Andreas Antonopoulos, author of the book “Mastering Bitcoin” recently posted a tweet accusing the blacklisting system of the popular abbreviation service link, bit.ly.
It turns out, in fact, that the websites related to cryptocurrencies have all been blacklisted by bit.ly and before redirecting the user to the final destination, the service shows a “Stop” signal indicating to change website.
The matter was brought to Antonopoulos’ attention by a Twitter user who asked him why bit.ly complains about the links in his book.
“They don’t point to any harmful location at all,” he added.
Antonopoulos’ reaction was a rather resentful tweet addressed to the company:
“Hey Bitly,
Why are you blocking bit.ly links to cryptocurrency websites?
I’m about to publish my 4th book and it has about 200 bit.ly links in it. If you are going to block links, I will need to remove all 200 and replace them with a competitor”.
Antonopoulos then asked Twitter users for suggestions on other “neutral, reliable and established” services to shorten the links.
Users’ suggestions have been varied: from advising him to create his own service, to asking him not to use any shortener so that users know which domain they will be redirected to.
There were also users of the idea that it is appropriate to use decentralized alternatives so as not to have to depend on third parties.
