[Freedombox-discuss] Censorship that we can agree on

[Jay Sulzberger]

On Thu, 21 Mar 2013, Robert Connolly <robert at secondfloor.ca> wrote:

> Hello.
>
> I am very interested in the future of the internet, humanity, and how data is 
> being collected on me, and other people. I am opposed to censorship, but 
> there are exceptions.
>
> I like the idea of Tor and Freedombox, but I have conditions.
>
> I checked out a network that sounded like Freedombox, and found that it was 
> loaded with disturbing child porn... stuff that very few people would agree 
> is acceptable for public view. Stuff that isn't funny.
>
> I am concerned that at some point the free software philosophy community will 
> be at odds with this, and I want it to be discussed.
>
> I suggest that Freedombox develops some way to allow content to voted for 
> deletion.
>
> In other words, I want to help my community, but I am not willing to route 
> child porn.
>
> I want this to be discussed well, so we have a solid platform and 
> constitution.
>
> Please comment

I am not a Freedombox developer, and I do not run any version of
Freedombox today.

But I think that Freedombox will help bring more people to what
more (proportionally) the Net once was, that is, a peer to peer,
no third party at the application layer needed, untrammeled
network, with less eavesdropping.  The Net today has many
groupings of people using various different applications.
Certainly some people will do things we do not like, and some,
indeed will communicate things that many people abhor.
Freedombox will allow more people to more directly communicate.
But there will be no single cohesive group of people
communicating using Freedombox.  There will be many, just as
today there are many different Usenet groups, many different
mailing lists, many different irc channels, and many different
web forums.  Just as the Net itself does not have builtin
universal censorship, so Freedomboxes, which help people freely
use our Net, will have no builtin universal censorship.
Naturally, because the other side of Freedom of the Net is our
Right to Own a Computer, every Freedombox owner will be able to
install and tune whatever squelching software they want.

oo--JS.