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The decentralized web is the world wide web, and the decentralized tech you're referring to is just a shrunken facsimile of the real thing. Facebook is just the

The decentralized web is the world wide web, and the decentralized tech you're referring to is just a shrunken facsimile of the real thing. Facebook is just the most popular "node" on the decentralized web, if the masses switched over to some ActivityPub social network history would just repeat itself whenever the most popular node bans someone popular.

colordrops 6y ago
That's like claiming that digital money can't be fully decentralized. And it indeed wasn't possible until Satoshi figured it out. There's no obvious reason to believe that a fully distributed social network isn't also possible. A requirement would be that any individual would have full agency for all operations on the network. Once you've got one agent that has special power over another agent, it's lost.
- SR2Z 6y ago
  What Satoshi has actually proven is that the cliche is true: you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide, if by "nothing" you mean "nothing that's a major crime." Bitcoin is mostly a speculative tool and what few transactions happen on the blockchain are dominated by drugs and other contraband. Society doesn't hold together at all unless people are smacked back into line when they act antisocially. No amount of technology can change that fundamental truth; ostracism and silence are core to human nature.
  - colordrops 6y ago
    What does that have to do with anything I said? The point was that something previous claimed not possible was actually technically feasible. Completely unrelated to its morals, use cases, or value proposition. Do you now understand my point?
    - SR2Z 6y ago
      It's not technically feasible because feasibility requires it to satisfy the common use cases. Being irreversible makes many use cases infeasible. I see your point - Bitcoin does exactly what it claims to do - but it is not a feasible replacement for money.
- root_axis 6y ago
  I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it doesn't change anything with respect to operators removing content. A "website" is just what we call a node accessible via the http protocol.
  - colordrops 6y ago
    A new protocol could conceivably prevent anyone from removing content without your consent, that's my point.
    - root_axis 6y ago
      A protocol can't stop people from removing content from servers they control.
      - colordrops 6y ago
        That's what they said about cryptocurrency before Satoshi came along. "You can't stop people from forging the coins in a ledger on their own servers".
        root_axis 6y ago
        And? What's your point? How does cryptocurrency prevent people from deleting content from servers they own?
        colordrops 6y ago
        My point was in my original comment. Let me rephrase it to help you understand. Before cryptocurrency, all ledgers were stored in a central database where the admin of that DB could modify or delete anyone's currency. I assume you understand how cryptocurrency works, but to reiterate, the DB is distributed, and if anyone deletes a particular transaction on their server, they will be out of sync with the rest, and their copy rejected as invalid. Some sort of distributed validation mechanism could conceivably be created which avoids any single point of control for a piece of content. And in fact you could use the BTC blockchain as a proof of concept - post a message with your transaction that gets encoded in the blockchain. It now becomes impossible to delete or modify. It is essentially uncensorable. You could delete it from your copy of the blockchain, but the real blockchain is the consensus of all nodes, not your particular copy.
WalterBright 6y ago
What about NNTP? Isn't that a fully decentralized social network? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_News_Transfer_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_News_Transfer_Protocol Note that the D language forums are on NNTP. For those that might dismiss NNTP as obsolete, may I present: https://forum.dlang.org/ https://forum.dlang.org/
- root_axis 6y ago
  My point is that further decentralization doesn't yield anything useful with respect to content moderation, news servers are no exception.

colordrops 6y ago

That's like claiming that digital money can't be fully decentralized. And it indeed wasn't possible until Satoshi figured it out. There's no obvious reason to believe that a fully distributed social network isn't also possible. A requirement would be that any individual would have full agency for all operations on the network. Once you've got one agent that has special power over another agent, it's lost.

SR2Z 6y ago
What Satoshi has actually proven is that the cliche is true: you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide, if by "nothing" you mean "nothing that's a major crime." Bitcoin is mostly a speculative tool and what few transactions happen on the blockchain are dominated by drugs and other contraband. Society doesn't hold together at all unless people are smacked back into line when they act antisocially. No amount of technology can change that fundamental truth; ostracism and silence are core to human nature.
- colordrops 6y ago
  What does that have to do with anything I said? The point was that something previous claimed not possible was actually technically feasible. Completely unrelated to its morals, use cases, or value proposition. Do you now understand my point?
  - SR2Z 6y ago
    It's not technically feasible because feasibility requires it to satisfy the common use cases. Being irreversible makes many use cases infeasible. I see your point - Bitcoin does exactly what it claims to do - but it is not a feasible replacement for money.
root_axis 6y ago
I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it doesn't change anything with respect to operators removing content. A "website" is just what we call a node accessible via the http protocol.
- colordrops 6y ago
  A new protocol could conceivably prevent anyone from removing content without your consent, that's my point.
  - root_axis 6y ago
    A protocol can't stop people from removing content from servers they control.
    - colordrops 6y ago
      That's what they said about cryptocurrency before Satoshi came along. "You can't stop people from forging the coins in a ledger on their own servers".
      - root_axis 6y ago
        And? What's your point? How does cryptocurrency prevent people from deleting content from servers they own?
        colordrops 6y ago
        My point was in my original comment. Let me rephrase it to help you understand. Before cryptocurrency, all ledgers were stored in a central database where the admin of that DB could modify or delete anyone's currency. I assume you understand how cryptocurrency works, but to reiterate, the DB is distributed, and if anyone deletes a particular transaction on their server, they will be out of sync with the rest, and their copy rejected as invalid. Some sort of distributed validation mechanism could conceivably be created which avoids any single point of control for a piece of content. And in fact you could use the BTC blockchain as a proof of concept - post a message with your transaction that gets encoded in the blockchain. It now becomes impossible to delete or modify. It is essentially uncensorable. You could delete it from your copy of the blockchain, but the real blockchain is the consensus of all nodes, not your particular copy.

WalterBright 6y ago

What about NNTP? Isn't that a fully decentralized social network? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_News_Transfer_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_News_Transfer_Protocol Note that the D language forums are on NNTP. For those that might dismiss NNTP as obsolete, may I present: https://forum.dlang.org/ https://forum.dlang.org/

root_axis 6y ago
My point is that further decentralization doesn't yield anything useful with respect to content moderation, news servers are no exception.