Mike Masnick over at TechDirt wonders: Can We Create A Public Internet Space Where The First Amendment, Not Private Terms Of Service, Rules?
Over a year ago, Tim Karr had an interesting and important post about openness on the internet. While much of it, quite reasonably, focuses on authoritarian governments trying to stomp out dissent online, he makes an important point towards the end about how the fact that content online is ruled by various "terms of service" from different private entities, rather than things like the First Amendment, can raise serious concerns:
And the threat isn't entirely at the hands of governments. In last week's New Republic, Jeffrey Rosen reported on a cadre of twentysomething "Deciders" employed by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to determine what content is appropriate for those platforms -- and what content should get blocked.
While they seem earnest in their regard for free speech, they often make decisions on issues that are way beyond their depth, affecting people in parts of the world they've never been to.
And they're often just plain wrong, as Facebook demonstrated last week. They blocked a political ad from progressive group CREDO Action that criticized Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's support of the Keystone XL pipeline.
This case is just one of several instances where allegedly well-intentioned social media companies cross the line that separates Internet freedom from Internet repression.
In many ways, it may be even more complicated than Karr and the people he quotes describe. First off, even if you have a company that claims it will respect a right to free expression, it's not their decision alone to make. As we saw, for example, with Wikileaks, when there's strong pressure to silence a site, the downstream providers can get antsy and pull the plug. Upstream hosting firms, data centers and bandwidth providers can all be pressured or even threatened legally, and usually someone somewhere along the line will cave to such threats. In such cases, it doesn't matter how strongly the end service provider believes in free speech; if someone else along the chain can pull things down, then promises of supporting free speech are meaningless.
The other issue is that most sites are pretty much legally compelled to have such terms of use, which provide them greater flexibility in deciding to stifle forms of speech they don't appreciate. In many ways, you have to respect the way the First Amendment is structured so that, even if courts have conveniently chipped away at parts of it at times (while, at other times making it much stronger), there's a clear pillar that all of this is based around. Terms of service are nothing like the Constitution, and can be both inherently wishy-washy and ever-changeable as circumstances warrant.
With both service and hosting providers clearly uninterested in facing off against a government take down, or even a computer generated DCMA request — is there any hope for free speech ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 23 2014, @06:13AM
as long as internet infrastructure is controlled by private organizations and politically-motivated government agencies, there will be no 'freedom'
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 23 2014, @06:25AM
We've been working towards that goal for year at here. [askemos.org]
Works. In principle and still incomplete practise. Sadly it is hard to back up financially.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 23 2014, @06:56AM
and it turns into a fight. a fight that will NEVER change anyones opinion.
and will piss someone off so they delete/censor it.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by dmc on Saturday August 23 2014, @06:58AM
If you are interested in this topic, you should check out my manifesto
http://www.wired.com/2013/07/google-neutrality/ [wired.com]
http://cloudsession.com/dawg/downloads/misc/kag-draft-2k121024.pdf [cloudsession.com]
The basic gist is that the language of the 2010 NetNeutrality document (FCC-10-201 see p13) can easily be read as to imply that GoogleFiber (or anyone's) discouraging of "hosting servers of any kind" in their terms of service is tantamount to the net neutrality violation of discriminating against (blocking) certain types of devices attached to your fixed broadband service. And my observation that such is precisely tantamount from transforming the internet into something where it is terms of service that dominate freedom of speech, and not vice versa as I'd prefer it to be.
The Verizon/DeathOfNetNeutrality court ruling kind of killed the issue for the moment, however the optimist in me hopes that the next round of NetNeutrality clarifies the situation. However the realist in me notes that despite that 53 page manifesto that active duty U.S. Navy Information Warfare Officer Dave Schroeder called "very good", the FCC's latest 99 page request for comments document only contained the word 'server' TWICE !?!?!...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Marand on Saturday August 23 2014, @07:43AM
You mean this [wikipedia.org] first amendment? The one that states:
Good news! All those sites are already respecting the first amendment by not passing their TOSes as laws! Crusade over, you can pack up and go home.
Censorship sucks, yes, and corporations are doing a better job at censoring the population than the US government has ever done. It's a problem, but don't conflate it with the first amendment. It's not illegal to have house rules and deny access to people unwilling to follow them; the problem is when those rules suck.
