Cabal: A peer-to-peer, off-grid, community-first, hackable chat platform
cabal.chat
cabal.chat
One day it will be feasible for someone's phone to receive all messages sent by every other person on earth. They can then try to decode every message till they find one that their private key can decode.
You've now made the perfect privacy messaging system - by sending all messages to all users, no quantity of network packet sniffing/timing analysis/evil nodes can figure out who is talking to who.
That works out to 7e11 bytes per day, or 8 Megabytes per second. That is nearly feasible today...
Also a method to reduce the amount of traffic required was called streams. Instead of reviving all messages, you would be able to know what stream the receiver is on and then the receiver would just listen to all messages on stream 5. This scales up infinitely since you can just balance the network so all streams have hundreds of thousands of users on them.
Would there be a legit motivation to do that? I get that it's a threat, but would it be possible to gain anything from DDOSing that network?
Seems like either a) you come up with a system for banning spam IPs, or b) the spammers improve the anonymity of the rest of the network by creating more noise for the messages to hide in.
And banning spam IPs is a kind of crap solution. Spammers would be running on home network IP spaces mostly so as those addresses shuffle around you end up banning most legitimate users as well.
I have found my self banned from many sites I am only visiting for the first time due to someone else who was on my IP address before.
Of course there are scalability issues but they have a plan for that.
As far as I can tell Cabal uses discovery-swarm [1] for connection management.
Fwiw, the concept of a strictly insecure/zero-privacy messaging platform is interesting, but the word "hackable" wouldn't really help get the message across in that setting either. :)
Of course, Cabal being written in javascript is also a major minus. As an oldschool Unix hacker, I don't really get the node.js fixation for command line tools. It's a certainty that they'll never be used by a significant chunk of knowledgeable, expert Unix users that want nothing to do with node.
Finally, there is no protocol documentation anywhere that I can see. This is yet another way that these modern tools fail spectacularly. In the golden age of the Internet, published protocol documentation that allowed for multiple clients to be developed was the norm rather than the exception. Which led to robust, long living protocols and services (e.g. IRC).
Even though we're being drowned in apps, this isn't happening today and we're worse off for it.
I wouldn't describe myself as that, but I think I'm a little bit past noob at this point.
I don't "brush aside" a program because it's node, but it's definitely a strike against it. I don't like dealing with the massive amount of dependencies that always seems to follow along with it.
apt show python3-pip
apt show npm
nodejs (>= 6.11~), ca-certificates, node-abbrev (>= 1.1.1~), node-ajv, node-ansi, node-ansi-regex (>= 3.0~), node-ansi-styles, node-ansistyles, node-aproba, node-archy (>= 1.0~), node-are-we-there-yet, node-asap, node-asn1, node-assert-plus, node-asynckit, node-aws4, node-aws-sign2, node-balanced-match, node-bcrypt-pbkdf, node-bl, node-bluebird, node-boxen, node-brace-expansion, node-builtin-modules, node-builtins, node-cacache, node-call-limit, node-camelcase, node-caseless, node-chalk, node-chownr, node-ci-info, node-cli-boxes, node-cliui, node-clone, node-co, node-color-convert, node-color-name, node-colors, node-columnify, node-combined-stream, node-concat-map, node-concat-stream, node-config-chain, node-configstore, node-console-control-strings, node-copy-concurrently, node-core-util-is, node-crypto-random-string, node-cyclist, node-dashdash, node-debbundle-es-to-primitive, node-debug, node-decamelize, node-deep-extend, node-defaults, node-define-properties, node-delayed-stream, node-delegates, node-detect-indent, node-detect-newline, node-dot-prop, node-duplexer3, node-duplexify, node-ecc-jsbn, node-editor, node-encoding, node-end-of-stream, node-err-code, node-errno, node-es6-promise, node-escape-string-regexp, node-execa, node-extend, node-extsprintf, node-fast-deep-equal, node-find-up, node-flush-write-stream, node-forever-agent, node-form-data, node-from2, node-fs.realpath, node-fs-vacuum, node-fs-write-stream-atomic, node-function-bind, node-gauge, node-genfun, node-get-caller-file, node-getpass, node-glob (>= 7.1.2~), node-got, node-graceful-fs (>= 4.1.11~), node-gyp (>= 3.6.2~), node-har-schema, node-har-validator, node-has-flag, node-has-unicode, node-hosted-git-info (>= 2.6~), node-http-signature, node-iconv-lite, node-iferr, node-import-lazy, node-imurmurhash, node-inflight, node-inherits (>= 2.0.3~), node-ini (>= 1.3.5~), node-invert-kv, node-ip, node-ip-regex, node-isarray, node-isexe, node-is-npm, node-is-obj, node-is-path-inside, node-is-retry-allowed, node-is-stream, node-isstream, node-is-typedarray, node-jsbn, node-jsonparse, node-json-parse-better-errors, node-json-schema, node-json-schema-traverse, node-jsonstream (>= 1.3.2~), node-json-stringify-safe, node-jsprim, node-latest-version, node-lazy-property, node-lcid, node-libnpx, node-locate-path, node-lodash, node-lockfile (>= 1.0.3~), node-lowercase-keys, node-lru-cache (>= 4.1.1~), node-make-dir, node-mem, node-mime, node-mime-types, node-mimic-fn, node-minimatch, node-minimist, node-mississippi, node-mkdirp (>= 0.5.1~), node-move-concurrently, node-ms, node-mute-stream, node-nopt, node-normalize-package-data (>= 2.4~), node-npm-bundled, node-npm-package-arg (>= 6.1.1), node-npmlog (>= 4.1.2~), node-number-is-nan, node-oauth-sign, node-object-assign, node-once (>= 1.4~), node-opener, node-osenv (>= 0.1.5~), node-os-locale, node-os-tmpdir, node-package-json, node-parallel-transform, node-path-exists, node-path-is-absolute, node-path-is-inside, node-promise-inflight, node-promise-retry, node-promzard, node-performance-now, node-p-finally, node-p-is-promise, node-pify, node-p-limit, node-p-locate, node-prepend-http, node-process-nextick-args, node-proto-list, node-prr, node-pseudomap, node-psl, node-pump, node-pumpify, node-punycode, node-qs, node-qw, node-rc, node-read (>= 1.0.7~), node-readable-stream, node-read-package-json (>= 2.0.13~), node-registry-auth-token, node-registry-url, node-require-main-filename, node-require-directory, node-resolve-from (>= 4.0~), node-retry (>= 0.10.1~), node-rimraf (>= 2.6.2~), node-run-queue, node-safe-buffer, node-semver (>= 5.5~), node-set-blocking, node-sha (>= 2.0.1~), node-shebang-command, node-shebang-regex, node-signal-exit, node-slide (>= 1.1.6~), node-sorted-object, node-slash, node-semver-diff, node-spdx-correct, node-spdx-exceptions, node-spdx-expression-parse, node-spdx-license-ids, node-sshpk, node-ssri, node-stream-each, node-stream-iterate, node-stream-shift, node-strict-uri-encode, node-string-decoder, node-string-width, node-strip-ansi (>= 4.0~), node-strip-json-comments, node-strip-eof, node-supports-color, node-tar (>= 4.4~), node-term-size, node-text-table, node-through, node-through2, node-timed-out, node-tough-cookie, node-tunnel-agent, node-tweetnacl, node-typedarray, node-uid-number, node-unique-filename, node-unique-string, node-unpipe, node-url-parse-lax, node-util-deprecate, node-uuid, node-validate-npm-package-name, node-verror, node-which (>= 1.3~), node-which-module, node-wide-align, node-widest-line, node-wrap-ansi, node-wrappy, node-wcwidth.js, node-write-file-atomic, node-xdg-basedir, node-xtend, node-yargs, node-yargs-parser, node-yallist, node-y18nIf anything, lots of small dependencies is more Unix-y than one big dependency.
pip's installed size is 194 kB, npm's is 3,413 kB.
All numbers are from Pop!_OS apt.
Of course, as evidenced by much-used programs such as curl and git having 400 dependencies each and OpenSSL being shipped as separate libraries for every single crypto function.
For something where you need security (i.e. a decentralized chat platform), this could be problematic.
I don't mind installing tools like Rollup and TypeScript. I do very much mind installing tools like Webpack and Babel.
There are a few Python programs I also brush aside for this reason, though substantially fewer. Virtually every Node project I've seen is a spidery mess of dependencies bringing in dependencies bringing in yet more un-auditable dependencies; the worst Python tends to get is Tensorflow, and it's ready to run immediately (compiling C modules aside – though pip does that at installation time, making that a one-time annoyance for all but obscure C packages).
More to the point, did you audit Tensorflow? If no, then what's your point to begin with? If yes, what made you conclude that auditing Tensorflow is doable, but usually simple NPM modules are "un-auditable"?
The point isn't auditing, though; it's auditability. If it's auditable, then somebody's probably done it – but if it's not, you can't rely on just a spot check of a few dice-picked dependencies.
It's simply because most developers are web developers. They use the programming language and tooling they're familiar with. I do also wish that there wasn't so much of a move to webify everything, particularly since web dev is so prone to constantly changing fads and dependency sprawl. It tends to lead to code/software that breaks all the time.
Large-scale social networks political bias should not be fixed by making social networks more free, it has be fixed by making social networks less free.
When "conservatives" call for violence or actual hatred (not just antipathy or disagreement) they must be stopped.
When "liberals" storm people and destroy their careers and lives for merely using wrong vocabulary or having and expressing an unpopular (even plain wrong) opinion they should be stopped too.
Large-scale social networks meant for general audience, those websites which have serious effects on off-line lives, are the new streets and they have to be policed the same way streets are. We don't want to live where street violence is a norm.
