10 ms·

Diaspora social network cannot stop IS posts

55 points by codeoclock 12y ago

dewey 12y ago
I think it's a bit weird that instead of using this to promote their values (Decentralization, Freedom, Privacy as mentioned on their landing page [0]) they are essentially pressuring pod admins to take down the content. I know they could just setup their own Pod but these values are what makes them any different from the likes of Twitter and I would've expected them to stand by them a bit more. [0] https://diasporafoundation.org/ https://diasporafoundation.org/
- sp332 12y ago
  They gave people the power to post really offensive and harmful things, but that doesn't mean they have to be happy when it happens.
  - kordless 12y ago
    They gave people the ability to post things without threat of censorship. Whether or not they thought through the ramifications of all edge cases, how they feel about it, and what they do about is another matter entirely.
    - sp332 12y ago
      Diaspora is just a web app. If you already have a web server, you have the ability to post things without censorship. Diaspora doesn't add any anti-censorship abilities on top of that. In fact their main selling point is keeping things private.
- bellerocky 12y ago
  > I think it's a bit weird that instead of using this to promote their values (Decentralization, Freedom, Privacy as mentioned on their landing page [0]) they are essentially pressuring pod admins to take down the content. Yeah that's probably because the ISIS is known for suicide bombings, cutting off heads, video taping it so that the families and friends of the victim can see how gruesome their loved one died, killing unbelievers and tying multiple women to poles at the Mosul Dam to be raped. Not exactly the kind of thing you want to use to promote your values unless you're a psychopath. What the fuck.
  - rjknight 12y ago
    Sounds like a good argument for letting them vent on the internet instead, then.
    - bellerocky 12y ago
      They're not venting, they're recruiting and spreading fear.
      - Alupis 12y ago
        And radical Christian groups in the US aren't?
        bellerocky 12y ago
        Maybe, I don't know, how is that relevant? What is your argument? You think if a radical Christian group posted videos of murders online Twitter wouldn't ban it? What? Who are these people commenting today? Where did they come from?
        Alupis 12y ago
        I don't think anyone really takes issue with Twitter pulling down content -- they are a private company (as-in not controlled by the govt) -- but when a government starts censoring material (like in the UK were linking-to, or even viewing of this sort of material is considered illegal), that's where things get not-OK. What I find more outrageous was that the reporter apparently was held captive for 2 years... without anyone (in the public) knowing. Bergdahl was held captive for 5 years and luckily was returned in a controversial exchange. What is going on that we are not able to protect and/or recover our people? Seems to send a clear message that if you get captured by an extremists group like ISIS, the government won't come running in to save you, nor will the public even know you are missing -- fore the government doesn't want to stir public opinion into favoring some sort of military action. So, in essence -- you are all alone out there, potentially for years, or worse. -- That is outrageous to me.
tedunangst 12y ago
"It's absolutely inevitable that organisations like IS are going to be among the early adopters of this sort of innovation." That would have been a great quote to have on the crowdfunding page.
- sp332 12y ago
  The more trouble they have taking down IS content, the safer I know my pod is.
higherpurpose 12y ago
Maybe Diaspora will finally take off now that the other social networks will begin to get heavily censored. I for one would like Twister to take off as alternative to Twitter: http://twister.net.co/ http://twister.net.co/ EDIT: It also seems to be compatible with Tor now: http://twister.net.co/?p=366 http://twister.net.co/?p=366
Scorpion 12y ago
Isn't that kind of what it was created for? They had to know from the start that not all the people and groups who used it would have noble intentions.
mikeash 12y ago
Sometimes it seems like people are more upset about the words of killers than the fact that they go around killing people.
- pyre 12y ago
  In this case, I think it has more to do with the spreading a message that has recruitment as one of its aims. In the US, the freedom of speech doesn't apply if you are, for example, spreading a message that says, "You all need to kill [ethnic group]."
- wlievens 12y ago
  I suggest you read up on the effect of the words of killers in Rwanda in 1994.
pera 12y ago
This is like saying "E-Mail cannot stop X mails" or "XMPP cannot stop X chats", which is pretty obvious. The whole point of a decentralized service like Diaspora is that it can't be completely censored. Internet providers could partially block the access to pods that don't censor this kind of content, but then they could setup their own Diaspora pod in a Tor hidden services...
- kordless 12y ago
  Doesn't it operate as a social network, where some content is available publicly? That would make it a bit different than email...
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - chimeracoder 12y ago
    > Doesn't it operate as a social network, where some content is available publicly? That would make it a bit different than email... There's no technical reason that email isn't public, just social convention. Emails are like postcards, and the content is visible to all routers that they pass through on the way to their final destination. In theory, we could have decided that email was an open discussion platform (more like USENET) with almost no technical changes.
  - juliangoldsmith 12y ago
    As I understand it, it's a network of federated servers. The Diaspora team doesn't control the servers, so there's nothing they can do.