You could always make it illegal to have rules disallowing free speech, but that isn't necessarily a better solution, because you're taking rights away from one person (the site owner) to give it to another (the site viewer). Right now, the site owner has the right to set the rules it likes and deny access if wanted, but with that kind of law, the site owner would lose the freedom to administer the site as wanted. Once you go that route, you won't be able to prohibit hate speech, racism, possibly even threats to others, because you risk running afoul of the law. Even if you can prove innocence, it becomes a risky business to even try.
It's like the BSD vs. GPL argument: to guarantee that the end-users keep access to the code, the GPL has to restrict how the code is used, which limits how developers use the GPL'd code. BSD licensing gives the person using the code more freedom, by allowing that person to deny the end-user access to the code. Neither approach is wrong, they just have different priorities for how to be free.
If the big sites with their corporate-driven terms of service prevent you from saying what you want to say, the solution is to find or create a site with terms that are suitable for your needs. That's where the first amendment comes in: unless the site's illegal in some way, the US government (hopefully) won't be taking it down, so you can say whatever horrible or controversial things you want.
You still have to deal with the court of public opinion, though, which is where it gets sticky. If it upsets enough people, or the wrong people, somebody higher in the hosting chain can still ruin your day, as the summary said. Corporations are ultra-conservative by nature and going to scare easily, and the more corporations you have in the chain, the more likely it is you're going to piss one off.
(Score: 2) by dmc on Saturday August 23 2014, @10:03PM
Your sentiment about the rights of e.g. a restaurant owner to have final say about the content of conversations in their restaurant is all well and good, but I urge you to reconsider if you really truly believe that AT&T and Verizon ought to be able to automatically disconnect your voice call if their speech recognition processing software concludes that there is a >99% chance that you or the person you were talking with just uttered the word 'shit'.
What makes that situation different from the restaurant example can be summed up in two words- "common carrier". It is no surprise that those two words are the most extremely contentious aspect of the current "Network Neutrality" debate that will deterimine just how much control over free speech the internet service providers have over those of us using the internet to communicate with one another.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Sunday August 24 2014, @12:12AM
Except that's going into different territory than what the summary and articles are focused on. They're essentially arguing that the websites like YouTube, Facebook, etc. should not be allowed to self-police as they wish because it infringes on the user's "freedom" and "first amendment" rights (claimed by the article, not me), and touch on problems that can arise from that. So, that being the premise, I commented on that. Nowhere did I say what I "truly believe" in regard to ISPs or common carrier status, because it was irrelevant to the topic.
The ISP/common carrier thing is a completely different issue that I gave no opinion on. It's a murky area because, as the situation is now, they tend to enjoy the privileges of common carrier status without being held to the parts that benefit or protect users. The ISPs aren't even being reliably required to follow the law or their own agreements* with the government, so the "free speech" aspect is a minor complaint compared to the rest of the bullshit.
* Verizon being allowed to claim that wireless is equivalent to landlines and not being required to rebuild infrastructure after hurricane Sandy, for example.
(Score: 2) by dmc on Sunday August 24 2014, @03:08AM
I think you just don't see my wider point, probably because you haven't yet read my 53 page manifesto linked to in an above 5 rated comment. Which is deliciously ironic because I'm about to take the opportunity to expound on my ideas in opposition to yours and the article which I haven't and don't plan on bothering to read.
I believe the original article of this story, as I understand it from the summary and what you further summarize above, is actually *completely the same issue* as the NetNeutrality/CommonCarrier/FreeSpeech issue I described.
Terms of Service for websites like YouTube, Facebook, etc, I agree (with you, though with conditions) should be able to self-police as they wish. The reason being the same traditional libertarian/capitalistic stance both of us alluded to. I.e. a restaurant owner should be able to refuse service to customers who start speaking loudly about political topics the owner doesn't feel interested in hearing about, or subjecting their other customers to. Which, from a traditional free speech lib/cap perspective is mitigated by the opportunity of anyone else in society, to open a competing restaurant with different terms of service. Then, people can vote with their dollars, and the public's demand is variously served optimally by various suppliers. The theory is that this leads to the best balance in society. The theory crumbles however in the face of such widespread social ills as pervasive racism to the point of slavery. I.e. many of the civil rights laws were passed, because with lib/cap freedom, a dominant majority can and will very effectively oppress a minority. When an establishment of rail operators for example is racist, and charges double (either overtly, or with attempts to make the practice less apparent) to people of one race/religion/sex/political-affiliation/whatever, a minority can be "kept down in the (economic) hole".
