A somewhat obnoxious image appeared on the home page of the Ordinals website for 30 minutes before being removed; nevertheless, the painting itself is unchangeable.
Only a few days after launching the Bitcoin-based Ordinals system, its designer had to cope with their first shock pornographic picture written on the blockchain.
An ugly picture known as “goatse” was etched onto the Bitcoin blockchain through the Ordinals protocol on February 2 at 12:15 AM UTC.
It appeared on inscription 668 and was visible on the Ordinals’ home page for almost half an hour before being deleted. It is still on the blockchain but cannot be seen through the Ordinals website.
Casey Rodarmor, the founder of Ordinals, told Cointelegraph that he worked promptly to remove the picture from the Ordinals website. Still, given the nature of the protocol, there isn’t much that can be done to prevent such incidents.
At the very least, he is working on a method to prevent the photographs from showing on the Ordinal’s website.
The “goatse” picture portrays a guy manipulating his anus. Because of its shock value, it is frequently used to deceive internet users.
For the time being, Rodamor stated that there was no way to conceal specific inscriptions on the Ordinals’ website without personal intervention.
“Because the explorer contains a config file that may be used to conceal specific inscriptions, we determined that was not very appealing to look at,” he explained. “We put it to that config file, and the server no longer returns that inscription or content.”
Ordinals’ website is simple, with each new inscription displayed on the home page.
While Rodarmor intends to have a “quite open content policy” in which individuals will “definitely” be allowed to inscribe pornographic photos, he wants to restrict them until he discovers a mechanism to automatically keep them off the first page, such as creating a special section on the website for them.
Critics of blockchain technology are concerned that its immutability may be used to store unlawful or horrific information in perpetuity. In contrast, others say that censorship resistance should be a crucial feature.
When asked if he was concerned about the criticism Ordinals would face for suppressing some pictures, Rodarmor said, “I’m not sure.”
“The inscription is still on the chain, and if you run your copy of Ordinal — which everybody is free to do — it will not have that config file, and you will see the gaping butthole if that is what you so desire.”
He stated that his site is only one example of the block explorer and that he expects others would establish others where they can “apply their moderation procedures based on their likes.”
Rodarmor says this is only the second time he has censored a sexual photograph. However, he feels that the technical difficulties and cost of uploading a picture to the BTC network have limited the number of such trolling attempts.
Ordinals started on January 21, dividing the crypto community with debates about whether it was helpful for the Bitcoin environment.
The protocol operates by inscribing satoshis — the Bitcoin network’s original currency — with material such as graphics to create transferable NFT-like structures.
Compared to a standard network transaction that costs a few cents to a few dollars, inscribing a satoshi can cost tens of dollars.
