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If you accept that (1) there is a substantial amount of mal-content that Google should censor, and (2) a key use case for federated messaging platforms is to ev

If you accept that (1) there is a substantial amount of mal-content that Google should censor, and (2) a key use case for federated messaging platforms is to evade censorship, and that (3) client applications can be functionally part of a federated messaging platform while legally separate from it, then those client applications are fair game to be censored when they deliver mal-content. Now I may disagree with parts those precepts in stronger or weaker forms, but it is disingenuous to claim that the client application is exactly as legitimate as a web browser just because the client application is legally but not functionally separate from the federated network.

altano 6y ago
By the way, “malcontent” (no hyphen) is an English word that doesn’t mean “bad content” or “malicious content” like you’re intending.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  I guess my dictionary is wrong then sense it seems to be referring to a person in both definitions that they give.
sammorrowdrums 6y ago
That would presumably include Chrome and https and enabling use through VPNs? The above are use daily for extremist content, CP, circumventing numerous national laws in numerous places... Hard to draw the line.
- panarky 6y ago
  The line isn't that hard to draw. If you run a monolithic, centralized service specifically designed to avoid censorship, and you don't moderate what users do on your service, and some of those users hurt people with your service, then you should expect your service will be shut down as Parler was. And if you do the same thing, but separate the front end from the back end, and have different entities run them to provide legal separation, while practically and functionally the result is identical to that of the monolithic centralized service and your system is used to hurt people, then you should also expect that whatever components can be deplatformed will be deplatformed.
  - sammorrowdrums 6y ago
    Your litmus test of 'is used to hurt people' is completely true of web browsers and email too. Emails are always coming up in court cases etc. as people regularly use them to organise or discuss criminal acts, and it is sometimes used with E2E encryption so nobody can intercept and police the contents. I'm not convinced you've drawn a clear line. When is a protocol client responsible for the content shared or accessed with it, and when is a client not responsible for it.
  - orestarod 6y ago
    How do you logically reconcile that what you say applies to Web Browsers as well?
skynet-9000 6y ago
While we're at it, should we ban email apps as well? And probably the Internet itself and go back to "safe" walled gardens like AOL, since there are almost certainly bad people on the net?
- panarky 6y ago
  That's a textbook example of the logical fallacy commonly known as the slippery slope.
  - setr 6y ago
    No it’s not — it’s pointing out that those arguments fail when looking at existing systems, and would trivially deny things that we know we want. A slippery slope would be that the reasoning lends itself to more extreme reasoning down the line. You don’t need to bother with that here, we’re already arguing from the bottom of the slope. This simply argues that they’re special-casing against non-established systems — if you applied it uniformly, you’d trivially lose things you obviously want to keep. That is, this is a stupid operation that is at best sponsored by “think of the children!” Mothers Against Everything foundation.
    - panarky 6y ago
      My assertion was a narrow one: the client application of a network designed to avoid censorship of bad actors is not exactly as legitimate as a web browser that is not designed to avoid censorship of bad actors. To go from that narrow assertion to "ban email apps and probably the Internet itself" is fallacious reasoning at its finest. There's no rebuttal by refuting any of the premises or finding logical flaws, just straight to the end of the world as we know it.
      - setr 6y ago
        > the client application of a network designed to avoid censorship of bad actors You didn’t argue this, and I’m not clear that matrix or similar technology makes any direct, intended or significant effort to do so beyond the much broader, all-encompassing goal of “let nothing be unavailable”. But if true, I might be more inclined to agree with you. What you did argue is that a key use case for federated messaging platforms is to evade censorship Which is wholly different, in that the usage is at fault, not the protocol in and of itself (in the same fashion that Bitcoin was not designed to facilitate drug trade, even if it’s a key use case driving its valuation). But we also know that illegal activity is a key use case of the internet, of email, of encryption and a wide variety of other decentralized and federated technologies. This is hardly a good justification because you’ll ban all sorts of good things. The only thing that protects your argument against everything else is that you arbitrarily limit it to non-established technologies — in the name of all that is good and wholesome, you would kill anything like the internet, email, etc, that is not itself the existing technologies. A web browser is only more legitimate because the internet is more broadly used. Which isn’t much of a case for legitimacy.
LocalH 6y ago
By that logic, web browsers are not functionally separate from the federated Web, so all browsers should be banned until they start blocking objectionable sites.
- NotChina 6y ago
  The future: "it's the Internet Jim, but not as we know it" -Spock
cutemonster 6y ago
> (2) a key use case for federated messaging platforms is to evade censorship For some people (although maybe comparatively few) it's primarily about building a more robust Internet that works also if centralized service(s) disappear
feanaro 6y ago
Why is this disingenuous? The web is decentralized in exactly the same way and browsers play exactly the same role of independent clients for accessing this decentralised network as do Matrix clients for the Matrix network.
einpoklum 6y ago
> If you accept that (1) there is a substantial amount of content that Google should censor Why would we accept this? We don't even accept the situation in which Google is _able_ to censor anything for the general public.
torified 6y ago
I just want to chat with my friends without spooks putting it into a permanent database to later be used out of context against me. A crazy, dangerous idea, I know. It's amazing to see how far we've fallen - to be at ease with the idea that there can be no such thing as a private conversation, and therefore that any private conversation is by definition illegal. Any crime should require an actual victim. Which means there is evidence of it happening. You don't need a permanent record of everyone's conversations to uncover such crimes, police just need to do the job which we pay them for, which is to investigate. CP and terrorism are both disgusting, horrible things, but even those are not worth losing all our basic human freedoms over, or we won't be left with a lifestyle worth defending.