But enter the concept of "common carrier". Now, by law, a commodity producer/seller, must charge the same price for the same service, regardless of who the customer is, or what they are doing with the service. The reason why CC has been accepted by society, is because it "sure seems fair", despite it infringing on some level of freedom of businesspeople to "totally" control their business.
The problem I suspect that the article's author has, is that the FCC has refused to apply Common Carrier protections of free speech to the internet- *in spite* of them paying lipservice to the concept, e.g. p13 of FCC-10-201/NetNeutrality [fcc.gov]
You see, if the FCC actually practiced what it preached, it would look at GoogleFiber and other ISP's refusal to treat server-hosting as bit-for-bit equivalent traffic to other traffic, and put the smack down on them. Unfortunately however the FCC is part of a government that is deeply in bed with the NSA and Google, and the phrase "don't bite the hand that feeds" tends to rule the day.
Google(Fiber) and other ISPs don't want to allow home users to fulfill that idealized (by the FCC) vision of the internet where "Startups and small businesses benefit because the Internet’s openness enables anyone connected to the network to reach and do business with anyone else,(16) allowing even the smallest and most remotely located businesses to access national and global markets, and contribute to the economy".
Because if users could operate/host servers, they could easily provide alternatives to Facebook/Youtube/etc with more competitive (in terms of free speech protections) terms of service. And then the establishment would lose its control over the mass media that- due to pre-internet broadcast structures- it has traditionally enjoyed.
So the author of the article, due to the sorts of propaganda/spin along the lines of the FCC's last 99 page RFC containing the word 'server' TWICE !?!?!, simply can no longer grasp the original vision of the internet as a place that empowered "anyone connected to the network to reach and do business with anyone else". That kind of empowerment of all end users is a threat to the establishment. If that kind of empowerment was given more than lipservice by the FCC, then the author would never have made those points (that again, I haven't bothered to read) because there would be so many viable competitors to Facebook/Youtube that it would be a non-issue.
But the Facebook/Youtube establishment (and their NSA symbiotes) wants to dominate the internet. And they will use whatever leverage they have with the government to maintain that dominance.
Anyway, please forgive any inadequicies of my delivery of the ideas, but I think there is a very important internet free speech point that I have just made relating to network neutrality, common carrier, and the sorts of pressures and motivations that led to this story's article being written.
$0.02...
(Score: 2) by Marand on Sunday August 24 2014, @11:38PM
For what it's worth, we seem to be largely in agreement; much of what you say about common carrier, being able to self-host, and the intent of the internet is similar to things I've said in the past. It's just beyond the scope of what the linked articles were focusing on, so I chose to stick to the specific area they were discussing, rather than open that can of worms and risk derailing the initial topic. That said, it's still segued into that topic any way, so I may as well respond in kind. :)
I think part of the problem with ISPs and self-hosting is, at least partly, the fault of the tendency for US ISPs to provide so-called "unlimited" access. They can't actually provide this, but it's how marketing spun things back in dial-up days where unlimited was effectively limited by time, so we ended up with the current situation where arbitrary restrictions are used to keep things running. We'd probably be better off with some sort of metered, tiered system where the pipes are blind -- use it how you want, the ISP would only care about quantity used -- but that's currently not the case. There's also profitability/greed involved, so there's no guarantee that we wouldn't see similar restrictions creep in even in this theoretical US where ISPs never provided "unlimited" claims, but consumers would have a stronger case for trying to keep the clauses out and keep the pipes blind.
That doesn't mean the current situation is completely hopeless, though. There are still options available for the people that want to host services, though most require extra financial investment.
• If it's a web-based service of some sort, there's plenty of shared hosting available. Very fickle; it's easy to piss off your provider this way, but it can work for some.
• ISPs usually offer business plans that allow self-hosting. Terms vary greatly, but usually you're okay as long as you aren't breaking the law.
• If it's low-traffic, non-commercial use, you can usually get away with self-hosting regardless of terms. If the ISP doesn't like it they usually just push you to a business plan, rather than block you outright.
• A VPS is usually a good solution. ToS violations are usually limited to excess resource use and "don't break the law".