On X11 vulns, I use a tty, so I don't care, and even on X, xterm has a secure mode.
Downside: It doesn't support Tor and they don't seem to have any plan for that. So it's trusted-friends-only, IPs are always visible. Which is pointless for me, as a person trying to build healthy online friendships from behind Tor.
Upside: I was afraid it's a reaction to Parler being deplatformed. And then I thought maybe it was a side-project of Urbit. But looking at the Values page: "No nazis, no TERFs, no alt-right—or anyone friendly with them"
So that's cool.
As someone who's spent a lot of time on Tor-related IRC channels and other communities, gl lol
This is disgusting - it implies that you should pick and choose your friends based on political affiliation, which not only is extremely (and intentionally) divisive, but also provides no room for guiding these individuals back to a more moderate political stance.
Without being friends (or at least interacting with) with those who have been ostracized by society, how, exactly, do you propose to try to get them to change their minds?
I'm also curious as to how they plan to enforce this constraint - Cabal appears to be completely decentralized, correct?
I think this is the saddest part of what's been happening recently. We don't need to separate ourselves from people with different viewpoints. I'm lucky enough to be friends with people on the left and the right, but I think that's only because we stay away from politics. In fact, it's something that used to be a Christian ideal - to be able to maintain a courteous friendship with someone you are fundamentally at odds with (See: Song of Roland, Christian & "Saracen" Knights).
It's not often something I see folks right of center doing, but it seems like a ton of people left of center have been distancing themselves from people with whom they disagree too strongly. It's too bad. We need to open up to more discourse, not less.
I think it comes down to just how tolerant we're willing to be. It's easy to be tolerant when the stakes are low; who cares if someone is doing something somewhere else that makes us uncomfortable? The Christian ideal is to be tolerant of someone who is actively doing us harm.
That seems like a foolish ideal that has the end result of you being marginalized, with people who would do harm to you and others gaining control of society. Frankly, it sounds like just another system of control invented by religious leaders.
People who actively do us harm should be swiftly and firmly disabused of the notion that what they're doing will ever be tolerated. Anything less is folly.
Christians who live up to the ideal are willing to have a civil relationship with anyone. That's the point. That's tolerance.
It means you actually know the other person, and you're not making (possibly misinformed) assumptions about them. The next step in the relationship may very well be to 'firmly disabuse them', but it's not the first step.
Getting to know them and convincing them not to do it implies that you will not tolerate their actions, but have wisely decided that a soft touch is likely to get you better results.
If someone tells me they think I’m fundamentally a lesser person than them because of skin color, just because that’s how god made us, that’s not a fruitful base for a good relationship.
Trying to change the mind of someone who believes you deserve to die is painful at best and not worth the time.
EDIT: The downvotes only prove my point re the rabidity of left-wing groupthink right now, so...
the non-sexist trans inclusivity movement overlapped with the female inclusivity movement
trans exclusionary feminism is considered radical, its what the R in Terf stands for. It means it doesn't have consensus.
yes, some positions and status will go to males that are transwoman instead of females. I don't think there is any coordination or plot in this to "erase females".
(I feel like this concept is different across English speaking countries, in America the movement has landed on the concept that we have separated sex and gender, so there are two sexes which remains binary: male and female, and there are non-binary genders which includes but it not limited to man and woman designations, and they don't have to match the sex. Sometimes I see people in the UK getting into semantics issues with an American audience, whether they are purposefully being insensitive or not.)
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the intended spirit when posting here, we'd be grateful.
That should be controversial.
Why is it hard to understand how hypocritical it is of most groups screaming about the DC riots when those same groups are tactly supportive of worse over longer periods of time?
At no point did I say "being anti nazi" is bad... I said being anti-extremist while being pro-extremist is... questionable.
It sounds like you see an equivalence between "rioting" and "rioting". I get what you're saying, but I'm also pretty sure that the people you're calling hypocrites have a more nuanced view than that and differentiate based on context and cause and don't consider "white supremacist Q-conspiracy-lie-believers rioting" (which this was) to be equal to "people rioting because police officers keep killing in circumstances that don't warrant it without serious repercussion" (which the BLM riots were).
We can also note that many of the BLM riots only turned violent _after_ local police started shooting gas, pepper balls, and rubber bullets at crowds. But even if that weren't the case, the causes and contexts would still be different.
It seems to me like the people you're talking about are in fact neither anti-extremist nor pro-extremist. They're anti-white-supremacists and anti-police-getting-away-with-murder. Those are not contradictory positions.
> groups screaming about the DC riots
I haven't seen anyone screaming about context-free "DC riots". I see people screaming about "white supremacist Q-anon-lie-conspiracy-believers rioting in DC trying to capture or kill congresspersons and overthrow a (mostly-if-you-ignore-voter-suppression) fair democratic election" and I think that makes a big difference.
It's not the riots that these people are worried about. It's the reason for the riots, and the reasons are not equal.