- srslack 12y ago
  "Bitcoin cannot stop Islamic State transactions"
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Nor can 'cash'. Its fungible. But cash requires a physical relationship. BitCoins take it to a whole nother level with virtual payments. So it really is a new thing. And we may not like all the ways BitCoins get used.
goatforce5 12y ago
https://diasporafoundation.org/about#features https://diasporafoundation.org/about#features "diaspora* is completely Free Software. This means there are no limits on how it can be used." Sounds like the IS people are using it as intended. (Life will get complicated for any pod admins in western countries though.)
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
dangero 12y ago
I don't like what these guys are posting about but should we really abandon freedom of speech over it? Wouldn't that be an example of the terrorists winning?
- nilicule 12y ago
  The problem is that not all countries consider this free speech. If you're hosting a Diaspora pod in the UK, then having this material on your system is considered terrorism.
  - Alupis 12y ago
    In the UK -- simply linking-to, reporting, or even viewing of this material is considered illegal under anti-terrorism laws... (I can understand if it's distasteful, or socially frowned upon... but illegal to view a video? come-on...)
- seanflyon 12y ago
  I don't think "free speech" means what you think it means. Your freedom to speech, does not give me the obligation to publish your speech on my website. In this case the Diaspora team is using their free speech to suggest that various pod administrators choose not to publish some particularly nasty speech.
k__ 12y ago
Hey, there are people who use it to do more offensive stuff than I ever would and they can't censor them. Sounds like a quality criteria to me.
motters 12y ago
If they set up their own pod then they can spread whatever propaganda they want. Earlier in the year IS made the foolish mistake of setting up on a Red Matrix server administered by someone who opposed them, and they promptly got kicked off. https://libertypod.org/posts/7a778c00f3a201319eb700163efe12c9 https://libertypod.org/posts/7a778c00f3a201319eb700163efe12c...
kordless 12y ago
I've been thinking about this type of problem for a while now. One possible solution would be a requirement for the content to pay for its 'right to be visible' or 'right of existence'. Rates for right of existence could vary based on network sentiment/karma regarding the content. Karma could be earned by users providing storage or purchased in bulk for a fee.
Alupis 12y ago
"IS", aka Islamic State, does not necessarily mean "Extremist" (and for the record, "IS" is not a synonym for "ISIS")
- kordless 12y ago
  > In its self-proclaimed status as a caliphate, it claims religious authority over all Muslims across the world and aspires to bring much of the Muslim-inhabited regions of the world under its direct political control, beginning with territory in the Levant region, which includes Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Cyprus, and an area in southern Turkey that includes Hatay. Sounds pretty extreme to me.
  - Alupis 12y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_state http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_state Not so much. You are using the definition from an article geared towards ousting extremists -- and therefore their definition is "extreme". An IS can very much-so be a legitimate non-extreme government. (albeit, different from what most of us would prefer as a government)
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
- pionar 12y ago
  for the record, "ISIS" changed their name to just "Islamic State".
  - Alupis 12y ago
    Well, there seems to be an unfortunate naming collision then, because Islamic State was already reserved for a type of government: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_state http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_state
    - sp332 12y ago
alexchamberlain 12y ago
Scientists have ethics committees, but what do we turn to in these situations? Undoubtedly, many of us would argue that free speech is one of the best things that has come out of the internet, and open source and decentralised software is often created for this very reason. On the other hand, it gives extremists a platform for communication. It's a fine balancing act and I'm not sure there is enough debate around these sorts of issues.
jacquesm 12y ago
This is one of the reasons I never felt that I could run a TOR or freenet node in good conscience. They have good uses but I can think of plenty of bad uses and I suspect that the bad uses will outnumber the good uses at any moment in time.
- logfromblammo 12y ago
  By Blackstone math, it is better than ten guilty men go free than one innocent be punished. How many pedo-pervs would you allow to trade images such that one political dissident may speak without fear of persecution?
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Absolutely, but that does not mean that I'm going to have to enable 10 guilty men to perpetrate their crimes. If a political dissident would approach me I'd more than happily attempt to smuggle his words out of whatever dictatorship he or she is currently living in, that would be my call to make. But whoever gets unfettered access to my network interfaces is going to have to be known to me in person.
    - logfromblammo 12y ago
      If the dissident could approach you to ask for your help, he wouldn't need to. You have to gamble on opening up that channel for anyone to use. You have to pick your Blackstone Number. If the actual ratio of criminal to innocent exceeds it, you should not participate in Tor. Otherwise, you should. As for myself, I don't think I'd go as high as 10, but I might be willing to enable as many as 3 people to anonymously commit the worst information-based crime I can conceive without my knowledge to enable one person to achieve the greatest assistance possible from safe and unfettered access to information. Unfortunately, if I run a Tor exit node, I am likely to experience government persecution as the identifiable scapegoat for all that criminal activity that I was willing to tolerate for the sake of helping one person in need. By prosecuting exit node operators for traffic passing through, government policy effectively sets the Blackstone Number for everyone to zero, and damns the innocent.
