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NoFILTER – free speech blogging app and content on IPFS
- cmatthieu 5y agoWelcome to NoFILTER, the unstoppable, uncensorable, undeplatformable freedom of speech app. By design, this app allows you to spread your word without limits. This app and your articles reside on the Interplanetary File System (IPFS), a decentralized mesh network consisting of thousands of user nodes. There is no web server, no database, and no cloud; therefore, making this app and your content unstoppable and undeplatformable. When your article gets published to IPFS, the hash of the contents of the article becomes the name of the file. If one character gets added or removed the hash name changes; therefore, making it impossible to censor. If a government were to try to block the nofilter.org domain, you can still access the site and the content via hundreds of IPFS gateways around the world as well as through #IPFS directly by downloading the ipfs companion browser extension or by using the Brave browser which natively supports the IPFS protocol. Here's the same article but hosted on NoFILTER (IPFS) - https://nofilter.org/#/0xae48565bfb998f7cc7855e910345f5b801a7fcf1/QmVqHZHiZCDrTN5qwjWx6Lbp42Ty6UN1KeLpBmxmg5rXma https://nofilter.org/#/0xae48565bfb998f7cc7855e910345f5b801a...
- lottin 5y agoOut of curiosity, if this app really allows unstoppable and uncensorable posting, how does it deal with DoS attacks?
- dboreham 5y agoThere's also the question of reachability on IPFS. Something _existing_ on IPFS is not the same as : everyone can access it .
- jandrese 5y agoThat's the beauty of it, it doesn't. You can spam nonsense all day long. This is only a problem if you want people to actually read what you are posting.
- 0des 5y agoI would challenge the downvoters of this comment to contribute an informed rebuttal. IPFS is just content-addressing+p2p. In the conventional sense it is similar in comparison to the greater internet. Joe Blow can be on his blog talking about blenders and mixing spoons all day and none of us have to know he exists until we follow the address to his content, thereby downloading it. Where IPFS takes this a step further is enrolling the viewer/reader/participant in the swarm of peers replicating this content.
- lottin 5y agoThe point is that hosting content uses resources, and resources are limited. Therefore, if nothing prevents it, an attacker could theoretically use up all the resources available, which would bring this supposedly unstoppable publishing platform to a stop. Yet, if they prevented it, it would be a kind of censorship, so the platform could not claim to be uncensorable.
- ergot_vacation 5y agoDespite all the talk IPFS is just voluntary content mirroring. If people feel you're spamming, they'll stop mirroring your shit. Which of course illustrates the worthlessness of the platform for "Anti-censorship" and "Free Speech."
- zkldi 5y agoWhat happens if someone uploads child pornography? Does it just stay there and everyone has to deal with looking at it?
- ergot_vacation 5y agoI stopped believing in "decentralized free speech" platforms the moment they all decided to censor and attack anyone they politically disagreed with (ie Gab's treatment at the hands of Mastodon). None of the people running these projects actually understand what freedom of speech really is (the ability of THE PEOPLE YOU HATE to speak, a principle, not just a law). When these people drone on and one about "Free Speech" and "Anti-censorship," they really just mean "for people who agree with me," which is no free speech at all. Beyond that, IPFS is a joke. It's hovered in toy status for years, devoid of the core features it needs to justify its existence (a way to motivate people to host besides the goodness of their hearts, a DNS replacement that's not laughable, a simple and stable interface etc). But even if IPFS was everything it claims to be, using it for something like this is laughable: 1. There is no security in IPFS. It's a content mirroring technology. If you're hosting something illegal, the authorities can find you just fine. 2. IPFS is entirely voluntary. Mirrors can opt out of mirroring things they don't want to host. What are people going to opt out of most? Controversial content. Oh yeah, you can host "controversial" content of the type a teenager things is controversial. But anything actually hot is going to get shit-canned before you can blink. Overall, IPFS, and anything built on it, is either absurd over-engineering or absurd under-engineering. If you wanna mirror bland, non-hot stuff, just mirror it in the usual ways. You don't need all this cyber-punk larping cloak-and-dagger shit. Nobody cares. And if they DO care? IPFS ain't gonna save you.
- unclebucknasty 5y ago"Free speech" of the type often invoked these days is essentially, "the right to be hateful, attack other groups and lobby for their subjugation". Then, of course, there's the "right to poison society by spreading radicalizing disinformation". Adherents to this style of free speech decry their de-platforming by "big tech" which doesn't want to endorse their toxicity (partly because dysfunctional societies are bad for business and partly because their targeted customers may speak with their wallets). The acolytes' standard reaction in response to this violation of their right to be awful is "who gets to choose which speech is acceptable?" as if we don't otherwise have a functioning society, social contract, and laws. Other people get to choose. That's who. Their right to free speech includes a non-obligation to regurgitate your speech. Don't want to be "censored"? Then, don't pretend you have no idea what anti-social behavior is and don't be awful to other people. Otherwise expect that you're free to talk, but no one's obligated to listen. For those who don't agree with this, then tell you what: pick something absolutely and near universally abhorrent, say sexual abuse of children, and make the right to lobby for its legitimacy your rallying cry. Use it as the example of speech you intend to allow because "who should be the arbiter?" Until you're willing to stake your beliefs (or project, etc.) on that, no one should buy what you're selling. Because then it becomes immediately obvious that what you're really lobbying for is a narrow, but vocal group of people whose ideas you likely agree with, but whose speech you view as recently restricted.
- new_guy 5y agoSo, what's your plan with dealing with child porn, weapons manuals, doxxing info, password dumps, revenge porn etc etc?