What's nuanced about supporting violence/rioting/looting/etc while fighting violence being hypocritical? My main point remains "you were silent while 100's of millions in damage was done and now you're mad about 6 hours of less violent protests and a single building being damaged?"
> reasons aren't equal
Reasons aren't equal... but there is plenty of reason to pick apart the hypocrisy WAY beyond DC vs Portland riots. I can point out many "police brutality" stories that aren't really when facts come out. (IE: "hands up, don't shoot"). I can do the same to most of the 'non contradictory' positions.
It's important to stand up for what you believe in peacefully... it's also important to try and not be a hypocrite while doing so.
I stand against the hypocrisy in the other positions you mentioned as well even if not mentioned in detail. The hypocrisy destroys the message.
(a) what is "hate speech" is a vague term to be filled by whoever yields the power to define it (could be anything from talk against religion, to conservative worldviews, to class-war ideas, to racist beliefs, to complaints against politicians, and so on).
(b) what is a minority can also be vague and politically determined as opposed through raw numbers, and the power of a minority could be more than its size tells us (e.g. the 1% is a class-based minority, but most don't have an issue with going against them. Similarly, in certain cases it's one or more minorities that have the power against the majority - e.g. the fewer white-spanish descendants over indians and mulatos in some Latin American countries, or the white 20% against the blacks 80% in appartheid South Africa).
So, no, it's not clear cut that it's "in a society's interest to limit hate speech against minorities".
Let's take eugenics as an example (intentionally controversial given you brought up the Nazis); and in this example all we're doing is replacing "voice/free speech" with "eugenics". Everyone agrees someone policing who gets to reproduce or not is a bad idea because such policing is impossible to do objectively/fairly/morally/ethically.
Why is such policing any easier or less important for political views and discussion? It's not. Policing people's opinions and silencing, censoring, or removing content is just as impossible. Is some message a very out of taste troll, sarcasm, some inside joke, intentional smearing, discussion of a controversial topic? Well, any sense of objective discussion there goes out of the window because a _human_ has to police it and until we can quantify with exact precision and accuracy through a machine the meaning behind human communication (we can't yet(?)) this is an impossible (for now) problem to solve.
We cannot even ask Siri/Alexa to do complicated tasks.
Given that actual Nazi's were a historical phenomenon that ended in 1945, and that bona fide neonazis are few and far between), this is code for:
"I love the idea of a site that doesn't give people I disagree with a voice. This is apparently somehow a controversial idea."
Yes. It always has been. Orwell called it even back in 1944 (where real Nazi's still existed):
"It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else."
>It is becoming exhausting.
Tell me about it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/world/europe/us-capitol-r...
Yeah, so? What part of this is not already covered by my "few and far between" comment?
And what part of that anecdotal isolated example proves that Nazis are anything like a real presense in US politics, or that the people deplatformed and silenced are kept to Nazis or people of that kind?
Would you point to some persons wearing a "class war", "kill the rich" or some questionable communist leader (e.g. Stalin or Mao), or "Camp Gulag" t-shirt in a liberal rally as excuse to deplatform people?
(And I say that as a European, sympathetic to communism, leftie - just one that can't stant cant).
Was Donald Trump - a ho-hum president compared to Reagan as concerning the social damage his Reaganomics did, and less hawkish compared to Clinton, Bush, and Obama - a nazi (and thus 40% voting for him Nazi supporters)? Or is it just either hysteria or a code for "people we disagree with politically" (and can use the real-world equivalent of Godwin's law to to yield political wins over)?
Also its's a little funny to see these platforms rise up that are censorship resistant...whose intended audience is the least likely to be censored for their ideas on the mainstream platforms. Part of the reason all these alt platforms get the Nazis is because of this...its like building an alternative for Reddit because it censors leftists.
You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either you build a fully decentralised platform where humans self-moderate by selecting which communities they participate in, or you create a walled garden that you moderate but that becomes more centralised when you do so.
The stuff about values is wishful thinking.
Truly illegal/unsavory content is unlikely to use the service since IP addresses are public.
>All traffic is encrypted using a symmetric key, meaning that anybody who has the cabal://abcdef key can read cabal network traffic.
If you're even considering this, look at https://tox.chat/ instead. That one's been around for a while (thus mature) and actually has full forward secrecy.
Matrix handles that well, by having a setting per-room regarding handling of room history.
tox was accused of having a poor crypto implementation / playing silly buggers with libsodium. I've tried it on android, works ok but most apps at the time seemed older. not sure where tox stands re community liveliness but its certainly a good start on p2p messaging, my claims notwitshtanding.
The actual flaw: If _your_ *private* key is stolen, your friends can be impersonated to you.
Hardly worth the infamy.
There's a bug open on this, the solution is known, the opportunity for a fix, and when it will be made live, will be the next time a protocol break ("flag day") is necessary for other reasons.
