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Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

cabal.chat

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Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#151

Post by tonymet »

jv22222 wrote: post #125

For clarification: The 1st amendment ensures that the government may not stop you from saying what you want. This is a separate issue from private companies removing/banning you. Each company has their own right and freedom to be as dickish as they want with regard to deleting your account etc - but that is not related to the 1st.

I’d like to address this, since it’s a common retort meant to shutdown discussion on censorship. It’s disingenuous , because “First amendment” is so essential to American culture, that it means both the literal First Amendment to the constitution AND more importantly, the American principle of free expression.

Ether you are aware that people are appealing to free expression as a principle, or you are unaware that free expression is more American than apple pie. That’s why I say this retort is disingenuous.

So the legal scope of the literal first amendment doesn’t help the discussion on what people and companies should be doing.

The discussion is about American values and if people, companies and the government should be living up to them. And that’s what people are trying to debate when they say “first amendment”.

Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#152

Post by antris »

WClayFerguson wrote: post #150
antris wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If internet service providers can shut down speech they disagree with, by going after the servers, then we're no longer living in a democracy. You present this as if Parler is being shut down because people there have the wrong opinion on tax rates. People on Parler are planning violent fascist overthrow of government, which is illegal. Why would Amazon be obligated to host sites that cater to terrorists?

The social media purge began long before Parler even existed. Yes people are getting banned from Twitter for life for having the wrong political opinions. It you deny that everyone knows you're either dishonest or uninformed. People on the left are allowed to call for violence and say all kinds of racist things hate filled things, but if someone on the right even says something like "There are only two sexes" that's…

"BigTech has gone nuclear with censorship" immediately after a coup attempt is a wildly different statement than "there is a long-running political double standard that exists in tech companies when it comes to enforcing their TOS". Should I take take it that you have conceded your previous statement?

I would like to complete the discussion on the previous point before moving on to another topic of discussion.

Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#153

Post by fabianhjr »

ravenstine wrote: post #131
jv22222 wrote: post #125

For clarification: The 1st amendment ensures that the government may not stop you from saying what you want. This is a separate issue from private companies removing/banning you. Each company has their own right and freedom to be as dickish as they want with regard to deleting your account etc - but that is not related to the 1st.

No, it isn't. There's already precedents for what businesses can and cannot prevent you from doing. If, for instance, you think a business should be compelled to bake a cake with a certain message on it, then you can't make the argument that there should be no regulation on how much a business can censor its users. That's not the only example. There's extensive case law that establishes how both governments and busin…

> a business should be compelled to bake a cake with a certain message on it

That is a misrepresentation of the case:

> Craig and Mullins filed a complaint to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission under the state's public accommodations law, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, which prohibits businesses open to the public from discriminating against their customers on the basis of race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.

The complain was under a _state law_ specifically to address sexual orientation discrimination and it has been acknowledged that such law doesn't force a business to make cakes with arbitrary messages.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado...

That said:

> If all meaningful communication is dominated by too-big-to-fail businesses with AI that can scour all correspondence, a reality we are rapidly approaching, then freedom of speech becomes meaningless.

I agree that monopolies and centralization are a threat to freedom. Though would argue that it should be addressed both via decentralization (and specifically through counter-anti-desintermediation as discussed in the P2P Foundation: https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Counter-Anti-Disintermediatio...) and anti-trust enforcement.

Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#154

Post by WClayFerguson »

djtriptych wrote: post #148
WClayFerguson wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started using the term "nuclear" once Amazon Cloud Services decided to terminate the Parler web server hosting. If internet service providers can shut down speech they disagree with, by going after the servers, then we're no longer living in a democracy.

when the "speech" consists of active planning of mass violence it's obviously no longer protected. The whole point of Parler is to be a safe haven for speech that has already been banned elsewhere, for the same reason. It was doomed from the start.

If you really believe the social media purge is about stopping violence then you've been hoodwinked. People who haven been watching this censorship battle for years know this is purely about taking down political adversaries.

Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#155

Post by dragonwriter »

ravenstine wrote: post #131
jv22222 wrote: post #125

For clarification: The 1st amendment ensures that the government may not stop you from saying what you want. This is a separate issue from private companies removing/banning you. Each company has their own right and freedom to be as dickish as they want with regard to deleting your account etc - but that is not related to the 1st.

