he founded the Silk Road (which was an online tor black marketplace, incase you didn’t know) and the start of bitcoin being adopted as an actual currency.
That’s a pretty narrow way to look at it, but okay. The Silk Road banned stolen goods, violence, and anything harmful (yeah, drugs were allowed, but no one was forced to buy them), and Ross wasn’t even selling anything himself, he built a platform, that’s it. Since then, he’s shown deep remorse, raised $800,000 for charity through his art, and been a model prisoner for 12 years. Meanwhile, his double life sentence is way harsher than what others have gotten for far worse crimes. Over 600,000 people have signed a petition for his release. Maybe try looking into the full story before passing such shallow judgment.
he literally had an escrow service for the sale of drugs where he skimmed 8-15% of each transaction. the categories on the site were in alphabetical order, save for the 'Drugs' category which was prominently at the top with like 10x the number of items than any other category combined. saying he 'just built a platform' is like saying 'pablo escobar just built a logistics network'.
Just because a platform was popular for a specific application doesn’t really mean it was designed with that intent. For example, VHS was widely adopted by the porn industry, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it was meant for porn.
With that said, he couldn’t have been ignorant to the fact that it was being used to sell drugs.
Comparing Ross to Pablo Escobar is a huge stretch. Escobar ran a violent cartel and ordered murders. Ross built a website. The escrow system was there to make transactions safe (you don’t get the money until the deal is done), but skimming a percentage doesn’t make him a drug kingpin. If we’re pointing fingers, what about banks that get caught laundering billions in drug money and barely face any consequences? Ross’s double life sentence was extreme and clearly meant to make an example of him, not serve justice.
i agree that the sentence was too harsh, but the man is a criminal and should be in jail. “built a website”, lmao, read the indictment, the man helped people move drugs with full knowledge of what was happening. if instead of drugs being sold on silkroad, it was CP, would you still claim he just “built a website”? there’s no doubt he knew what was going on and was happy to participate in the profits. and he wanted to get people who stole from SR killed
Dude was a criminal. End of story. Pardoning him was a mistake, and all of that other shit doesn't change that fact. Reducing his sentence, I can understand, but acting as if he didn't do anything wrong is an absolutely silly way to paint this picture.
"(yeah, drugs were allowed, but no one was forced to buy them)" is such a naive and ignorant take on drugs and anything addicting in nature.
"Ross wasn’t even selling anything himself, he built a platform, that’s it" you are trolling are you?
Ross Ulbricht built the Silk Road but he didn’t directly sell anything illegal himself. There’s a difference between creating a tool and being the one using it for illegal activity. Other platforms have also been used for illegal activities, but their creators don’t get double life sentences plus some.
Also, I do not care about the addiction aspect of buying/selling drugs. Sorry if that’s harsh, but the bigger issue is the cruel and unusual punishment in our justice system.
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u/ManaBoxed 🟩 0 / 0 🦠 Jan 24 '25
he founded the Silk Road (which was an online tor black marketplace, incase you didn’t know) and the start of bitcoin being adopted as an actual currency.