I have been a fan of Matrix for a long time and have been very excited by all of the progress made recently! Particularly, the new UI experience for E2E encrypted channels is amazing! You managed to get solid security without sacrificing usability.
Thank you for your dedication to Matrix and its community!
That is actually the big thing I don't like about Signal. If Open Wisper Systems decides tomorrow to turn off their server, everyones' Signal client are broke...
I've done 90% of the difficult coding in https://quanta.wiki, which is MIT License. I just need to add the P2P part. Maybe I'm sounding like Ali G. when he invented the "flying skateboard" and had everything solved except for the "physics". :)
Web technology has a certain responsibility, so I think all the alternative communication tech is in response to the theme of this week.
I presume it's someone trying to offer Cabal as a Parler alternative.
At best this can:
* influence the observable qualities of the closely-collaborating dev community – who’ll have to outwardly project these values.
* lead to the prioritization of decentralized user-driven moderation features, which still allow the disfavored groups to communicate with other willing audiences, with minimized impact on unwilling audiences.
Addictive products designed to exploit our baser instincts are dangerous, so again, I get and agree with your point, but I think it’s important to remember that voluntarily purchased products are by definition valued by the people who purchase them. The values of the people purchasing products are an intrinsic part of product evolution.
Features, integrations, and a slick UI are great, but without a stable community of maintainers the project if probably not a good candidate for long-term use.
An open, federate-able messaging protocol is also a good thing to have! (email, XMPP, Matrix)
The next book you might want to read looking for the same sort of insights ought to be "The Plausibility of Life", which explores the mechanisms of evolution's generativity.
1) Everyone with a modern, full-featured browser already has it. There's nothing to install. It's the modern equivalent of the built-in BASIC in the early microcomputers.
2) "View Source" lets you see exactly how something was done at the click of a mouse. This is invaluable for learning.
3) Writing it and debugging it just requires a text editor and the browser mentioned before, not some baroque toolchain. You can even modify it and rerun it from directly within the browser, most of which have fairly sophisticated JS debuggers built in nowadays.
4) Rich text, GUI widgets, networking...all that stuff is already baked into the browser cake. You don't need to fool around with a separate libraries.
5) Interpreted, so iterative development is fast.
6) Forgiving (some would say "sloppy"), so beginners don't get overwhelmed with type systems and similar shizzle ("Why can't I just add 1 and 0.5? WTF?") Of course, this also brings problems along with it. No free lunches.
Some other languages, on some platforms, have some of these features, but none to my knowledge has all of them.
For example, Linux systems do come with C, and do have the source code available, but looking up the line of source that produced exactly what you're seeing on the screen in, say, an X program, is a far more involved process than just right-clicking it and choosing "View Source".
Node, in turn, became popular because JavaScript is popular.
That's my take, FWIW.
Although the DOM itself likely isn't going anywhere unless you manage to swap out HTML, an alternate set of APIs might be achievable.
That said, the impedance mismatch would have to be particularly painful for a domain targeted by another language for such a set to gain traction.
Just posted our free open source platform we were working on for 10 years:
This is not a target demographic you should strive for.
If you’re arguing whether we should have Title I or Title II, or whether we should use Facebook or Google, Microsoft or Amazon, Democrat and Republican, you’ve already lost. Open source collaboration beats closed source competition every time in the end. Everyone can host their own network and label the map however they want, and so on. No fighting over flags or one size fits all policies!
In the 19th century there was a word for this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism
There is certainly some speech which is and should be illegal, but if you optimize communication systems for "accountability" you might end up in a situation which is worse than what we have now.
“There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech.” ― Idi Amin
But I also think we should do everything in our power to dissuade dangerous folks (example: violent extremists) from using these tools.
I think there ought to be an on-line analogue to two consenting adults talking in a private room in one of their homes. Unless I misunderstand you, it doesn't sound like that on-line capability is compatible with your statement.
I was intrigued, but like many projects, the first impression I got was of sloppy development unable to even test one of the most common ways to view their site and it drove me away.
(Maybe it is not; I know nothing about people behind Cabal.)
They do.
But I would say take a look at dating apps in California, for example, and see just how many people are telling Moderates and Independents to stay the hell away from them.
Being in the middle is great for lobbying because your ideas are bipartisan and nothing else is getting through Congress, but for real life right now, its extremes only.
(credit goes to someone else for this one)
See Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabal
The 1st amendment ensures that the government may not stop you from saying what you want.
This is a separate issue from private companies removing/banning you. Each company has their own right and freedom to be as dickish as they want with regard to deleting your account etc - but that is not related to the 1st.
That's not the only example. There's extensive case law that establishes how both governments and businesses have to either allow or curtail speech under certain conditions. A business can't legally compel you to do say something or wear a piece of clothing in a way that discriminates against you. A sex shop can't just open anywhere because, while it's been argued that they should be allowed as a form of free expression, they tend not to be considered as such under the spirit of the law. A person can be held responsible for the aftermath of shouting "fire" in a crowded room, even though this speech is superficially supported by the first amendment. Point being, we make decisions about freedom of speech that don't necessarily follow the letter of the constitution or stay within the bounds of the government.