- cmatthieu 5y agoFreedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect. - Eleanor Roosevelt That's a great question. Free speech doesn't mean lawlessness. There are many exceptions listed in the US constitution and those can be pursued by authorities to the degree they navigate IPFS - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce... For starters, we deliberately made a conscience decision not to make it easy to include photos or videos in content. We also made a decision not to create a general feed where all content is accessible.
- sleepybrett 5y ago"make it easy" seems to be doing a lot of work there. What do you mean by this? Do you mean that because it's just a stream of bytes people could post all the child porn they like as base64 encoded strings? Have you just created alt. newsgroups again? Congrats on your brand new hive soon to be overpopulated with scum and villainy.
- smt88 5y ago> For starters, we deliberately made a conscience decision not to make it easy to include photos or videos in content. So instead of censoring some photos and videos through moderation, you decided to censor all photos and videos. It sounds like you want to comply with US law, but US law requires censorship of some speech: libelous claims, copyrighted works, incitement to violence, etc. Why comply with some US law and not all of it?
- criddell 5y agoMaybe they are complying with the laws they agree with? I don't see any reason why it has to be all or none.
- feoren 5y agoEvery single time someone tries something like this, it becomes a bastion for hate speech and everyone else is driven away. It turns out most people actually like a moderated forum. If you joined a book club and every meeting had people just screaming the N-word at the top of their lungs the entire time, I suspect you wouldn't stay at that book club long. Yet time and time again we see people learning this same lesson. It makes me wonder whether everyone who is extremely anti-censorship really does just want to scream the N-word in everyone's face all day, deep down. Good luck with your hate speech site.
- Imnimo 5y agoThey say it's "undeplatformable", but it's really just a way of screaming into the void because no one is going to want to dig through a pile of trash to find out what they're saying. I'd say it's a great win-win. They get to spout whatever they want, and no one has to hear it.
- 0des 5y ago> no one is going to want to dig through a pile of trash to find out what they're saying People still use clearnet websites that do this every day. For some sites, read: news outlets, it is their business model.
- lazyeye 5y agoAs compared to big tech which gets to "spout whatever they want" via censorship and controlling the discourse. And everyone has to hear it.
- Imnimo 5y agoI mean that's the beauty of it. I get to choose whether I want to hear Twitter's version of discourse or NoFILTER's version, or neither. So when people I'm unlikely to want to listen to decide to go to NoFILTER, that's a win for me.
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- chomp 5y agoI smiled at their George Washington quote; people who know George Washington's stance on free speech (e.g. his support for the Sedition Act) understand that he drew the line of free speech much more harsh than what we do today.
- amadeuspagel 5y agoYou must smile a lot if you smile every time someone quotes someone else though they don't agree with everything they've ever said and done.
- chomp 5y agoIron manning your own argument or appealing to authority are fallacious ways to make an argument. Boiled down, quotes usually are just propaganda. It's funny because if you're going to indulge in fallacy to get your point across, at least appeal to the right authority. Only problem with that is it's pretty hard to find an authority that doesn't believe in some form of the harm principle. The closest I can think of is John Stuart Mill, who said, quote: "Society can and does execute its own mandates ... it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough..." Which is along the lines of the views pitched here... and Mill _invented_ the harm principle! I do smile a lot. The alternative is a sinking feeling when I read sites like the one linked here that I personally feel like wouldn't exist if the creators embraced a little more empathy and understanding of natural rights.
- amadeuspagel 5y agoIs the printing press compatible with this "harm principle"? With "natural rights"? Is the internet? Is wordpress? Would you deny the basic empathy of the people who created these things?
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- izzydata 5y agoI found it amusing that this "nofilter.org" is blocked on my companies network. Not very unstoppable and uncensorable apparently.
- petre 5y agoWell, it's promoted with anti vax puctures. Great.
- 0des 5y agoI'm curious what type of content you believe requires/prefers claimed uncensorable mediums of being published. Do you envision it being movie reviews and cake recipes, or can you imagine that ideologies prone to being censored may make up the lion's share of that content?
- petre 5y agoXinjiang human rights abuses? US drone attacks on civilians, journalists and other innocent bystanders? Deplatformed LGBTQ+ content? However, these mediums are more frequently used to promote conspiracy theories, like the ones anti vaxxers spread and only lead to more covid victims, brainwashing leading to Q-anon types that have recently stormed the US Capitol, IS recruitment PR, CP etc. Oh and the video starts with the deplatforming of President Trump, a former head of state with a trolling habit, as if this was a net loss for the rest of us? Promoting your app with this type of content, plus the name and the subtitle in almost all caps is quite telling.
- ergot_vacation 5y agoPeople who agree with the mainstream, official line, government etc. don't need anti-censorship platforms. Your response to opening such a platform and seeing positions you hate should be "Excellent! It's working as it should!"
- rini17 5y agoI'd say "works as it should" if there was evidence of actual human rights violations. They keep happening everywhere. Not conspirations without any trace of substance and airing grievances of privileged classes. It's NOT that I disagree. Every now and then I do consider something nonmainstream credible enough to research deeper. Guess how such research ends up. Poorly.
- necessity_life 5y agoGreat work! The one thing that sticks out to me as a 'flaw' in this app is how it is marketed. It might be better to market it under a 'normal' name as a great blogging app, which, by the way, is uncensorable, etc. That might make it seem like a good alternative for the general public rather than just a safe haven for marginalized voices.
- dclaw 5y agoThe first amendment protects you from being arrested by the government for what you say. It does not protect you from everyone else saying you're a fucking idiot and shunning you when you say something stupid....
- amadeuspagel 5y agoThis site doesn't even mention the first amendment.
- mro_name 5y agoThe google 3rd party servers makes it look like bait.