4 ms·

And will just be banned and blocked

HappyDreamer 6y ago
And (more pessimistic future) you'll go to prison if you install such an app, or visit a website that tells you those apps exist. Already happened in some countries. B.t.w. someone wrote long ago here at HN that the 2nd amendment about weapons, nowadays should be about cryptography instead. Maybe: > A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to [use end-to-end encryption], shall not be infringed.
zaarn 6y ago
Well, if a mastodon instance admin decides to ban you, that's their personal decision. You can go to another instance. If another user blocks you, that's on them but you have no right to push your messages into another user's home system. If all else fails, you can host your own. It's ultimate free speech as intended and as someone who hosts a mastodon instance, it's a system that works pretty good, there is no noticeable hatespeech in my federated timeline. edit: I might have misunderstood the GP, but I'll let the comment exist. Banning mastodon in the US is a non-concern since it's a french open source development.
- scrollaway 6y ago
  I think that same logic applies to companies though so it's just shifting the problem over. But I think GP might have meant banned at a government level?
- alias_neo 6y ago
  I think you may have misunderstood the commenter. They seem to have been saying that Mastodon will simply by banned/blocked as a tool/platform by law.
- toyg 6y ago
  I think tokamak meant they will be banned by law, which sadly I can see happening - it effectively happened already with napster and bittorrent in some jurisdictions.
  - fsflover 6y ago
    To fight this, please use Mastodon and/or create an instance in it. It must become as widespread as possible to become the norm, then it cannot be (easily) banned.
  - zaarn 6y ago
    I doubt a US ban will have much effect on a french open source project.
    - Kye 6y ago
      You're thinking of PeerTube. Mastodon's lead developer is from Germany.
    - sjamaan 6y ago
      The US govt will just convince their Nine Eyes friends to adopt the same legislation and that's the end of that, as well.
      - Jon_Lowtek 6y ago
        The authoritarian stream in the EU are already working on something similar, but it will be a much harder sell and i still hope we can stop it, before it is too late.
  - indigochill 6y ago
    I can't. Napster was shut down for copyright infringement. Bittorrent is blocked in some places on similar grounds (although, notably, BitTorrent itself is still alive and well - the law enforcement action has been against distributors of copyrighted materials and sites like TPB). But even if someone really wanted to get Mastodon banned and created a server full of illegal material to give politicians the fuel they'd need, the law enforcement answer there would be to go after that host. The overall network would not be liable because it wouldn't be hosting/distributing the material.
    - toyg 6y ago
- mcv 6y ago
  I fin it very unlikely to see distributed social networks like Mastodon or Diaspora completely banned. In the US, this should be protected under the first amendment, in many other countries, it's protected under similar laws. And many countries don't care as much about violating their citizens' privacy as the US does.

And (more pessimistic future) you'll go to prison if you install such an app, or visit a website that tells you those apps exist. Already happened in some countries. B.t.w. someone wrote long ago here at HN that the 2nd amendment about weapons, nowadays should be about cryptography instead. Maybe: > A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to [use end-to-end encryption], shall not be infringed.

zaarn 6y ago

Well, if a mastodon instance admin decides to ban you, that's their personal decision. You can go to another instance. If another user blocks you, that's on them but you have no right to push your messages into another user's home system. If all else fails, you can host your own. It's ultimate free speech as intended and as someone who hosts a mastodon instance, it's a system that works pretty good, there is no noticeable hatespeech in my federated timeline. edit: I might have misunderstood the GP, but I'll let the comment exist. Banning mastodon in the US is a non-concern since it's a french open source development.

scrollaway 6y ago
I think that same logic applies to companies though so it's just shifting the problem over. But I think GP might have meant banned at a government level?
alias_neo 6y ago
I think you may have misunderstood the commenter. They seem to have been saying that Mastodon will simply by banned/blocked as a tool/platform by law.
toyg 6y ago
I think tokamak meant they will be banned by law, which sadly I can see happening - it effectively happened already with napster and bittorrent in some jurisdictions.
- fsflover 6y ago
  To fight this, please use Mastodon and/or create an instance in it. It must become as widespread as possible to become the norm, then it cannot be (easily) banned.
- zaarn 6y ago
  I doubt a US ban will have much effect on a french open source project.
  - Kye 6y ago
    You're thinking of PeerTube. Mastodon's lead developer is from Germany.
  - sjamaan 6y ago
    The US govt will just convince their Nine Eyes friends to adopt the same legislation and that's the end of that, as well.
    - Jon_Lowtek 6y ago
      The authoritarian stream in the EU are already working on something similar, but it will be a much harder sell and i still hope we can stop it, before it is too late.
- indigochill 6y ago
  I can't. Napster was shut down for copyright infringement. Bittorrent is blocked in some places on similar grounds (although, notably, BitTorrent itself is still alive and well - the law enforcement action has been against distributors of copyrighted materials and sites like TPB). But even if someone really wanted to get Mastodon banned and created a server full of illegal material to give politicians the fuel they'd need, the law enforcement answer there would be to go after that host. The overall network would not be liable because it wouldn't be hosting/distributing the material.
  - toyg 6y ago
mcv 6y ago
I fin it very unlikely to see distributed social networks like Mastodon or Diaspora completely banned. In the US, this should be protected under the first amendment, in many other countries, it's protected under similar laws. And many countries don't care as much about violating their citizens' privacy as the US does.