• If you want to self-host but the ISP prevents it and has a rubbish business plan, you can use a VPS, set up a VPN, and forward relevant traffic that hits the VPN to your self-hosted machine across the VPN. ISP can't monitor -- it's just encrypted VPN traffic -- and the VPS is just a relay. Works if you need to run something with high CPU use that would violate the VPS terms. Also a workaround for bad ISP configuration.[1]
• Dedicated hosting, if you're able and willing to pay the prices.
The cost isn't even a significant factor, because you can get started with a low-end VPS for as low as $5/mo, there is a shared host that only charges for as much bandwidth as you use (nearlyfreespeech.net), and for many things, you can use your existing connection without your ISP giving you trouble.
Granted, most of the options involve more technical skill than the average internet user possesses, but that would be the case even in an ideal common-carrier, blind-pipe situation. The internet and general computer use have both grown far beyond the days where everybody involved has at least some minimal proficiency and understanding of how things work; we're vastly outnumbered by people that just want to use it as a tool, appliance, or entertainment device. Even if self-hosting were drop-dead simple, most people just wouldn't do it unless the computer were to do it for them. Hell, even then, a lot of people would be wary of it because of a fear that it might result in higher costs due to utility use, etc.
At least it's not a hopeless scenario. Imperfect, yes, but there are still options for those that want them. The barrier for entry here is still far, far lower than trying to open a restaurant, get into public transportation, etc. It's probably the closest we've been to equality in that sense in a very, very long time.
With all that said, I'll end by reiterating that I do agree with the general ideal you're after, it just didn't seem[2] to be the point of the articles so I stayed away from it. Net neutrality is ultimately a different issue than site owners setting terms of use, and thus not incompatible concepts. We can (and should) fight for network neutrality without demanding people lose the right to govern their sites as they wish.
---
[1] I once used an ISP that had all "residential" users behind carrier-grade NAT, one IP per thousands (or more) people, and charged exorbitant fees to get outside the NAT. I had to resort to using my VPS to forward traffic over VPN at times when I needed to open a port for any reason.
[2] The articles couldn't even manage to make the point without erroneously bringing in the first amendment, so I was trying not to make too many assumptions about intent.
(Score: 4, Informative) by mtrycz on Saturday August 23 2014, @10:24AM
Let me state that once again: you are NOT the belly button of the world. Why should the internet endorse your particular laws? (Not saying that particular law is good or not, just that it's yours). Thanks you for your attention.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday August 23 2014, @07:24PM
You come to a US based site, full of predominantly US participant, and you immediately try to impose views contrary to the wishes of the majority.
See! This is why we can't have nice things.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Saturday August 23 2014, @10:07PM
because they're good laws that promote freedom and equality (and no, in this particular case i'm not being sarcastic - the assurance of free speech does promote freedom and equality). would you rather we try to force laws from say, saudi arabia on everyone? how about "women aren't allowed online without a man present (and can't participate, only their man can participate on their behalf)"? only authoritarians and totalitarians are against free speech, and the internet is basically free speech incarnate, and since the whole world connects through it, we can take the best parts from everywhere and use them.
more often than not, people suggesting this kind of thing (imposing US culture/laws on everyone) don't even acknowledge that a world exists outside of the US, but that alone doesn't make the suggestions bad; they should be considered based on their merits rather than their source.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24 2014, @05:33AM
Yes, How DARE Americans want *everybody* to have the right to free speech! We're awful, awful people!
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Saturday August 23 2014, @10:45AM
There are a large number of websites which look like public forums but they're only as public as a mall. And any mall cop can have you ejected for any spurious reason with apology or appeal. In another analogy, we have a situation where a "public" forums is more like a speakeasy. If you don't say anything contentious (or you're friendly with the boss) then the bouncers will let you in next time you visit. In many circumstances, if you're discussing home improvement, parenting or gadgets, this is an acceptable arrangement. However, if you're discussing the fascist tendencies of Russia/China/US, this may not be sufficient. So, it is not sufficient in all cases to have a trust paying for some virtual hosting and a domain name.
What may be required is a distributed forum in which each post may be stored redundantly across different jurisdictions or nowhere particularly obvious. The messages may then be brought together without the use of domain names. This, and the recent discussion about Internet advertising as a bad default revenue stream, makes Ted Nelson's Project Xanadu seem increasingly pressing. Although it may seem preferable to have implemented Xanadu rather than a shallow imitation, we may find that implementing comprehensive text indexing and resilience to spam was more important.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Saturday August 23 2014, @04:09PM
I've thought further about this matter and I believe the two are necessary and related. Essentially, a text index can be used to reduce but not eliminate spam. I will give three widely understood examples and then extrapolate for a large-scale system.
