Re: [Tech] flaming ;-)

Well, the point is: The alternative is that the only people who will
ever use freenet are:
a) Seriously dedicated libertarians like us, who consider the kiddy porn
to be a price worth paying, and
b) Psychos who don't care.

For it to be really useful it needs to be usable by for example
oppressed religious minorities in totalitarian states. And it needs to
be usable by (relatively) "normal" people too. Such a voting system
would allow a much larger range of people to benefit from Freenet.

On Mon, Jul 11, 2005 at 07:01:31PM +0200, Newsbyte wrote:
> I don't think this is the way to go or ponder about, even apart from the
> extra technical/software coding to come up with such a system, while we
> should be concentrating on other things. Freenet is about being anonymous
> and uncensorable (as much as possible), the moment you deviate from that,
> then what was the point?
> 
> Yes, sure, you explain some sort of  democratic self-censoring...but that IS
> still censorship. Democracy is no good if it's two wolves and one sheep
> deciding what to have for dinner.  If one wants to limit the 'wrong' things
> on the network by any means, then I prefer the way I2P does it; at least
> there it's the one that publishes that takes the risk, but it doesn't
> involve the opinion of others to determine what someone could see.

I2P does not deal with the problem.
> 
> If enough people (like in europe) find something 'objectionable' (like
> hate-speech), then, just because it is widely or at least generally seen as
> being 'wrong', it will become impractical to use the network for it. So,
> basically, while it may have little effect on topics most  people generally
> do not object much to  (such as d/l copyrighted mp3s), it will censor topics
> if they are more widely unpopular.

Such as child porn, yes. I would hope that most parts of the network are
sufficiently liberal as to not block hate speech. But even if they do on
some networks, is that bad? They certainly won't block the diebold
files, or the Operating Thetan documents.

> I really think this is the wrong way to
> go, because in that case, whatever is considered 'wrong' by a large mass of
> people in a certain age or timeperiod, would be open to censorship (or
> anonymity-deprivation). And I don't think that is (or at least was) the goal
> of Freenet.

No, it's not the overt goal of Freenet. It's something else that
achieves the same ultimate goal - making it difficult for the powerful
to impose their views on what we should and should not be able to talk
about.
> 
> If any 'censorship' should be done, it should be done by the individual
> whome objects to it, for HIM/HERSELF. As a libertarian, I can support
> someone deciding 'these kinds of files I don't want on my node' (even though
> I doubt that's technically possible, in the given system), far more then I
> can accept that other persons create a form of censorship, however popular
> the drive for censorship may be for a given topic.

I don't see how that would be practical.
> 
> Furthermore, I doubt that the system will become more simple (certainly in
> respect to anonymity and non-censorship) if you allow *some* form of
> censorship, while you try to avoid censorship of (potentially) everything.
> 
> Also, I think it may weaken your legal defence, if someone (including the
> RIAA) can point out that one received some notice of objectionable material,
> but you didn't vote to try to censor (or try to focus on the node that send
> it). Yes, nodes in the darknet are between trusted friends, and maybe the
> above won't happen much, but still. (and besides, what with the no,-dark
> network?).

That is exactly the same situation as without it. Without it they will
say you support the distribution of illegal content by inaction and by
running a node. With it they will say exactly the same thing. It makes
zero difference; it is likely that the node is illegal in any case. This
is precisely why we can do this.
> 
> All by all, as a matter of principle, I don't think that it's the job of
> anyone, not even by majority vote, to censor on what is deemed acceptable
> and not. If you want to have a way of self-censorship, devise a system
> whereby people can decide what stays on *their* node or not, WITHOUT giving
> the possiblity to decide what stays on someone elses' node (or to make them
> lose their anonymity).

That would be entirely meaningless. If you don't take some sanctions
against the poster there is no deterrent and you'll be perpetually
wading through a see of filth just to block the latest release.
Meaningful action has to be taken at a semi-collective level (note that
we are not talking about global voting here), and if you just block a
few files, then the network will simply route around you with per node
failure tables. "I don't want my node storing this" is no different to
"I don't want my node assisting in the retrieval of this", so I2P's
approach does not help either.
-- 
Matthew J Toseland - toad-EI5O+8PHWbJeeLb3ft/[email protected]
Freenet Project Official Codemonkey - http://freenetproject.org/
ICTHUS - Nothing is impossible. Our Boss says so.

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