What Is Censorship Resistance?

Censorship resistance refers to the idea that no party can prevent anyone from participating in a given platform or network. In blockchain systems, censorship resistance guarantees that all regulations ruling a network are set and followed by users equally, and cannot be changed for personal gains.

A censorship-resistant blockchain ensures that all transactions within a network are secured from potential meddling, making it immutable. Once a transaction is completed, it gets distributed to all nodes within the network and becomes quasi-impossible to change. This property was first introduced by Bitcoin but has since been adopted by a wide array of crypto projects. 

Interestingly, censorship resistance is particularly useful to decentralized finance (DeFi) applications since traditional finance products are full of barriers to entry, with various intermediaries blocking access to certain types of people and intervening with transactions. DeFi offers a censorship-resistant version of traditional finance, albeit with higher risks and higher yields. 

Many proponents view blockchains as a way to attain freedom from the oppression of current systems. In recent years, there has been an advocacy for the implementation of distributed ledger technologies (DLT) in journalism. Many journalists face censorship from powerful organizations and social media companies, which is why decentralized social networks like Steem, Subsocial and many others have been popping up to offer solutions.

Censoring a blockchain is extremely difficult, but not impossible. This scenario might happen via a 51% attack, but the effects would only be temporary as maintaining such attacks is costly, which makes it a major deterrent for attackers.