Cryptocurrency news website The Block recently published a story that claimed that there was a police raid on Binance’s offices in Shanghai, China. The exchange vehemently denies this ‘fake news’ story and, now, plans to sue.
The media outlet claimed that Binance’s Shanghai office had been shut down following a police raid. Supposedly, dozens of individuals worked at this office — which was abruptly shut down by authorities.
The story was only visible to subscribers. The rest were left with a juicy headline and no way to access the full story — which disturbed many in the cryptocurrency community.
Binance Claims Shanghai Offices Don’t Exist
Binance has said publically that these Shanghai offices never even existed. In fact, Binance’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao, has said that BINANCE runs on a decentralized model that is spread out all over the world.
Nevertheless, the Block is standing by its reporting.
Setting the record straight on our Binance reportinghttps://t.co/zOIVPhmKx7
— The Block (@TheBlock__) November 22, 2019
Now, Binance has decided to take this a step further.
According to Zhao, the exchange plans to sue The Block for libel. He also claimed that reports of the non-existent police raid unfairly damaged Binance’s reputation and even hurt the price of Bitcoin.
It’s unclear what libel laws Binance will be applying for its case.
We will be suing them.
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) November 23, 2019
Post-Truth Reporting?
There’s been a lot of buzz in the past three years or so over ‘fake news.’ It seems to be everywhere. With every media outlet vying for a limited amount of public attention, some choose to exploit sensationalism without merit to garner clicks — and the cryptocurrency media space is certainly no exception.
The strange thing about this particular case, however, is that not even the basic facts can be agreed upon. The Block claimed that Binance does — or, at least, did — have a Shanghai office, while the exchange claims that these offices haven’t existed in years. This is a fundamental disagreement on what truth even is.
Images are courtesy of Shutterstock, Twitter.
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