The first example is a database uniqueness constraint. With SQL databases, indexes may be devised for different purposes. They may be used to locate records quickly. They may be used to provide a subset of table data. And they may be used to enforce uniqueness across one of more fields of data. In this case, one or more index lookups are performed and if matches are found, duplicate data is rejected. This is the fundamental building block. This shows that a larger implementation may be a tractable solution.
The second example, given semi-humorously, has been implemented with success. It is possible to discard lines of IRC conversation which have already been written. This is done for the purpose of increasing uniqueness and originality [xkcd.com]. So, someone can write "me too" but then all further attempts to write the same thing are ignored. Obviously, people can make variations, such as "Me too!!!!!" but these also become exhausted. This literal matching can be subverted with deliberate snowflaking but this leads us to the third example.
Plagiarism detection allows duplicate phrases and passages to be found or attributed. It isn't perfect because there may be omissions from the corpus of known documents. However, it allows uniqueness to quantified. Essentially, it is possible to devise an algorithm which sets a level of originality. The corollary of this is that posting a message precludes all similar messages. This eliminates the dumbest forms of spam. Rather than having 50 people post 50 similar messages about an unwanted product, the first message precludes all of the following messages. This doesn't need to be a globally consistent transaction. Indeed, there may be advantage to deferring the process. For example, it allows duplicate content to be weeded in bulk using less resources. The deferred process also means spammers think that their messages will persist.
This process isn't a silver bullet against spammers but they do have to work significantly harder. If they meet this standard, they can have their say along with everyone else. Yes, this process will delete a few genuine messages. However, as we've already determined, the uniqueness of those messages will be low.
But how does this relate to search engine indexing? Duplicate messages are found by running them against the index. The index which allows searches is also the index which encourages originality.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Bill Dimm on Saturday August 23 2014, @11:48AM
So, are they proposing that every forum and comment system be prohibited from removing spam?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 23 2014, @12:45PM
When you say "space" instead of "place," you're indirectly buying into feminazi terminology. Don't do it.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Saturday August 23 2014, @02:15PM
The use of "space" might be mathematical in the manner of a search-space or URL-space. It may not be a militant feminism term.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by velex on Saturday August 23 2014, @04:48PM
What? Space means lotsa things. I mean, wtf?! Throw a cis- or trans- out there if you want to invoke feminazi lexicon. Erm, unless you've just read Hyperion, then you're dealing with cislunar and translunar orbits... ok, I'll go away now.
(Score: 1, Troll) by velex on Saturday August 23 2014, @04:52PM
Additional protip: the word privilege is a better indicator of feminist illogic than space. Ok, I've been trolled. Somebody mod me offtopic.
Oh, pro-protip because I know there are a lot of white knights here: I'm not alone in being a trans girl who is sick of feminism. But the feminists are on the move as of late, and I hope a lot of these white knights get laid already. I can only presume they do what they do because they hope to suck up to feminism enough to get laid. I've gotten laid---why can't white knights? Wait, what does this have to do with TFS?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 23 2014, @05:06PM
Being a white knight, especially online, doesn't get you laid, it just gets you abused and taken advantage of. But hey, at least a woman is finally paying attention to you, right?
(Score: 1) by velex on Saturday August 23 2014, @05:21PM
That's probably the goal. I don't understand it myself. I mean, if you want to get laid, connect with someone. It's easy. Plenty of fish, etc.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tibman on Saturday August 23 2014, @05:55PM
I get accused of white-knighting all the time. For me it has nothing to do with genders. I just don't enjoy someone else getting pummeled. The white-knight card gets pulled too often these days just for sticking up for someone. There should be a different term for men trying to get pity sex or rescuer sex.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by velex on Sunday August 24 2014, @04:15AM
Ah, thanks for the reply. I view white knight-ism as very caught up in gender and sexuality. I view it as a function of reckless disregard for one sex over the other. If you want to stick up for someone, and I have two someones these days I'll stick up for, go ahead! However, if any feminist insists that I'm raping the female form because I have breasts or insists that either of my trainees are raping the female form because they have breasts (one trans, one cis) I am comfortable declaring war. Thanks
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Sunday August 24 2014, @05:40AM
I wonder if that might be partly miscommunication... The way I've heard it used, "white-knighting" doesn't usually refer to guys trying to get laid, as much as ones that feel the female *needs* them to protect her, as if they feel she's too fragile to withstand the strain or too weak to stand up for herself. Or at least, that's the way something about their behavior ends up being interpreted.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by velex on Sunday August 24 2014, @03:54AM
I said mod me offtopic, not troll, you assholes!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24 2014, @04:20AM
I'm not alone in being a trans girl who is sick of feminism.