Freedom of speech isn't just a law. It's a social principle upon which America was founded. If all meaningful communication is dominated by too-big-to-fail businesses with AI that can scour all correspondence, a reality we are rapidly approaching, then freedom of speech becomes meaningless. The situation becomes worse when these companies are all politically aligned with the regime. This is why we can't ignore how private companies regulate communication through their systems.
That said, agreed. Big Tech and Fed Govs working in concert is not a positive. Anyone cheering on FAANG's recent decisions is naive.
FAANG’s recent decisions are directly against the head of the Federal Government, not taken in concert with “Fed Govs”.
That is a misrepresentation of the case:
> Craig and Mullins filed a complaint to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission under the state's public accommodations law, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, which prohibits businesses open to the public from discriminating against their customers on the basis of race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.
The complain was under a _state law_ specifically to address sexual orientation discrimination and it has been acknowledged that such law doesn't force a business to make cakes with arbitrary messages.
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado...
That said:
> If all meaningful communication is dominated by too-big-to-fail businesses with AI that can scour all correspondence, a reality we are rapidly approaching, then freedom of speech becomes meaningless.
I agree that monopolies and centralization are a threat to freedom. Though would argue that it should be addressed both via decentralization (and specifically through counter-anti-desintermediation as discussed in the P2P Foundation: https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Counter-Anti-Disintermediatio...) and anti-trust enforcement.
Yes, and that principal is specifically that the proper way to advance in ideas is for them to have to compete for the favor of private actors without public authorities intervening, and that the freedom of private actors to choose on their own to promote or relay messages, most critically political messages, including the free choice to decline to do so is essential for free society.
And yet every discussion about free speech online contains a few comments about the first amendment’s narrow legal scope. Sure, that’s right, but freedom of speech does not have a narrow legal scope; it’s a much broader concept, and it is global in nature.
In almost every case online, the discussion is about the global ideal of freedom of speech, not about US law.
I’m curious how what you just said translates into real world application?
Not trying to argue I am genuinely interested to hear more!
Let's say an Amazon warehouse worker speaks with the local newspaper about unsafe work conditions. Amazon decides to fire him for this.
Was this a violation of the first amendment? No.
Was this a violation of the principle of freedom of speech? Maybe.
Saying, "well this wasn't protected by the first amendment, so this is a non-issue" wouldn't be fair. Yes, it's not a first amendment issue, but it's still a freedom of speech issue.
This article helped me wrap my head around what you just said:
https://journals.openedition.org/revdh/2680
> Hence free speech initially drove whistleblowing protection, and whilst it has been irrelevant for establishing whistleblowing protection, free speech is still driving whistleblower protection.
In the recent events in the US, a lot of people have (mistakenly, IMO) cited the first amendment for protection of speech many others don't like. But those protections afford no help against private actors. In that context GP makes a lot of sense bringing up this point.
Example: a US senator cites the first amendment when discussing free speech after a publisher refuses to run his book: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/08/josh-hawley-...
That's why I linked the book case. Hawley cites the first amendment, but he's in a contract with a private entity to publish the book. Barring contract disputes, there is no first amendment case that the publisher must distribute his book.
It's a nice way to be in power if you can manage it.
Ether you are aware that people are appealing to free expression as a principle, or you are unaware that free expression is more American than apple pie. That’s why I say this retort is disingenuous.
So the legal scope of the literal first amendment doesn’t help the discussion on what people and companies should be doing.
The discussion is about American values and if people, companies and the government should be living up to them. And that’s what people are trying to debate when they say “first amendment”.
Those are transnational private companies. What is stopping others from claiming they have been behaving in an un-Chinese manner or an un-European manner or an un-Russian manner so far? How is a naive notion of nationalism of capital an argument of how such entities should behave when they operate in most recognized nations with different ideological and regulatory frameworks?
If you're going to sell your services and goods here, you need to comport to the cultural norms HERE.
> What is stopping others from claiming they have been behaving in an un-Chinese manner or an un-European manner or an un-Russian manner so far?
Nothing.
> How is a naive notion of nationalism of capital an argument of how such entities should behave when they operate in most recognized nations with different ideological and regulatory frameworks?
They can and do change business practices to fit the region.
They are also selling their services and goods there so:
> They can and do change business practices to fit the region.
They have and do change their practices to fit the global region they operate in so the "un-american" critique would be moot.
I'm not sure what this means. They are behaving poorly HERE. I am not criticizing them for the crazy stuff they do elsewhere. That's an entirely different conversation.
That a critique of their behavior should not depend on the locality (an ideological statement) much less a locality that represents about 1.9% of the world area and 4.2% of the population.
We do all the time. That's how cultural norms are enforced.
