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Censorship is required if one wants to prevent libel and slander. There are some people who won't stop doing it unless an entity with more authority/power stop

Censorship is required if one wants to prevent libel and slander. There are some people who won't stop doing it unless an entity with more authority/power stops them from saying it.

nine_k 2y ago
Everyone has more authority over their mailbox than any sender. Hence local spam filters block a lot of content without bring censorship. People can share their findings about the patterns of spam, hence collaborative / federated spam rejection lists. They are not dominated by any single entity or a small clique, and every user is free to heed or ignore any part of the list, or none at all. Hence it's not censorship. This mechanisms formed in the email network long before the current oligopoly formed, and still works. So I hope there is a honest way to filter out generally objectionable content by.a collective effort of the users who care, without turning the filter into a censorship tool.
- ArneBab 2y ago
  This actually happens in the original Freenet (now Hyphanet): the communication tools use propagating trust and blocking. So if someone you communicate with regularly sees something objectionable and blocks it, it disappears for you, too. But you can always create a new identity that does not trust the other person — or set your own local trust — to see the content anyway. The important point is that this way resistence against disruption of communication scales better that the disruption (spam, libel, harassment, ...).
_heimdall 2y ago
In your opinion, how do you weigh collateral damage when it comes to censorship and free speech? I've always been of the mind that I'd rather let 10 guilty people walk free than imprison one innocent person. I extend that to free speech as well. I'd rather let 10 lible or slander complaints work their way through the court system rather than wrongfully censoring one person's speech.
sanity 2y ago
Anonymous libel does little damage because it has no credibility.

Censorship is required if one wants to prevent libel and slander. There are some people who won't stop doing it unless an entity with more authority/power stops them from saying it.

nine_k 2y ago

Everyone has more authority over their mailbox than any sender. Hence local spam filters block a lot of content without bring censorship. People can share their findings about the patterns of spam, hence collaborative / federated spam rejection lists. They are not dominated by any single entity or a small clique, and every user is free to heed or ignore any part of the list, or none at all. Hence it's not censorship. This mechanisms formed in the email network long before the current oligopoly formed, and still works. So I hope there is a honest way to filter out generally objectionable content by.a collective effort of the users who care, without turning the filter into a censorship tool.

ArneBab 2y ago
This actually happens in the original Freenet (now Hyphanet): the communication tools use propagating trust and blocking. So if someone you communicate with regularly sees something objectionable and blocks it, it disappears for you, too. But you can always create a new identity that does not trust the other person — or set your own local trust — to see the content anyway. The important point is that this way resistence against disruption of communication scales better that the disruption (spam, libel, harassment, ...).

_heimdall 2y ago

In your opinion, how do you weigh collateral damage when it comes to censorship and free speech? I've always been of the mind that I'd rather let 10 guilty people walk free than imprison one innocent person. I extend that to free speech as well. I'd rather let 10 lible or slander complaints work their way through the court system rather than wrongfully censoring one person's speech.

sanity 2y ago

Anonymous libel does little damage because it has no credibility.