Earlier quoted context omitted.
... at the same time making it harder to shut down caches of the same illicit content. I recognize this is already a problem with torrents, but then my question becomes how do we not repeat the mistake? The mistake to avoid here would be trying to design censorship into an otherwise open and decentralized content distribution system. Don't try to shut down the content. If someone was harmed in the making of the conte…
> If someone was harmed in the making of the content, then use it as evidence to deal with the root of the issue; otherwise it's none of your concern. I think you're missing the larger picture, though. It's never isolated to singular instances. If the content is decentralized, then so can the problem be. You wouldn't say smallpox shouldn't be completely eradicated because "it never hurt me, so it's none of my concern…
Sure, but the content is not the problem, and eliminating the content does not eliminate the problem. The content is merely evidence of a problem. It may even help you locate the actual parties responsible. Dealing with the root cause would be harder if the content were more difficult to find.
You wouldn't say smallpox shouldn't be completely eradicated because "it never hurt me, so it's none of my concern."
What I said was that "it's none of your concern" unless "someone was harmed in the making of the content". Smallpox actually hurts people. Protecting people from smallpox is a worthwhile concern. We do that mainly by making people resistant to smallpox so that it doesn't get a chance to infect people and spread. Censorship is not like vaccination, much less eradicating the smallpox virus; it's more like eliminating all knowledge of how smallpox works. It doesn't address the problem, makes actual solutions harder, and has far-ranging side effects.
Your solution is reactive.
Taking down content you've identified subjectively as "undesirable" is a reactive response. Worse, it's reacting to and addressing only the surface symptoms, which means it isn't a solution to the real problem, that someone was harmed to create the content. You aren't going to stop people from being harmed in the real world by redacting the evidence.
On the other hand, designing a system to be resistant to censorship from the outset is a proactive approach to dealing with the threat of censorship.
what is everybody so concerned about having censored? It's not exactly a problem [in North America or online].
You have cause and effect reversed. It is (mostly) not a problem in North America or online because everybody is so concerned about it. It is a problem in places where censorship is treated as a normal and routine practice—for example, China.