No, you have many other people with you that also grew up as boys, spent the first chunk of their adult lives as men, and then seem to think that developing female physical traits makes their input as "trans-girls" somehow the same as the input from people that have spent their entire lives being female.
That's assuming you're not merely trolling, which is exactly what your bizarre, deliberately obnoxious posts regarding "feminism" suggest.
(Score: 1) by velex on Sunday August 24 2014, @04:31AM
*sigh* that might apply to me personally, but I would encourage you to know more about the world around you.
Ok, I'm an easy target. I'm an alcoholic. I don't know what I'm going to do with that. You take your bigotry somewhere else? I have friends who are trans. Ok?
(Score: 2) by velex on Saturday August 23 2014, @05:13PM
Aren't we looking at a little something of that here?
Sure, information hates to be anthropomorphised. However, it strikes me that no matter what authoritarians do, information will get out. 1984 was a story. It's not real. (Sure, some people want it to be real, but they're powerless to do so in the end—I hope.)
Also, this reeks of 1st world problems. The NSA will see this post, sure, and that's a problem, but at least this post will get to the server it's meant for. Others will be able to read my drunken ramblings. That's true even if I had posted at the other site, where I get an automatic +5 just for throwing around cis- and trans- bullshit. The real work is in dismantling the great firewalls. How will we bring the age of enlightenment to East Asia and Africa? What are we going to do about that troll, Putin?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday August 23 2014, @07:21PM
Well that is the idea at least. Our About [soylentnews.org] page sets dome vague limits for story topics an Editors can reject any story too far afield. Our moderation system sets some vague limits on comments, but buy and large, anything you want to post is pretty much protected by The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(With the amount of direct quote of the TechDirt article, it seems submitter Blackmoore is out to test techdirt's commitment to the issue.)
But even here, there are means by which pressure can be brought to bear on SoylentNews.
If you want to see the effects on Total Freedom of Speech on the net, you need only hearken back to Usenet. It was (probably still is, if you can find it) an utter hodgepodge of useful discussion, utter crap, pirated warz, and porn. It was pretty much a mess, it consumed more space at ISPs than any other application, and engendered a lot of complaints.
Usenet proved you could have such a site, and it simultaneously proved why it was unworkable to have a discussion with everyone in the world on equal footing and why such open forums with no focus and no rules invariably descend into a cesspool. Every conversation needs rules or agreement about the subject under discussion. And that single fact tends to enforce a focus on any site or forum, which is a built in limiter to free speech.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by velex on Sunday August 24 2014, @04:35AM
Oh, I know about Usenet. The question, laddie, is how are we going to make it possible? How are we going to fund it?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 23 2014, @06:29PM
The only tool which fixes the problem is one which solves the following issues:
Therefore, any solution must include the following attributes:
Some sort of (properly rearranged) combination of PGP, git and NNTP might do the trick. At least in theory - I'm not saying that mashing those together will work. This will obviously take some thought.
The big problem is that anything which meets these criteria is also fully functional for transmission of state secrets, corporate secrets, fraud, slander, bullying and kiddy porn. Turns out that truly free speech has a cost.
Insert a nicely dressed moral vacuum exhorting the public to think of the pierats/terr'ists/chiiiillllldrennnn/jerbs and you will have no shortage of lynch mob mentality at work. So it had darned well better have an ironclad design.
The basic principle, however, is actually pretty simple. Want to say something? Propagate an update to your peers. If your peers are too chatty, you ignore the chattiest and get the smaller updates first. If the discussions are split into fora, then smaller fora in update terms are likely to be more widely updated, rather than IMAX-quality rips of Avenginatorz IV.
We really need an open forum to discuss the design.