesk. “The project was titled ‘Flurks.’ The project was a set of generative art pieces in a similar style to the famous ‘Bored Ape’ and ‘Cryptopunks’ NFT projects. The project’s official website is Flurksnft.com. Then the team sold out of the entire inventory of NFTs in 22 minutes.”

“The project collected a total of around 420 ethereum, [and] that’s equivalent to around $ 1.8 million, ”Stonetoss said. “As is popular with NFTs, people immediately speculated on the [resale] price of the artwork in secondary markets like Opensea.io and Rarible.com (the two largest markets in the NFT space). Of course, the shocking sell time was a strong signal for huge demand, ”Stonetoss said. The pseudonymous designer added:

Within about six hours of the sell-out, trade volume of the Flurks NFTs exceeded 100 ethereum on Opensea. It was around that point that, for reasons unknown to us, Opensea had apparently de-listed Flurks from their platform – preventing further sales. Sometime thereafter we were also delisted on Rarible for unstated reasons.

Stonetoss says art is “no longer dangerous Dave Chappelle; Tell jokes that some people don’t want to hear ‘

Stonetoss added that the next day Rarible put the Flurks NFT collection back on sale, but the collection was written off again a few hours later. The artist is not sure why Rarible has written off the NFT twice, but the cartoonist suspects political censorship.

“We believe this de-platforming on both Opensea and Rarible are attempts at political censorship. Because my work as a cartoonist is often political, I have been the regular target of de-platforming campaigns by those who disagree. In response, I have addressed many of the claims made against my work by those wishing to de-platform it,” the cartoonist said.

“Specifically, I reject having violent personal beliefs or being linked to political extremism such as being a ‘Nazi’. I maintain that my job is no more dangerous than Dave Chappelle’s; tell jokes that some people don’t want to hear, ”added the artist. The cartoonist added that the artist’s team addressed the grievances using their official platform communication on Twitter and also respectfully marked the founders of Openea and Rarible.

“Despite reaching out on their official support channels and on Twitter, we have received no reply from either Opensea or Rarible for why the de-platforming occurred. We speculate that the reason might be due to the inclusion of a Confederate flag as a random trait applied to some of the NFT artworks in the set,” Stonetoss told Bitcoin.com News. “As explained in the Twitter post, we also included Pride flags, Gadsden Flags, and a hammer-and-sickle shirt as traits as well. We believe it is obvious that in this context, the addition of a Confederate flag is no more of an endorsement of the Confederacy as a hammer-and-sickle shirt is an endorsement of communism.” The cartoonist added:

Indeed, the Confederate flag is still used by some state governments in the United States. It seems that Opensea and Rarible would prefer EVERYTHING except having to tackle the root cause of the de-platform. The two platforms have become places of artistic expression. On the official Rarible Discord channel, when pressed, a Rarible employee insisted, “We don’t delete something just because of his political opinion.”

Stonetoss Is ‘Not Willing to Let Censorship Go Unchallenged’

The artist says that no official word from Opensea and Rarible has been sent to the cartoonist’s team and the artist expects the issue “to be quite embarrassing for a platform touting itself as an art market.”

“Personally, I have no doubt that Flurks will benefit from a healthy secondary market even if we have to build our own platform for it,” Stonetoss concluded. “This has already been successfully done by a project called ‘Cryptophunks’, an imitation of ‘Cryptopunks’. However, as a conservative political cartoonist, I am not willing to leave this censorship unchallenged. Indeed, my fame as a that artist is precisely due to the fact that I can operate in this environment of censorship. ”

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