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Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

freenetproject.org

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Re: Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

#411

Post by pnathan »

cgtzczykldpq wrote: post #333
pnathan wrote: post #262

I've run Freenet twice in the last twenty years. Maybe 2006, 2012? Each time CSAM was surprisingly visible. Maybe these days it's kicked off to a corner but back then it was pretty much a click away. I'm going to have to say if that's the basic motivation for censorship resistant communication in the USA, I am disappointed and sad. Wonder if it's actually useful in places where you actually have censorship, or if it'…

If y'all only try to see if there is CSAM and then uninstall when you succeed, then of course the CSAM percentage will become high because only the CSAM perverts do not leave! So instead keep using it and actually put the other content onto it yourself! Hosting on Freenet is free and easy, you just upload a site and post it to FMS and it will be online for many years if people keep accessing it. You don't need any se…

Honestly, both times I wanted to see what was there. It provided no material benefit over, say, tilde.town, with added (1) legal risk (CSAM) and (2) ethical risk (providing some hosting to CSAM).

There's this thing where a certain level of censorship resistance and free speech seems to yield some very horrible things. I don't even want to remark on the US law (first amendment rights, legal analysis) here, just focusing on ethics.

> A free public space which is only controlled by the general public needs the general public to take care of it.

I would remark here that the traditional system for taking care of a general space is to have a government controlling it, whether that be the council of elders, a senate, or a monarch. Fully democratic/anarchist space management is not typical of a human society. The historical outcome of fully unregulated online spaces seems to be a lot of CSAM and groupthink.

anyway. freenet is technically interesting, legally dodgy, and, imho, an ethical trap.

Re: Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

#412

Post by Hyolobrika »

nverno wrote: post #377
ArneBab wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were also times in history when technology and knowledge got lost in religious zealotry. Some of it we are only now trying to recover. We don’t know how much is still missing. If information is of real value — like vaccines — … do you see where I’m going?

The vast majority of Americans have multiple vaccinations. How many are required for school? Just because people are hesitant about a new vaccine for a year hardly proves a greater point- it is a long-term trend towards truth, not a straight line. Those dark times in history are notably high points in censorship as well.

I would go further. I would say that people should be allowed to make up their own mind without unjust interference (i.e. censorship (such as shadow-banning) and artificial manipulation of visibility (such as putting 'fact-checks' in prominent positions)) regardless of whether someone in a position of authority (whether elected into government, bought into the board of directors or shareholders of some company, or just has mod privileges for whatever reason) thinks it's true or not. The people decide for themselves what's true, not the powerful.

Re: Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

#413

Post by robertlagrant »

user-the-name wrote: post #405
robertlagrant wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why do they need lawyers when it's easy to determine if someone is decent?

Is your argument here that it is hard to tell if a pedophile is really a bad person or not?

No. Distorting things into disingenuous nonsense helps nothing.

You wrote the original message that it's easy to know if nodes' users are decent people. I'm saying it's not easy, with an example.

Re: Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

#414

Post by McCallum »

pnathan wrote: post #262

I've run Freenet twice in the last twenty years. Maybe 2006, 2012? Each time CSAM was surprisingly visible. Maybe these days it's kicked off to a corner but back then it was pretty much a click away. I'm going to have to say if that's the basic motivation for censorship resistant communication in the USA, I am disappointed and sad. Wonder if it's actually useful in places where you actually have censorship, or if it'…

I'm a Freenet user for some time now. I made some breaks but always came back to Freenet, because it is pretty good. I'm there for decent discussions in the FMS (newsreader similar to a forum) and Sone (similar to Twitter). Further I like to post my blog there. Till this point you have nothing to do with CSAM. You find decent people, using a stable and well built p2p network. I can publish my blog there without the need of a web server running 24/7. My site is in the Freenet and visible for everybody, even if I'm offline. You will find CSAM in a search engine there and of course many site about that shit. That's right. But that's only the half of the truth. The idea of Freenet is to resist censorship and provide free speech for everybody. That includes free sites about anything and nothing and unfortunately about crime like CSAM. I'm living in Germany, a democratic country. I'm living in a land with strong data protection where all people can talk about everything. Free speech is practically given. But we have crime and child abuse as well. This is a part of the society, a bad part. But to go massive against crime and like to stop that, you would have to give up this freedom for a whole society. Similar to a real and free world even Freenet has to stand crime and CSAM. That is the price to pay, but only one side of the medal. The other - good - side are decent users, communicating free. I advice to try Freenet for more than a very short time. You can see the benefit of Freenet, if you get contact to the good guys there.

Re: Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

#415

Post by [deleted] »

pnathan wrote: post #262

I've run Freenet twice in the last twenty years. Maybe 2006, 2012? Each time CSAM was surprisingly visible. Maybe these days it's kicked off to a corner but back then it was pretty much a click away. I'm going to have to say if that's the basic motivation for censorship resistant communication in the USA, I am disappointed and sad. Wonder if it's actually useful in places where you actually have censorship, or if it'…

[deleted]

Re: Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

#416

Post by Dylan16807 »

robertlagrant wrote: post #404
Dylan16807 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guilty people are supposed to have lawyers. What lawyers don't do is assist their clients in ongoing breaking of the law.

But why do they need lawyers when it's easy to determine if someone is decent?

It's not easy to judge a single person to a criminal standard.

But big groups of people are much easier to judge when you only care about things like the average, and my own choices don't have to be sure beyond reasonable doubt.

Re: Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

#417

Post by brokenmachine »

robertlagrant wrote: post #332
brokenmachine wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't think of the best word to use. Actually poetic justice is what I was looking for. Karma's probably pretty close to what I mean - for all the workers peeing in bottles toiling in his salt mines, and everybody's cumulative suffering because of the taxes he never paid. Just because he's been involved in corrupting the system so much that those taxes aren't even demanded doesn't mean he gets out of a karmic ob…

> So call me a hater if you like. I'd probably call it tribalism? 20th century had quite a lot of poorer people killing richer people in the name of same.

Yes, I'm in the 99.999999% population tribe.

The billionaires are clearly a hostile, rival tribe stealing our resources.

Re: Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

#418

Post by exporectomy »

tetrisgm wrote: post #154
exporectomy wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with illegal stuff? Perhaps you mean to say stuff that your culture shames, abuses or ostracizes people for? In that case, yea, that's why somebody would want to hide their activity.

I never said anything about that. I asked what people use it for and basically if it’s got any traction, besides being an interesting idea.

OK, thanks for clarifying. I misread some subtext in your comment and assumed you were judging illegal activity as not worthy of an internet service.

Re: Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

#419

Post by noxer »

ogurechny wrote: post #386
noxer wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complete nonsense, all of it and completely irrelevant if used as an alternative to reddit none of that crypto/security/privacy nonsense maters at all. You have zero of that on reddit or FB or any other social media and its completely useless anyway for public communities who aren't trying to do anything illegal. The thread is about a place where your "offensive" community can be hosted without the owner overlords co…

Given many past examples, it's only until “public demands” to get it removed.

Doesn't matter, people want a solution now and no one expects it to be forever. The user who asked is unlikely to waste time in such a community in 10 years anyway.

Re: Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

#420

Post by aabbcc1241 »

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #410
aabbcc1241 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you comment on the design of zeronet ?

why do you care what a vendor of child pornography thinks of other designs

Any tech can be abused, but the tech itself is generic for both good and bad usage.
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