Right-wing NFT artist says OpenSea, Rarible ban down to ‘political censorship’
A right-wing cartoonist accused OpenSea and Rarible of “political censorship” after they nixed his $1.8 million NFT collection, reports Bitcoin News.
Pseudonymous artist Stonetoss launched ‘Flurks’ in late November, a 5,000-piece generative art project similar to Bored Apes and Cryptopunks.
The entire collection sold out in just over 20 minutes and raised 420 ETH (worth around $1.8 million).
Despite people speculating on the artwork’s resale value, and the collection’s trade volume exceeding 100 ETH ($445,000) on OpenSea, the initial success was short-lived.
“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 explained to Bitcoin News.
Read more: [Post Malone secretly paid $750K Ether to lace music vid with MoonPay ad]
The artist then detailed how Rarible relisted the collection but removed it again just hours later.
Stonetoss believes the de-platforming could be down to his conservative political beliefs.
“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,” they told Bitcoin News.
“I maintain that my work is no more dangerous than that of Dave Chappelle; telling jokes some people don’t want to hear.”
Stonetoss says Confederate flag may be behind ban
Stonetoss then detailed how they attempted to contact Rarible and OpenSea for an explanation but received no reply.
“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,” Stonetoss told Bitcoin News.
“We also included Pride flags, Gadsden Flags, and a hammer-and-sickle shirt as traits as well.”
“We believe 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.”
There has been no official response from the platforms in question. But according to Stonetoss, one Rarible employee did take to the company’s official Discord channel to say:
“We don’t delist something just because of its political view.”
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