An Amazon CEO and the third richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, who bought the third biggest newspaper in the U.S., The Washington Post, in 2013, announced restrictions on the policy of the opinion segment of the newspaper. The opinion editor David Shipley quit his job after learning about the changes. What are the new restrictions, and why do multiple crypto influencers support the change?
On Feb. 26, 2025, in the X post, Bezos shared the note that he sent to the Washington Post employees earlier that day. In the note, Bezos announces that The Post is going to write āin support and defenseā of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. All the stuff that is opposed to these pillars wonāt have a place in The Washington Post.Ā
According to Bezos, freedom is ethical and practical as it minimizes coercion and drives invention and prosperity. He believes that other viewpoints are already well-represented on the Internet, so changing The Postās policies seems right for him. The note also reveals that the opinion editor, David Shipley, declined to lead the new direction and left his position.
The Washington Post shakeup
For years, The Washington Postās opinion segment has been a tribune for people of various, if not polar, views. From now on, this will be changed. The New York Times quotes the memo CEO of The Washington Post, Will Lewis, sent to the staff that the move is ānot about siding with any political partyā but rather āabout being crystal clear about what we stand for as a newspaper.ā
According to The NYT, Shipley stepped down after a weeks-long conversation between him, Bezos, and Lewis. Shipley disapproved of the change and decided to step down. Reportedly, the opinion board members were āshocked and stunnedā by the news.Ā
However, Shipleyās resignation rather stands in line with the latest events in The Washington Post. The Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigned from The Post in 2024 after the newspaper declined to publish her work criticizing Jeff Bezos. The same year, for the first time in decades, The Post didnāt endorse any presidential candidate. The decision to stay away from the election saw many of the journalists leaving the newspaper. In 2024, two authors writing for the Washington Post opinion segment received Pulitzer Prizes.
Some consider the policy changes to be a rightward turn. It rings well with the refusal to endorse a presidential candidate ahead of the 2024 election. The decision allegedly cost The Washington Post 8% of its subscribers. Three of the nine members of the editorial board resigned in protest. CNBC quotes one of the resigned editors, Molly Roberts, as saying that the editorial board was going to endorse Trumpās competitor, Kamala Harris and that Jeff Bezos made the decision not to endorse anyone. The newspaper publisher and CEO Lewis called these claims inaccurate.
Big figures in crypto react
While the announcement wasnāt received smoothly by the newspaper employees, it was met with enthusiasm by multiple outstanding personalities from the crypto industry who reposted Bezosās post, commented on it with praise, and shared their thoughts on the importance of the support for free markets.Ā
Brian Armstrong of Coinbase expressed his full support for the move and even shared his article about free markets published in the Coinbase blog.
Justin Sun of Thron shared the post; Bitwise Investās Jeff Park praised the move in the comment section, and crypto writer Nic Carter took to the comment section to offer his service as a columnist on the crypto topics, saying he is ready to āfix the coverage.āĀ
Strategyās Michael Saylor didnāt touch upon the policy changes but instead proclaimed that Bitcoin facilitates individual liberties and free markets, seemingly expressing his support for the new direction of The Washington Post.
Many outside the crypto community expressed discontent with the move, pointing out the inconsistency in promoting personal liberties while simultaneously suppressing it through banning certain viewpoints in the newspaper that have been nonpartisan for over a century.Ā
However, the praise from the crypto community doesnāt seem illogical if we look at Bezosās announcement as a pledge to support the incumbent administration. The second presidency of Trump is marked by loosening the crypto regulations and giving the sector unseen freedom.Ā
In the first months of 2025, the state-level Bitcoin reserve proposals began to pop up alongside the Federal-level proposal introduced and advocated by the Republican senator Cynthia Lummis. The recent series of case drops against huge crypto platforms by the SEC and the governmental crusade on Operation Choke Point 2.0 are just two of the huge examples of the trends that make the Trump Administration 2.0 a superhero in the eyes of the crypto business. These actions fuel the market and help to shape the future of the crypto sector.Ā
Itās understood that the crypto community is not homogenous, and some criticize Trump, blaming him for the tariff policy that allegedly ruined the BTC price or for the Official Trump memetoken launch. More than that, some just donāt like Trumpās persona and his political course. However, in 2025, this attitude is not mainstream in the crypto info field.
However, suppose we donāt make the Trump-Bezos connection. In that case, we can admit that free markets and financial empowerment of the individual have always been the pillars of the crypto community and ideology. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been crossing borders and bypassing restrictions, giving people new opportunities, and so on.Ā
If Bezos is saying he is going to defend this, the crypto community is here to support him. However, the effort to silence alternative viewpoints on the pages of The Washington Post does not necessarily adhere to crypto censorship resistance.Ā
Free markets and technofeudalism
In his article about free markets, Brian Armstrong expresses a strong fear of what he calls Marxism and praises free market capitalism. However, some view Jeff Bezos as not a capitalist but rather a poster child of technofeudalism, a nascent system that parasites capitalism.Ā
The term was coined by the former finance minister of Greece and prolific writer Yanis Varoufakis. He compares modern tech giants like Apple or Amazon to European medieval lords and their corporations to fiefdoms that live off rent, while the old-fashioned capitalist companies were driven by profit. Now, the āvassal capitalistsā have to pay a ācloud rentā to tech giants to ensure their products are presented on Amazon, Google Play, and other platforms of ātechnofeudals.ā The concept is new and rather marginal, but it is gaining more and more attention these days.Ā
Like Satoshi Nakamoto, Varoufakis outlines bailing out the banks and bankers in the 2008 economic crisis as the turning point. According to him, these people didnāt create anything new; they were to blame for billions in losses but had their money anyway, thanks to the government who bailed them out. He compares it to rents, money that doesnāt come from creativity or competition, which drives capitalism and free markets.Ā
Allegedly, Amazon is not creating anything new; it is simply feeding off the paid ad space rented out to real capitalists, those who drive the economy. At least Jeff Bezos has the nerve to tolerate The Washington Post articles criticizing Amazon for its frustrating ad-based search results. The trial for the FTC antitrust suit against Amazon is scheduled for 2026.Ā
Source link