altano 6y ago

By the way, “malcontent” (no hyphen) is an English word that doesn’t mean “bad content” or “malicious content” like you’re intending.

stjohnswarts 6y ago
I guess my dictionary is wrong then sense it seems to be referring to a person in both definitions that they give.

sammorrowdrums 6y ago

That would presumably include Chrome and https and enabling use through VPNs? The above are use daily for extremist content, CP, circumventing numerous national laws in numerous places... Hard to draw the line.

panarky 6y ago
The line isn't that hard to draw. If you run a monolithic, centralized service specifically designed to avoid censorship, and you don't moderate what users do on your service, and some of those users hurt people with your service, then you should expect your service will be shut down as Parler was. And if you do the same thing, but separate the front end from the back end, and have different entities run them to provide legal separation, while practically and functionally the result is identical to that of the monolithic centralized service and your system is used to hurt people, then you should also expect that whatever components can be deplatformed will be deplatformed.
- sammorrowdrums 6y ago
  Your litmus test of 'is used to hurt people' is completely true of web browsers and email too. Emails are always coming up in court cases etc. as people regularly use them to organise or discuss criminal acts, and it is sometimes used with E2E encryption so nobody can intercept and police the contents. I'm not convinced you've drawn a clear line. When is a protocol client responsible for the content shared or accessed with it, and when is a client not responsible for it.
- orestarod 6y ago
  How do you logically reconcile that what you say applies to Web Browsers as well?

skynet-9000 6y ago

While we're at it, should we ban email apps as well? And probably the Internet itself and go back to "safe" walled gardens like AOL, since there are almost certainly bad people on the net?

panarky 6y ago
That's a textbook example of the logical fallacy commonly known as the slippery slope.
- setr 6y ago
  No it’s not — it’s pointing out that those arguments fail when looking at existing systems, and would trivially deny things that we know we want. A slippery slope would be that the reasoning lends itself to more extreme reasoning down the line. You don’t need to bother with that here, we’re already arguing from the bottom of the slope. This simply argues that they’re special-casing against non-established systems — if you applied it uniformly, you’d trivially lose things you obviously want to keep. That is, this is a stupid operation that is at best sponsored by “think of the children!” Mothers Against Everything foundation.
  - panarky 6y ago
    My assertion was a narrow one: the client application of a network designed to avoid censorship of bad actors is not exactly as legitimate as a web browser that is not designed to avoid censorship of bad actors. To go from that narrow assertion to "ban email apps and probably the Internet itself" is fallacious reasoning at its finest. There's no rebuttal by refuting any of the premises or finding logical flaws, just straight to the end of the world as we know it.
    - setr 6y ago
      > the client application of a network designed to avoid censorship of bad actors You didn’t argue this, and I’m not clear that matrix or similar technology makes any direct, intended or significant effort to do so beyond the much broader, all-encompassing goal of “let nothing be unavailable”. But if true, I might be more inclined to agree with you. What you did argue is that a key use case for federated messaging platforms is to evade censorship Which is wholly different, in that the usage is at fault, not the protocol in and of itself (in the same fashion that Bitcoin was not designed to facilitate drug trade, even if it’s a key use case driving its valuation). But we also know that illegal activity is a key use case of the internet, of email, of encryption and a wide variety of other decentralized and federated technologies. This is hardly a good justification because you’ll ban all sorts of good things. The only thing that protects your argument against everything else is that you arbitrarily limit it to non-established technologies — in the name of all that is good and wholesome, you would kill anything like the internet, email, etc, that is not itself the existing technologies. A web browser is only more legitimate because the internet is more broadly used. Which isn’t much of a case for legitimacy.

LocalH 6y ago

By that logic, web browsers are not functionally separate from the federated Web, so all browsers should be banned until they start blocking objectionable sites.

NotChina 6y ago
The future: "it's the Internet Jim, but not as we know it" -Spock

cutemonster 6y ago

> (2) a key use case for federated messaging platforms is to evade censorship For some people (although maybe comparatively few) it's primarily about building a more robust Internet that works also if centralized service(s) disappear

feanaro 6y ago

Why is this disingenuous? The web is decentralized in exactly the same way and browsers play exactly the same role of independent clients for accessing this decentralised network as do Matrix clients for the Matrix network.

einpoklum 6y ago

> If you accept that (1) there is a substantial amount of content that Google should censor Why would we accept this? We don't even accept the situation in which Google is _able_ to censor anything for the general public.

torified 6y ago

I just want to chat with my friends without spooks putting it into a permanent database to later be used out of context against me. A crazy, dangerous idea, I know. It's amazing to see how far we've fallen - to be at ease with the idea that there can be no such thing as a private conversation, and therefore that any private conversation is by definition illegal. Any crime should require an actual victim. Which means there is evidence of it happening. You don't need a permanent record of everyone's conversations to uncover such crimes, police just need to do the job which we pay them for, which is to investigate. CP and terrorism are both disgusting, horrible things, but even those are not worth losing all our basic human freedoms over, or we won't be left with a lifestyle worth defending.