thisjepisje 12y ago
Never heard of Diaspora, but based on this article I think it sounds good.
samirmenon 12y ago
"The team behind a social network being used by Islamic State (IS) militants has admitted it cannot prevent the spread of extremist material." "admitted"? What's with the tone of this article? What crime are they "admitting" to? In my experience, BBC should be better than this.
yarrel 12y ago
Microsoft and Dell cannot stop IS using computers. Xerox cannot stop IS using photocopiers. Sanford cannot stop IS using pencils. BBC cannot stop IS listening to World Service. etc.
unclesaamm 12y ago
Groups conducting subversive activities all moving to one service..? This sounds like DARPA's lucky day.
logfromblammo 12y ago
It seems odd to structure a project around freedom of speech, control of your own information, and dilution of central authority, and then act disappointed when it actually gets used for those purposes. If a group that posts videos of journalist executions can use it without getting shut down, it is certainly usable for any other group that may be unpopular with their local majority: Tibetan nationalists, Falun Gong, breastfeeding moms, cop watchers, Iranian women's rights groups, Ukranian rebels, homosexuals, German Nazis, Quebec secessionists, eco-terrorists, unschoolers, conspiracy theorists, anarchists, red-state liberals, blue-state conservatives, and people who text while driving. To get the good, you have to take the bad with it. The same Bitcoin that can buy a pizza can also buy a murder. The same typewriter can write both a beautiful poem or an extortion note. A hammer can build a house or crack a skull. A fire can chase away the cold and the dark, or it can burn your home to ash. The early adopters are going to be the most blatantly offensive, and the most suspiciously paranoid, and the most idealist. The mainstream people already have their mainstream network, and won't see any reason to switch until they find themselves penalized in some way for being different from the owners of the system. This is good. If someone as nasty as a journalist beheader can't get silenced, I know with reasonable certainty that if I go to Diaspora, there's likely nothing I would ever do myself that would result in me being erased from the network. And I can share information with just my friends, rather than my friends plus all paying Facebook customers. And in addition to all that, how can you expect to get more jaw-jaw and less war-war if you slap a gag on the other guy every time you see his lips move?
- ibebrett 12y ago
  There is a difference between a forum for the free exchange of ideas, and a decentralized system that can be used to plan and share murders/(horrible other things). It is totally legal (in the usa) for you to get together with your friends and talk about whatever you want, but it is not legal for you to get together and plan an overthrow of the government, or a murder. It's not good that a dangerous group has a new tool.
  - xtrumanx 12y ago
    Your comment can apply to any technology; from computers and radios to simple things like hammers and knives. Yes, dangerous groups could use those tools for evil but that problem shouldn't be attributed to the tool or their creators. Especially when the tool was not designed for evil and is not primarily used for evil.
u124556 12y ago
So it works.
peter303 12y ago
There was strange premonition of this in the 1990s Left Behind scifi series. This was at the dawn of the web. In those stories the true-believer Xtianss are guerillas battling the forces of the anti-Christ whom control all government utilities like the web. Yet the guerillas use the web for their planning. I always wondered why the anti-christ couldnt stop the web.
lazylizard 12y ago
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it?
dlkdg 12y ago
What about this: the Diaspora team does not betray their principles for encouraging pod admins to block IS content, mainly because they do not make up their minds and say 'Oh shit, maybe this decentralized thing was not that good an idea'. What they're saying is that they do not approve of what IS do and say, and think that you shouldn't neither. As it was said before, saying that certain assholes should shut up does not equal betraying the principle of freedom of speech. Now, that is philosophical subtleties aside. Of course this invokes hard questions, like, who gets to decide which assholes should shut up. But let's not split hairs -- IS case is not a borderline case. That is, if we all agree that what they do is universally harmful. If someone doesn't then I think there's not much to discuss.
anelizat 12y ago
A stranger here, i stumbled on this thread as i've been mulling over Diaspora's reaction to ISIS's sudden and dreadful arrival. It's heartening to read these threads and consider your reasoned and civilized exchanges. My own perspective is largely reflected in the early post of logfromblammo, which puts me in the extremist free (i.e., decentralized/uncensorable) speech camp, i guess. logfromblammo's observation that early adopters rarely come from (anywhere near) the mainstream seems an especially salient aspect of the good-with-the-bad argument in this case. The only thing i'd add, as an old school free speecher, is that the traditional anti-censorship answer to bad speech is more good speech. ...still thinking about how that model plays out on a distributed social network (social networking being an activity i personally mostly avoid). Anyway...GRATITUDE for the cogent, respectful conversation i've had the pleasure of eavesdropping on.

55 points by codeoclock 12y ago

dewey 12y ago

I think it's a bit weird that instead of using this to promote their values (Decentralization, Freedom, Privacy as mentioned on their landing page [0]) they are essentially pressuring pod admins to take down the content. I know they could just setup their own Pod but these values are what makes them any different from the likes of Twitter and I would've expected them to stand by them a bit more. [0] https://diasporafoundation.org/ https://diasporafoundation.org/

sp332 12y ago
They gave people the power to post really offensive and harmful things, but that doesn't mean they have to be happy when it happens.
- kordless 12y ago
  They gave people the ability to post things without threat of censorship. Whether or not they thought through the ramifications of all edge cases, how they feel about it, and what they do about is another matter entirely.
  - sp332 12y ago
    Diaspora is just a web app. If you already have a web server, you have the ability to post things without censorship. Diaspora doesn't add any anti-censorship abilities on top of that. In fact their main selling point is keeping things private.
bellerocky 12y ago
> I think it's a bit weird that instead of using this to promote their values (Decentralization, Freedom, Privacy as mentioned on their landing page [0]) they are essentially pressuring pod admins to take down the content. Yeah that's probably because the ISIS is known for suicide bombings, cutting off heads, video taping it so that the families and friends of the victim can see how gruesome their loved one died, killing unbelievers and tying multiple women to poles at the Mosul Dam to be raped. Not exactly the kind of thing you want to use to promote your values unless you're a psychopath. What the fuck.
- rjknight 12y ago
  Sounds like a good argument for letting them vent on the internet instead, then.
  - bellerocky 12y ago
    They're not venting, they're recruiting and spreading fear.
    - Alupis 12y ago
      And radical Christian groups in the US aren't?
      - bellerocky 12y ago
        Maybe, I don't know, how is that relevant? What is your argument? You think if a radical Christian group posted videos of murders online Twitter wouldn't ban it? What? Who are these people commenting today? Where did they come from?
        Alupis 12y ago
        I don't think anyone really takes issue with Twitter pulling down content -- they are a private company (as-in not controlled by the govt) -- but when a government starts censoring material (like in the UK were linking-to, or even viewing of this sort of material is considered illegal), that's where things get not-OK. What I find more outrageous was that the reporter apparently was held captive for 2 years... without anyone (in the public) knowing. Bergdahl was held captive for 5 years and luckily was returned in a controversial exchange. What is going on that we are not able to protect and/or recover our people? Seems to send a clear message that if you get captured by an extremists group like ISIS, the government won't come running in to save you, nor will the public even know you are missing -- fore the government doesn't want to stir public opinion into favoring some sort of military action. So, in essence -- you are all alone out there, potentially for years, or worse. -- That is outrageous to me.

tedunangst 12y ago

"It's absolutely inevitable that organisations like IS are going to be among the early adopters of this sort of innovation." That would have been a great quote to have on the crowdfunding page.

sp332 12y ago
The more trouble they have taking down IS content, the safer I know my pod is.

higherpurpose 12y ago

Maybe Diaspora will finally take off now that the other social networks will begin to get heavily censored. I for one would like Twister to take off as alternative to Twitter: http://twister.net.co/ http://twister.net.co/ EDIT: It also seems to be compatible with Tor now: http://twister.net.co/?p=366 http://twister.net.co/?p=366

Scorpion 12y ago

Isn't that kind of what it was created for? They had to know from the start that not all the people and groups who used it would have noble intentions.

mikeash 12y ago

Sometimes it seems like people are more upset about the words of killers than the fact that they go around killing people.

pyre 12y ago
In this case, I think it has more to do with the spreading a message that has recruitment as one of its aims. In the US, the freedom of speech doesn't apply if you are, for example, spreading a message that says, "You all need to kill [ethnic group]."
wlievens 12y ago
I suggest you read up on the effect of the words of killers in Rwanda in 1994.

pera 12y ago

This is like saying "E-Mail cannot stop X mails" or "XMPP cannot stop X chats", which is pretty obvious. The whole point of a decentralized service like Diaspora is that it can't be completely censored. Internet providers could partially block the access to pods that don't censor this kind of content, but then they could setup their own Diaspora pod in a Tor hidden services...

kordless 12y ago
Doesn't it operate as a social network, where some content is available publicly? That would make it a bit different than email...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- chimeracoder 12y ago
  > Doesn't it operate as a social network, where some content is available publicly? That would make it a bit different than email... There's no technical reason that email isn't public, just social convention. Emails are like postcards, and the content is visible to all routers that they pass through on the way to their final destination. In theory, we could have decided that email was an open discussion platform (more like USENET) with almost no technical changes.
- juliangoldsmith 12y ago
  As I understand it, it's a network of federated servers. The Diaspora team doesn't control the servers, so there's nothing they can do.
srslack 12y ago
"Bitcoin cannot stop Islamic State transactions"
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Nor can 'cash'. Its fungible. But cash requires a physical relationship. BitCoins take it to a whole nother level with virtual payments. So it really is a new thing. And we may not like all the ways BitCoins get used.

goatforce5 12y ago

https://diasporafoundation.org/about#features https://diasporafoundation.org/about#features "diaspora* is completely Free Software. This means there are no limits on how it can be used." Sounds like the IS people are using it as intended. (Life will get complicated for any pod admins in western countries though.)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

dangero 12y ago

I don't like what these guys are posting about but should we really abandon freedom of speech over it? Wouldn't that be an example of the terrorists winning?

nilicule 12y ago
The problem is that not all countries consider this free speech. If you're hosting a Diaspora pod in the UK, then having this material on your system is considered terrorism.
- Alupis 12y ago
  In the UK -- simply linking-to, reporting, or even viewing of this material is considered illegal under anti-terrorism laws... (I can understand if it's distasteful, or socially frowned upon... but illegal to view a video? come-on...)
seanflyon 12y ago
I don't think "free speech" means what you think it means. Your freedom to speech, does not give me the obligation to publish your speech on my website. In this case the Diaspora team is using their free speech to suggest that various pod administrators choose not to publish some particularly nasty speech.

k__ 12y ago

Hey, there are people who use it to do more offensive stuff than I ever would and they can't censor them. Sounds like a quality criteria to me.

motters 12y ago

If they set up their own pod then they can spread whatever propaganda they want. Earlier in the year IS made the foolish mistake of setting up on a Red Matrix server administered by someone who opposed them, and they promptly got kicked off. https://libertypod.org/posts/7a778c00f3a201319eb700163efe12c9 https://libertypod.org/posts/7a778c00f3a201319eb700163efe12c...

kordless 12y ago

I've been thinking about this type of problem for a while now. One possible solution would be a requirement for the content to pay for its 'right to be visible' or 'right of existence'. Rates for right of existence could vary based on network sentiment/karma regarding the content. Karma could be earned by users providing storage or purchased in bulk for a fee.

Alupis 12y ago

"IS", aka Islamic State, does not necessarily mean "Extremist" (and for the record, "IS" is not a synonym for "ISIS")

kordless 12y ago
> In its self-proclaimed status as a caliphate, it claims religious authority over all Muslims across the world and aspires to bring much of the Muslim-inhabited regions of the world under its direct political control, beginning with territory in the Levant region, which includes Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Cyprus, and an area in southern Turkey that includes Hatay. Sounds pretty extreme to me.
- Alupis 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_state http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_state Not so much. You are using the definition from an article geared towards ousting extremists -- and therefore their definition is "extreme". An IS can very much-so be a legitimate non-extreme government. (albeit, different from what most of us would prefer as a government)
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
pionar 12y ago
for the record, "ISIS" changed their name to just "Islamic State".
- Alupis 12y ago
  Well, there seems to be an unfortunate naming collision then, because Islamic State was already reserved for a type of government: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_state http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_state
  - sp332 12y ago

alexchamberlain 12y ago

Scientists have ethics committees, but what do we turn to in these situations? Undoubtedly, many of us would argue that free speech is one of the best things that has come out of the internet, and open source and decentralised software is often created for this very reason. On the other hand, it gives extremists a platform for communication. It's a fine balancing act and I'm not sure there is enough debate around these sorts of issues.

jacquesm 12y ago

This is one of the reasons I never felt that I could run a TOR or freenet node in good conscience. They have good uses but I can think of plenty of bad uses and I suspect that the bad uses will outnumber the good uses at any moment in time.

logfromblammo 12y ago
By Blackstone math, it is better than ten guilty men go free than one innocent be punished. How many pedo-pervs would you allow to trade images such that one political dissident may speak without fear of persecution?
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Absolutely, but that does not mean that I'm going to have to enable 10 guilty men to perpetrate their crimes. If a political dissident would approach me I'd more than happily attempt to smuggle his words out of whatever dictatorship he or she is currently living in, that would be my call to make. But whoever gets unfettered access to my network interfaces is going to have to be known to me in person.
  - logfromblammo 12y ago
    If the dissident could approach you to ask for your help, he wouldn't need to. You have to gamble on opening up that channel for anyone to use. You have to pick your Blackstone Number. If the actual ratio of criminal to innocent exceeds it, you should not participate in Tor. Otherwise, you should. As for myself, I don't think I'd go as high as 10, but I might be willing to enable as many as 3 people to anonymously commit the worst information-based crime I can conceive without my knowledge to enable one person to achieve the greatest assistance possible from safe and unfettered access to information. Unfortunately, if I run a Tor exit node, I am likely to experience government persecution as the identifiable scapegoat for all that criminal activity that I was willing to tolerate for the sake of helping one person in need. By prosecuting exit node operators for traffic passing through, government policy effectively sets the Blackstone Number for everyone to zero, and damns the innocent.

thisjepisje 12y ago

Never heard of Diaspora, but based on this article I think it sounds good.

samirmenon 12y ago

"The team behind a social network being used by Islamic State (IS) militants has admitted it cannot prevent the spread of extremist material." "admitted"? What's with the tone of this article? What crime are they "admitting" to? In my experience, BBC should be better than this.

yarrel 12y ago

Microsoft and Dell cannot stop IS using computers. Xerox cannot stop IS using photocopiers. Sanford cannot stop IS using pencils. BBC cannot stop IS listening to World Service. etc.

unclesaamm 12y ago

Groups conducting subversive activities all moving to one service..? This sounds like DARPA's lucky day.

logfromblammo 12y ago

It seems odd to structure a project around freedom of speech, control of your own information, and dilution of central authority, and then act disappointed when it actually gets used for those purposes. If a group that posts videos of journalist executions can use it without getting shut down, it is certainly usable for any other group that may be unpopular with their local majority: Tibetan nationalists, Falun Gong, breastfeeding moms, cop watchers, Iranian women's rights groups, Ukranian rebels, homosexuals, German Nazis, Quebec secessionists, eco-terrorists, unschoolers, conspiracy theorists, anarchists, red-state liberals, blue-state conservatives, and people who text while driving. To get the good, you have to take the bad with it. The same Bitcoin that can buy a pizza can also buy a murder. The same typewriter can write both a beautiful poem or an extortion note. A hammer can build a house or crack a skull. A fire can chase away the cold and the dark, or it can burn your home to ash. The early adopters are going to be the most blatantly offensive, and the most suspiciously paranoid, and the most idealist. The mainstream people already have their mainstream network, and won't see any reason to switch until they find themselves penalized in some way for being different from the owners of the system. This is good. If someone as nasty as a journalist beheader can't get silenced, I know with reasonable certainty that if I go to Diaspora, there's likely nothing I would ever do myself that would result in me being erased from the network. And I can share information with just my friends, rather than my friends plus all paying Facebook customers. And in addition to all that, how can you expect to get more jaw-jaw and less war-war if you slap a gag on the other guy every time you see his lips move?

ibebrett 12y ago
There is a difference between a forum for the free exchange of ideas, and a decentralized system that can be used to plan and share murders/(horrible other things). It is totally legal (in the usa) for you to get together with your friends and talk about whatever you want, but it is not legal for you to get together and plan an overthrow of the government, or a murder. It's not good that a dangerous group has a new tool.
- xtrumanx 12y ago
  Your comment can apply to any technology; from computers and radios to simple things like hammers and knives. Yes, dangerous groups could use those tools for evil but that problem shouldn't be attributed to the tool or their creators. Especially when the tool was not designed for evil and is not primarily used for evil.

u124556 12y ago

So it works.

peter303 12y ago

There was strange premonition of this in the 1990s Left Behind scifi series. This was at the dawn of the web. In those stories the true-believer Xtianss are guerillas battling the forces of the anti-Christ whom control all government utilities like the web. Yet the guerillas use the web for their planning. I always wondered why the anti-christ couldnt stop the web.

lazylizard 12y ago

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it?

dlkdg 12y ago

What about this: the Diaspora team does not betray their principles for encouraging pod admins to block IS content, mainly because they do not make up their minds and say 'Oh shit, maybe this decentralized thing was not that good an idea'. What they're saying is that they do not approve of what IS do and say, and think that you shouldn't neither. As it was said before, saying that certain assholes should shut up does not equal betraying the principle of freedom of speech. Now, that is philosophical subtleties aside. Of course this invokes hard questions, like, who gets to decide which assholes should shut up. But let's not split hairs -- IS case is not a borderline case. That is, if we all agree that what they do is universally harmful. If someone doesn't then I think there's not much to discuss.

anelizat 12y ago

A stranger here, i stumbled on this thread as i've been mulling over Diaspora's reaction to ISIS's sudden and dreadful arrival. It's heartening to read these threads and consider your reasoned and civilized exchanges. My own perspective is largely reflected in the early post of logfromblammo, which puts me in the extremist free (i.e., decentralized/uncensorable) speech camp, i guess. logfromblammo's observation that early adopters rarely come from (anywhere near) the mainstream seems an especially salient aspect of the good-with-the-bad argument in this case. The only thing i'd add, as an old school free speecher, is that the traditional anti-censorship answer to bad speech is more good speech. ...still thinking about how that model plays out on a distributed social network (social networking being an activity i personally mostly avoid). Anyway...GRATITUDE for the cogent, respectful conversation i've had the pleasure of eavesdropping on.