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Comment by bitwize | Hacker News Reader

The upshot of a project like Freenet is that no matter how noble the intentions, these days it's pretty much a CSAM distribution network and little else -- and if you publicly fess up to using it you'll be put on a list.

This is why the future of the internet is censored, regulated platforms like FB, Twitter, and Reddit -- if you seek out uncensored platforms you are ipso facto up to no good because of the reputation of what goes on on those platforms.

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If something is not safe for child porn and terrorism, it is not really safe for everything else. Only as safe as someone lets you be. Alternatively, if something has means to censor “just” child porn and terrorism, they WILL be used for something else one day.

Federated platforms are pretty good with getting rid of public objectionable material. I thought that ever since encryption became a thing, we had pretty much forfeit the possibility of preventing the sharing of CSAM? Hence why Facebook is where the overwhelming majority of CSAM is found on the internet.

>Hence why Facebook is where the overwhelming majority of CSAM is found on the internet.

It's not that. It's because fb is huge. CSAM and it's purveyors will determinedly find a way to share digitally, eventually, on every platform. Only regularly shutting down/restarting anew, wholesale, disrupts; that or censorship.

Do Facebook and Freenet have the same number of users?

There're plenty of locations where censorship is much broader topic. And, unfortunately, the list seems to be growing.

Do you disagree with that view or are you supporting it?

I think this comment is sensational but generally true. Replace CSAM with “right leaning” politics and you are just as fucked.

I’m thinking about leaving the US and getting a EU work visa to avoid the shitshow. There are a lot of people who think censorship is good - in the name of fighting misinformation - and generally hold a negative opinion of opposing viewpoints.

Not really sure leaving the US would do that much good (speaking as a european).

You do realize the EU is further down the path of enabling censorship than the US?

What are you talking about?

There is no near-absolute right to free speech in the EU. Countless people have been successfilly prosecuted for what would be covered under the 1st amendment in the EU.

ECHR contains the freedom of speech as a human right and so do most EU countries in their own constitutions. "Countless people have been successfully prosecuted for what would be covered under the 1st amendment" (and the ECHR) in the US too. The constitution only has value as long as it's enforced.

Ursula Haverbeck is currently in a German prison at the age of 92 for the "crime" of verbal holocaust denial aka for speech.

There is no free speech anywhere in Europe. And there is no doubt she would be free in every state in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Haverbeck

> There is no free speech anywhere in Europe

This is a bold and unsubstantiated claim.

> And there is no doubt she would be free in every state in the US.

For this specific action? Sure. For other actions that are protected under the 1st amendment? Depends on whether there is a law against it and if she pissed off someone "important" or enough people. There are various such cases.

edit: will respond to the replies after the rate-limit expires

There aren't any cases I know of for anyone being jailed for expressing their beliefs. Can you name several?

Specifically for expressing beliefs? No. Only the one that I mentioned as a reply to the sibling post to yours.

>This is a bold and unsubstantiated claim.

I'm fine with that but its non the less the hard truth there is nothing like the 1st amendment in any other place.

>For other actions that are protected under the 1st amendment? Depends....

To be in the right doesn't mean you win the court case that's true but in the EU you dont have the 1st amendment, you dont have the right to free speech. If the court system does its job correct you go to jail not when the system fails because of "important" people and corruption. You go to jail because what you said is actually a crime to say. Needless to say that the list of "crime speech" only gets longer and longer over time.

> in the EU you dont have the 1st amendment, you dont have the right to free speech.

Most EU countries have some rather close analogue of the US First Amendment in their law or constitution. Sure, pretty much all of them have various exceptions, so there's no absolute free speech -- but then the US has such exceptions too, and thus also lacks absolute free speech.

On the whole, IMO your comment is much more wrong than right.

Name a single place and the law that is remotely comparable to the 1st amendment. It doesn't exist. There are some analogue yes but they all have exceptions like the one mentioned above where arbitrary the holocaust is excluded or certain other topic are excluded. Or the free speech only applies if your speech is considered satire or has some arctic value. etc. etc.

>but then the US has such exceptions too, and thus also lacks absolute free speech.

No, it does not the fist amendment is very clear and short enough to not have any loopholes in there. People just intentionally misinterpret it and then come around and say you can scream "bomb" in an airplane in US airspace therefore you dont have free speech in the US. This just shows the lack of understand what free speech means. Its not about having the right to make audible noises of any kind at any time and place. Similarly if you order a person to kill someone and do so with your voice trough the act of speaking, you are committing a crime.

Seems I don't need to contradict you:

> No, it does not the fist amendment is very clear and short enough to not have any loopholes in there.

> ...

> Similarly if you order a person to kill someone and do so with your voice trough the act of speaking, you are committing a crime.

You've already done it for me.

>This just shows the lack of understand what free speech means.

I showed that this is incorrect here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28587930

> You go to jail because what you said is actually a crime to say

Sounds like the US. Just look at all these people who went to jail for crimes related to illegal numbers (eg. piracy). Or people like Mildred Gillars. Or the various whistleblowers.

Complete nonsense. If you voluntarily agree to not leak secrets and do so anyway its not protected under free speech. You also dont get jailed for speech but for the act of breaching some agreement or other law.

> If you voluntarily agree to not leak secrets and do so anyway its not protected under free speech

Of course it is. Anyway, I mentioned more cases where there is no voluntarily agreement.

> You also dont get jailed for speech but for the act of breaching some agreement or other law.

You can claim that for everyone who got jailed for speech.

>You can claim that for everyone who got jailed for speech.

Name the case. The burden of proof lies with you if you clame people get jailed for speech.

I posted a case from Germany. So if you have one from the US post it. No one in the thread could post one so far.

> No one in the thread could post one so far.

This is false, I posted this before:

> Just look at all these people who went to jail for crimes related to illegal numbers (eg. piracy). Or people like Mildred Gillars. Or the various whistleblowers.

Let's talk about Germany, to give one example. In that country, the top court can outright declare political parties illegal, if it believes that they constitute a threat to the democratic order. This was used against the Nazis, of course - but also against the Communist party.

So, ironically, under the current interpretation of 1A, communists have more freedom of speech and association in US than they do in Germany.

> Let's talk about Germany, to give one example. In that country, the top court can outright declare political parties illegal, if it believes that they constitute a threat to the democratic order.

So what? Which country can't declare organisations illegal, if it determines them to be terrorist organisations? I'm pretty sure the USA can. So what does it matter if a terrorist organisation calls itself a "party"? (Didn't the Symbionese Liberation Army try exactly that?)

In the US, an idea can't be a "terrorist organization". In Germany, it can be. I much prefer the US model of free speech. Free speech only for ideas that the government doesn't consider dangerous isn't free speech at all.

> In the US, an idea can't be a "terrorist organization". In Germany, it can be

This is false.

What ideas are listed as terrorist organizations in the US?

Did anyone say there are any? Seems more plausible that it's the other half of the statement that's being denied.

The USA can't declare a party to be a "terrorist organization" solely on the basis of their political platform. It requires, at the very least, explicit incitement to terrorism. German law allows a party to be banned e.g. because it advocates replacing the Basic Law (via free and fair elections!), with no violence in the picture at all.

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