If you're going to go down this road, then you must address government compelled speech, and the limits on the control of private property. I've found that the "private corporations are censoring me" crowd, don't want to engage with this obvious outcome, or pay lip service by saying, "Make [insert big tech company here] is a utility!", again without thinking through the implications.
The compelled speech problem is obvious. Give me your car, I want to put a bumper sticker on it. If you don't let me, or you take it off, you're censoring me.
This is an absurd request, it's your car, you can control what goes on it. Same if I demand to have a book club meet in your living room. It's your living room. Just because you invite some people over, doesn't mean that everyone has a right to come in. It's private property, and you can express yourself by who you let in, and who you don't. Twitter, Facebook, etc are no different. They're private property. No one has a right to have an account and demand an audience.
Now let's take the utility argument, since a utility would mean that everyone needs to be allowed right? Well, a utility is a highly regulated government monopoly. These regulations increase the barrier to entry into these spaces, and effectively eliminate all competition. In fact, protected monopoly status is often the trade for utility status.
These concerns of expression versus private property rights are new, they've existed from very beginning. While the prohibitions on government, but not private actions, may sometimes be frustrating, it's a workable, and consistent, solution.
I’m easy to contact on the internet. I’ll be expecting all your social media credentials emailed to me by the end of of the day. Failure to do so, will be censoring me.
For your reference, I did not say it to shut down the discussion.
I purposefully said it to open up the discussion in order to hear viewpoints like this.
It's something I'm very interested in seeing discussed and I would like to learn more about both sides of the argument in general.
They want to have their cake and eat it.
If it's in direct response to the submission, I cannot find anything in the submission that might give rise to a clarification
> The 1st amendment ensures that the government may not stop you from saying what you want.
> This is a separate issue from private companies removing/banning you. Each company has their own right and freedom to be as dickish as they want with regard to deleting your account etc - but that is not related to the 1st.
It isn't quite as cut and dried as that.
"Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one." - H. L. Mencken
An illuminating analogy may be thinking about what would happen to people's freedom of movement (which, BTW, isn't explicitly enumerated in the US Constitution, though it was in the Articles of Confederation) if most roads were privately owned and operated and/or most cars were rentals.
To some extent, this legal territory was explored WRT transportation as the common law concept of a common carrier, and then applied to communications through Title II of the Telecommunications Act, and then applied to ISPs in 2015 but revoked in 2017.
The question we then need to ask is to what extent do the strong network effects of social media justify similar constraints upon the rights of owners to exclude users as the natural monopolies of physical infrastructure constrain their owners.
All that said, it is clear (to me anyway) is that the situation WRT Trump et al. being excluded from these platforms blows WAY past all such nuance and lands right in the middle of "falsely yelling fire in a theater" territory, frankly justifying outright bans on some speech not merely by the platform owners, but by the government as well (IOW censorship). This is not a conclusion that I am particularly comfortable with as I am sure it will be abused, but I have reached it nonetheless.
I'm looking for a way to leverage Quanta's power on top of some kind of true peer-to-peer architecture to make it censorship resistant, because BigTech has just now gone nuclear in their censorship efforts.
So I'm currently trying to find the right peer-to-peer (won't be ActivityPub) infrastructure, to let Quanta instances network better.
Who's being censored? Twitter, Facebook etc. are private platforms and they've been banning users who break their TOS throughout their histories.
Trump got clapped not because of censorship, but because social media platforms decided to no longer exempt him from their TOS because of his position. Any normal person posting similar content would have been banned ages ago. Besides, he is the POTUS who can go on TV any time he wants. Thinking that he cannot get his message out there is ridiculous.
Alright, so finally after a few seemingly innocuous arguments you took your mask off. A person who believes storming the Capitol was not organized by Trump at this point would be able to find a justification to anything he says or does.
Big Tech, Inc., with its algorithms that promote radical right-wing content, also seems suspect.
To me the solution to all of these problems is to break up conglomerates and monopolies. Let's have more decentralization and more "small is beautiful" tech, like the chat system presented here. Let a million flowers blossom, smothering the aforementioned toadstool. (Wandering off to look at installing Cabal).
If internet service providers can shut down speech they disagree with, by going after the servers, then we're no longer living in a democracy.
You present this as if Parler is being shut down because people there have the wrong opinion on tax rates.
People on Parler are planning violent fascist overthrow of government, which is illegal. Why would Amazon be obligated to host sites that cater to terrorists?
People on the left are allowed to call for violence and say all kinds of racist things hate filled things, but if someone on the right even says something like "There are only two sexes" that's enough to get banned for life. The only reason the democrats all deny the existence of any double-standard is because MSM and BigTech happen to be in their tribe, so they all dare not call out one of their own.
I would like to complete the discussion on the previous point before moving on to another topic of discussion.
