Hacker News Reader

Being blind to what you're hosting is required if you want to be part of a network that values "freedom of information". Partly to avoid the nodes self-censoring and partly as a form of plausible deniability.

View on HN

Freedom of information doesn't imply that you must host content for others, even if there's no way to know what it is. I don't want to host content that I might not otherwise agree to host, therefore I don't care to use such services. "Self censorship" implies that it's right and correct to host anything and everything for everyone no matter what, and I reject that premise: I only want to curate what I redistribute into the world.

Well, you can certainly seed only torrents that you think are valuable and are willing to take the risk for. What happens to the content you are not willing to take the personal risk for? That's the utility of networks that value freedom of information, which achieve it by hiding what you share, even from you.

Edit: ...and importantly, from whoever can seize your computer.

> What happens to the content you are not willing to take the personal risk for?

let someone else host it if they think it's valuable

otherwise we are dooming the network to host everything forever

This is the technical challenge that a network like Freenet attempts to address.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com