Cardano founder slams Harvard’s free speech policies, praises crypto as solution

In the recent episode of his podcast, Cardano (ADA) founder Charles Hoskinson discussed one of his favorite topics – freedom of speech and expression – in light of the recent scandal that saw the heads of three large universities in the United States proclaim that their hate speech policies ‘depended on the context.’

Indeed, Hoskinson noted that the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which supports the First Amendment of the US Constitution protecting an individual’s right to free speech, has given Harvard, one of these three universities, a score of 0, indicating it had no such freedoms, as he explained on December 13.

Inconsistent approach to free speech

On the other hand, the presidents of Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Pennsylvania all stated that the qualification of antisemitic speech at their campuses as harassment depended on the context, as they said during a recent Congress hearing on these incidents.

As it happens, Hoskinson pointed out the inconsistencies of such an approach, arguing that those who “go with (…) viewpoints that disagree with the orthodoxy of the mainstream of the campus” do not receive invitations to speak or the attendees shout them down, while “the faculty (…) label it under things like ‘it’s hate speech.’”

“What was so extraordinary about the statement of the president of Harvard was that something that was obviously hate speech under any reasonable definition apparently is given a contextual pass. Why? Because the politics get in the way,” Hoskinson said.

How crypto solves this 

In his view, the cryptocurrency industry can help address this problem “through innovation, and this is what the cryptocurrency space, in general, allows us to do,” adding that “we as an industry are the only industry that the human race has to sort all of this out in a way that preserves those things.”

Furthermore, the Cardano founder highlighted the crypto sector’s commitment to creating tools and systems that would preserve and protect freedom of expression, which is just one part of a broader effort to uphold the essential values in a society increasingly “converging towards a more totalitarian view of things.”

“We have to build the systems, (…) either to augment existing systems like X, Meta (NASDAQ: META), and YouTube or to build replacement systems for them because there’s a small window of time before those systems become completely co-opted and controlled by a patchwork of transnational agencies that behoove themselves to control what is true and what is not.”

Cardano’s contribution

Indeed, as an example of these efforts in the blockchain sector, he singled out his team’s creation of the Midnight Protocol and the work on the ACE concept – the freedom of association, commerce, and expression, as well as the veracity bonds, which envision a financial recourse for making inaccurate public statements.

“One of the great use cases and utilities of the cryptocurrency industry, there are three at the core: consent, identity, and assets – and (…) the extension of that is the preservation and protection of the freedom of association, commerce, and expression.”

As a reminder, Hoskinson became the target of criticism earlier this year when he confirmed he was considering the possibility of purchasing the crypto news portal CoinDesk to introduce these veracity bonds after it published a piece called ‘Opinion: Charles Hoskinson would be the worst thing to happen to CoinDesk.’

Meanwhile, the native token of Hoskinson’s Cardano ecosystem was at press time trading at $0.59, down 2.07% on the day but still recording significant advances of 33.94% across the week and as much as 59.21% in the last month, according to the most recent chart information.

Watch the entire video below: