Recent thread on Frost. Probably there are significant bits that have been missed, I got this second hand. People might like to comment. Personally I have always been of the view that it is entirely permissible for an index site to be selective, and we would probably link to such a site. Project policy, last time I discussed it with ian, is that index sites are selected solely on their utility for finding content. We cannot select whether or not to link to an index site on the basis of whether or not it links to undesirable content without having to deal with the ugly reality that a lot more than child porn is illegal. For example if we select index sites on the basis of them not linking to child porn, then we may be compelled not to link to index sites which link to Scientology stuff, or patent infringements, or pirated documentaries that are plainly in the public interest, or...
----- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- 2005.08.14 - 03:16:49GMT -- I understand the argument that Freenet, like other communication mediums before it (the regular Internet, postal system, etc), is just a communications medium. It has benefits and it has consequences, and you have to accept and deal with each. I'm not comfortable with the idea that my node could be hostingchild pornography or other such material, but I accept that risk because I believe in the overall value of the medium. What I DON'T understand, however, is the notion that the owner of a freesite-index MUST link to every freesite requesting a listing... otherwise they're "censoring" people. I also do not understand why it is that when the Freenet team bundles the gateway servlet in the application, they include default bookmarks to indices boldly listing child porn freesites... when this quite obviously gives the appearance of the project endorsing such sites. There is nothing that can be done to eliminate child pornography on Freenet (or any other communications medium for that matter). If pedophiles lurk in Frost boards and swap keys to files and freesites, they can do so without fear of censor. That is a consequence of freedom. However, index operators manually linking to such resources quite obviously has NOTHING to do with "freedom"... declining the request to loan someone your bullhorn is NOT equivalent to putting a muzzle on that person. I don't know what the real motivation is. Maybe it's about using shock-value to "stick it to 'The Man'". Maybe it's part of an agenda, born out of reading too much goofball crypto-anarchism nonsense. Maybe it's just 'tards with too much time on their hands looking to be drama queens and stir up something to talk about. It really doesn't matter... either way it's childish and backed up by logical reasoning more shallow than a teaspoon. Having played around with Freenet for a little while now, I'm at a bit of a crossroads as to how to proceed from here. The privacy and software boards onFrost have been immensely informative and entertaining, but I just have DEEP misgivings about supporting an application whose team actively PROMOTES childpornography rather than merely tolerating it. Part of me wants to uninstall the thing and try GNUnet or one of the other imitators. Part of my wants to start my own freesite index, a simple screen-scrap of "The Freedom Engine" with child porn links removed, and see how heavily I can promote it among other users with the same concerns (WOULD there be any interest in this?). Part of me just wants to throw out some flame-bait in this Frost board and hope that maybe someone will respond with something that helps me make sense of this absolute insanity. ----- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- 2005.08.14 - 10:09:41GMT ----- No owner of a freesite-index MUST link to every freesite!! But if they WANT, you can't forbid it. If you don't like that, just don't view that freesite. But like mentioned in the philosophy and FAQ pages of the freenet project: Minds can not be only maniuplated by giving you wrong information, but also by hiding information from you. You'd never think much about child porn, you would probably read more about some other kind of people being treated in an inhuman way, and wouldn't much worry about activities that try to stop child pornography. Moreover, the Freedom Engine which is linked by the maintaniers of the project, displays a immense "caveat lector" that is intended to warn you about offensive and illegal content. Additional, sites that contain or may contain child porn are mostly linked with another warning. So, if you don't like it, just don't view this sites. If for you freedom is less important than the spread of child pornography, you should consider not using freenet, because this project aims to provide thehighest level of freedom possible. I'll give you some cites from www.freenetproject.org: " The second argument is that this "good" censorship is counter-productive even when it does not leak into other areas. For example, it is generally more effective when trying to persuade someone of something to present them with the arguments against it, and then answer those arguments. Unfortunately, preventing people from being aware of the often sophisticated arguments used by racists, makes them vulnerable to those arguments when they do eventually encounter them." "While most people wish that child pornography and terrorism did not exist, humanity should not be deprived of their freedom to communicate just because of how a very small number of people might use that freedom." "I don't want my node to be used to harbor child porn, offensive content or terrorism. What can I do? The true test of someone who claims to believe in Freedom of Speech is whether they tolerate speech which they disagree with, or even find disgusting. If this is not acceptable to you, you should not run a Freenet node. There is another thing you can do. Since content in Freenet is available as long as its popular, you can help limit the popularity of whatever information you do not like. For example, if you do not want a file to spread you should not request it and tell everyone you know not to request that specific key. However, keep in mind that freenet is not designed so as to only allow communication between people if a sufficient number of people agree with the communication. Freenet is designed to make communication possible even if there's just one publisher and one reader, and this is already reasonably feasible on the current freenet." regards, the anticapitalist ----- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- 2005.08.14 - 11:40:59GMT ----- Good reply. Read the stuff above here in case you thought it was too long or not worth it. It is very much worth the read. ----- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- 2005.08.14 - 13:18:10GMT ----- 1) It is not "hiding information" when you simply decline requests to promote certain information on your own privately-created promotion tool. Trying touse a DOS-attack (impossible on freenet, but just thrown out for sake of discussion) or some other means to shut down pedo-related freesites or Frost posts would be "hiding information". 2) It seems that every time someone raises the issue of child porn links, the defenders quickly try to shift the argument to the objection they WISH was being raised... the undesirablity to have one's node hosting unwanted content. I plainly stated that this is not the issue. The issue is freesite-index operators intentionally linking to child porn sites (out of a mistaken belief that freedom requires this), and then the project team bundling up those links in the default bookmarks that the application ships with. That position is completely non-defendable, which is perhaps why the FAQ page doesn't even address it. 3) I by no means am talking about "coercing" anybody into not linking to whatever they wish. My attempt is to rally social pressure, a form of activism perfectly compatible with liberty. Unfortunately, it seems I am very much in the minority in the Freenet community, so that attempt looks fairly fruitless. I believe you were correct in your judgement that I should perhaps not be using Freenet, I'm think my time remaining here will be short. 4) The person in the other response index who compared child pornography to McCarthyism is completely insane. ----- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- 2005.08.15 - 09:49:27GMT ----- From point 4, care to explain further? The claim is that pedophilia is a bugaboo just like McCarthyism is. It seems to be an apt analogy since there always seems to be hysteria surrounding a topic that occurs for a period then is gone to be replaced by another issue. As well, with a bugaboo the hysteria is out of proportion as to the risk / consequences of the issue in question. ----- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- 2005.08.15 - 12:29:26GMT ----- Well for one thing, I think your perception of the hysteria-to-risk ratio is a bit off. I hardly EVER hear discussion about child porography outside of Freenet... this network is an anomoly not so much for providing a secure means for pedophiles to exchange material, but because the social character of the overall community goes to such lengths to make pedophiles feel welcomed and comfortable and engage them in dialog. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been in a discussion of the issue outside of Freenet, and still have enough digits remaining to hold a cup of coffee. The "hysteria" side of theequation is not that heavily weighted. On the other hand, you may be under-weighting the "risk" side of the equation. I'd be happy to Google-or-Clusty-up some exact numbers if you don't want to do so yourself, but we're talking about tens of thousands of children being molested each year in the U.S. alone... and the majority of those victims arelikely to become victimizers themselves later. Also, any second-semester psychology student would know enough to scoff at the theory of "well if the pedophiles can safely 'get it out of their system' online, they're less likely to molest kids in real life". This isn't an ivory-tower theoretical discussion,we're talking about an issue that has enormous impact on thousands of lives. However, my REAL objection was to what I perceived as equating the acceptability of child pornography and communism. My personal politics are not communist, but I accept that it is a political system that almost a quarter of the world's population lives under... and when you expand the defination to socialist states, you're talking about a way of life that is freely chosen by the vast majority of the world's population. Pedophilia is NOT "an alternate socialstructure". It's not something that we "shouldn't judge" because it comes from another culture. It's an absolute crime against humanity that should be judged and opposed wherever it happens. ----- Anonymous ----- 2005.08.16 - 01:01:44GMT ----- There are hundreds and thousads of people arrested every year during child porn busts. The operation Landslide alone rounded up 237,000 suspects in 116 countries. People are afraid to use picture development centers and have their computers fixed at service centers. Read this site (it's 100% legal, but if you like, use some anon proxy) www.inquisition21.com The hysteria is enormous, the police teaching people how to spot child pornographers at work, how to spy on your neighbour etc. Funny you haven't noticed anything, it's on the news every week. -- Matthew J Toseland - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freenet Project Official Codemonkey - http://freenetproject.org/ ICTHUS - Nothing is impossible. Our Boss says so.
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