No, it isn't. There's already precedents for what businesses can and cannot prevent you from doing. If, for instance, you think a business should be compelled to bake a cake with a certain message on it, then you can't make the argument that there should be no regulation on how much a business can censor its users. That's not the only example. There's extensive case law that establishes how both governments and busin…

> Freedom of speech isn’t just a law. It’s a social principle upon which America was founded.

Yes, and that principal is specifically that the proper way to advance in ideas is for them to have to compete for the favor of private actors without public authorities intervening, and that the freedom of private actors to choose on their own to promote or relay messages, most critically political messages, including the free choice to decline to do so is essential for free society.

Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#156

Post by WClayFerguson »

antris wrote: post #114
mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private entities can and do engage in censorship.

Sure, but the parent poster seems to imply that banning people who incite violence on social media is somehow a new thing or "going nuclear" with censorship. Trump got clapped not because of censorship, but because social media platforms decided to no longer exempt him from their TOS because of his position. Any normal person posting similar content would have been banned ages ago. Besides, he is the POTUS who can go…

Trump never called for any violence. However there are lots of left wing people on Twitter calling for violence and the left-wing operated BigTech think that's just fine, while they will ban any right wing person at the drop of a hat for completely made-up reasons like saying something wrong about gender pronouns. Look the Joe Rogan podcast with Tim Pool and Jack Dorsey, and try to educate yourself.

Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#157

Post by Multicomp »

snvzz wrote: post #136
Multicomp wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(never tried cabal, it could be worse) tox was accused of having a poor crypto implementation / playing silly buggers with libsodium. I've tried it on android, works ok but most apps at the time seemed older. not sure where tox stands re community liveliness but its certainly a good start on p2p messaging, my claims notwitshtanding.

>tox was accused of having a poor crypto implementation The actual flaw: If _your_ *private* key is stolen, your friends can be impersonated to you. Hardly worth the infamy. There's a bug open on this, the solution is known, the opportunity for a fix, and when it will be made live, will be the next time a protocol break ("flag day") is necessary for other reasons.

I will be trying tox again after that event then.

Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#158

Post by dragonwriter »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #137
ravenstine wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it isn't. There's already precedents for what businesses can and cannot prevent you from doing. If, for instance, you think a business should be compelled to bake a cake with a certain message on it, then you can't make the argument that there should be no regulation on how much a business can censor its users. That's not the only example. There's extensive case law that establishes how both governments and busin…

There's a difference between you saying what you want on the cake (if they had self-service), and the biz having to write what you want written. That said, agreed. Big Tech and Fed Govs working in concert is not a positive. Anyone cheering on FAANG's recent decisions is naive.

> Big Tech and Fed Govs working in concert is not a positive. Anyone cheering on FAANG’s recent decisions is naive.

FAANG’s recent decisions are directly against the head of the Federal Government, not taken in concert with “Fed Govs”.

Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#159

Post by alexeldeib »

kova12 wrote: post #149
alexeldeib wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In almost every case online, the discussion is about the global ideal of freedom of speech, not about US law. In the recent events in the US, a lot of people have (mistakenly, IMO) cited the first amendment for protection of speech many others don't like. But those protections afford no help against private actors. In that context GP makes a lot of sense bringing up this point. Example: a US senator cites the first…

Freedom of speech specifically applies to offensive speech. You don't need any legal protections to talk about flowers and butterflies

Bringing it back to the context of the original reply: it applies to protection from the government, not protection from private individuals when you make speech which offends those individuals.

That's why I linked the book case. Hawley cites the first amendment, but he's in a contract with a private entity to publish the book. Barring contract disputes, there is no first amendment case that the publisher must distribute his book.

Re: Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform

#160

Post by Multicomp »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #118
Multicomp wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is why i resist new chat apps....signal is tiding me over until p2p capable, e2e by default matrix is ready to go on desktop, android and ios...then i will be ready to use, donate, buy vector hosting, and evangelize oodles.

I think it's basically hit all of those but p2p?

Correct AFAIK. I was speaking more broadly about it to explain my effusive plans
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