If a politician organizes a peaceful rally and violent people show up and do violent things, and you blame the politician for the violence, then I'm curious about something.... Do you hold the Democrats responsible for all the violence of 2020 when we had cities burning down, and the MSM saying things like "Who ever said protests had to be peaceful"
The Democrats calling the capitol mob a "coup de tat attempt" is absolutely hilarious and just shows their complete lunacy in their attempt to vilify the other side, even when they're clearly just being absurd. It was a mob who were let into a building. Hell they didn't even damage any of the priceless paintings. If anyone's to blame is was the security who let the doors get breached when their job was to guard the building with machine guns.
Remember, AT&T is also incapable of stopping criminals from conspiring using text/telephone messages...and based on your logic the Feds could just shut down AT&T and blame AT&T for being "complicit". No obviously that's moronic. Wake up and stop giving our rights away. Eventually you're going to loose your own.
The whole point of Parler is to be a safe haven for speech that has already been banned elsewhere, for the same reason. It was doomed from the start.
I mean if you don't like it, you could always just go pick up your own water...or install underground pipes to a local water source.
...now you know how it feels for anyone on the opposite side of your argument.
The good ol' democrat mantra: "Never let a good crisis go to waste."
I'm doubtful there is no clause in your city's/county's/municipality's/state's, etc. that allows them to interrupt service without cause. That's why terms of service exist.
Now I'm genuinely curious to find out what terms of service you agreed to with the private water company. What type of settlement do you live in?
Also, yes, you would not be provided water/electricity/cable/internet/pudding if you broke their terms of service. Apart from not paying your bill and perhaps willful destruction of their equipment, I'm having a hard time trying to come up with how else one breaks the terms of service for utility services. That sounds completely normal to me.
Additionally, people do go without certain utilities in times of economic hardship - this is nothing new. We're not guaranteed access any such services.
Or, more likely, is it only when companies are doing things you agree with that you'll claim they have absolute power and authority? If you understand history, you might see the flaw in this logic.
It is unfortunate that you don't understand the distinction between inciting violence via either direct calls for such or indirectly by repeating the same unfounded lies of "a stolen election" VS political speech/civil rights, which have not been abrogated (there are plenty of conservative commentators on Twitter, some of whom I follow).
As for my background, I am an immigrant from a post-communist Eastern European country, live in the US in the South and finished with political science and journalism degrees. Can assure you my appreciation of civil rights is intact.
As a general rule, even when situations like this occur, I lean on the side of caution, so I understand the slippery slope argument you're making. There will continue to be a national discussion about what the limits are in the still-uncharted world of social media and the limits of expression vs. platform and publisher rights, but your alarmist view is, IMO, over the top.
I mean after the election a poll showed 68% of voters had never even heard of the Hunter Laptop, because BigTech started banning anyone who dare even mention it. So don't be fooled that the censorship is to stop violence, it's to achieve political goals, and has been ratcheting up for the past 6 years. Twitter was canceling people for life even for daring to say such crazy things as "There's only two sexes."
Cancel culture has been getting out of hand for a long long time now, and people have had all they're going to take of it.
Now the left has gotten so brazen they're conspiring to shut down entire internet companies under these same false pretenses. And you have the audacity to call this "alarmist". Wow.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(Yes, the GP comment started it by including flamebait, but it's not necessary to take the bait, and the guidelines ask everyone to resist that.)
You won’t be so happy to cheer on such behavior and policies when in the future the one silenced turns out to be you.
The power to censor should be given solely to the individual to curate their own information diet; it should never belong to the medium itself (whether government, private company, autonomous network, etc).
If your child started saying racist things, would you just let them? I assume not. I assume you would escalate punishment until they understood and behaved with what's appropriate, and if they didn't, you'd probably kick them out of your house once you're legally allowed to if for some reason they've become a terrible person; people won't change until they're ready to or there's an impetus - sometimes, if not most of the time, all it takes is a parent saying you won't get dessert if you don't behave.
People easily, and they are doing it, post to thedonald.win to say whatever the fuck they want there because the moderators are allowing it. So I don't accept your premise that these people playing victim role, behaving as if they're being persecuted and claiming they're blocked from free speech - because they're not.
I presume you don't just let anyone into your house whenever they want to, and to say whatever they want anytime?
> ... noting that ownership "does not always mean absolute dominion." The court pointed out that the more an owner opens his property up to the public in general, the more his rights are circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who are invited in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama
We are a very very small jump from this being applied to social media.
Besides that a ruling doesn't mean it's in the correct direction. Slavery used to be legal and abortion - a woman having choice - is trying to be made illegal again - as two examples. The general public distributing religious flyers on a sidewalk freely open to the public sounds like a reasonable ruling, that wouldn't allow a person to do the same thing say at a gated community though where the public is generally allowed access to - which could be considered akin to requiring users are registered.
one consequence of objectionable speech is that anyone who gave you a platform rescinds it.
that's what happened here, nothing more nothing less.
I am a zealous advocate for the first amendment, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let a random person advocate violence (or exercise speech which actually led to violence) on my platform.