[feanaro]

> Whilst I appreciate your views, for many/most the idea that no party can affect or take down the content is a negative.

Citation needed, please. This really sounds like your personal opinion presented as a general statement.

[Nursie]

Look at the news. Look at the outcry over teen suicides and how facebook/twitter didn't do enough to protect them. Look at the laws around child abuse imagery and how much popular support they get.

It's not just my opinion.

[DanBC]

I agree. Here's the current Secretary of State for the Department of Health and Social Care in England: https://twitter.com/MattHancock/status/1089864139835670528

He's the most tech-focussed minister we have. He's pushing tech pretty hard, so for him to be saying this should be a clear signal to the industry.

See also the consultationn for the online harms white paper: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/online-harms-whi...

It's really weird that this extremist position ("any removal of content is censorship, and censorship is always bad") is so prominent on HN whenusers of products have shown, every single time, they they don't want it.

[Fnoord]

If there is censorship possible, the government will use and potentially abuse it at some point.

I've seen darknets (or a P2P networks) which were hard to censor (Tor) but also where you could influence via supply and demand (Freenet, IPFS).

[feanaro]

> It's really weird that this extremist position ("any removal of content is censorship, and censorship is always bad") is so prominent on HN whenusers of products have shown, every single time, they they don't want it.

Why are you trying to paint this as an extremist position? Perhaps we are misunderstanding each other. Any removal of content is not censorship and that position is clearly nonsense. E.g. a commercial entity can do what it wants with its own property, including removing content.

What is universally negative is requiring all future technologies to have loopholes through which things can be deleted, thereby preventing some designs outright. I think this parent comment sums it up quite nicely why having such systems is something very reasonable and desirable:

> On the other hand, (at least some) end-users see decentralisation as a huge benefit, and at least in my case it gives me confidence that the whim of a single company can't ruin the experience for me, or even take away the platform altogether.

[feanaro]

I'm looking at the news but I'm not reaching the same conclusions.

Public opinion heavily depends on context and evolves continually. Of course people are going to get behind the idea of preventing teen suicides, particularly when it seems that the solution might be preventing a huge, corporate giant do as it pleases.

Given the context of government censorship, which is happening and is likely to increase and become a larger problem in the future, and myriads of smaller, independent entities, people might react differently.

In any case, I don't think it's a good nor strong enough argument to abandon decentralization and anti-censorship efforts.

[Nursie]

I think these ought to be tempered with the knowledge of how such systems invariably end up being used for the transfer of child abuse imagery, and other abhorrent stuff.

I'm not saying you should abandon decentralisation efforts if that's your thing, I'm just saying don't expect the world to flock to (or praise) what you create. Censorship resistance is not seen as a universal good.

> Of course people are going to get behind the idea of preventing teen suicides, particularly when it seems that the solution might be preventing a huge, corporate giant do as it pleases.

The criticism is usually that not enough was done to police the harassment. Decentralised systems are likely to make that worse.

[feanaro]

> I'm not saying you should abandon decentralisation efforts if that's your thing [...]

Isn't not being controlled by the whim of a single corporation/government everyone's thing? Or the ability to be your own free person whose actions are not thwarted by a petty desire or ulterior motive?

Of course, in times of relative stability, people are sometimes lulled into thinking this is not and cannot be compromised in any way.

> Censorship resistance is not seen as a universal good.

Of course, it's a deep and fundamental issue. There are bound to be proponents of both sides with a lot of people in between.

I argue that inability to destroy abhorrent stuff is likewise not universally viewed as the ultimate evil, though.

> The criticism is usually that not enough was done to police the harassment.

You elided the rest of my argument so I'll repeat it rephrased: I think the current design of the system, where there is a very public single point-of-"failure" that is very easy to hate (big corporation) makes this more prominent.

There is abhorrent stuff printed on paper all around the world, but you don't see people claiming that not enough was done to seek out and destroy every such piece of paper. It is apparently enough to people that such paper is not very prominent in day-to-day situations.

[Nursie]

> Isn't not being controlled by the whim of a single corporation/government everyone's thing?

That's a very exaggerated and polarised way to look at the question of decentralised social media.

> I argue that inability to destroy abhorrent stuff is likewise not universally viewed as the ultimate evil, though.

Clearly, you're here making the argument.

[feanaro]

> That's a very exaggerated and polarised way to look at the question of decentralised social media.

Why/how? I truly do not see why it is exaggerated: I did mean to talk about an edge case and I'm not saying we are exclusively dealing with that edge case today. However, being prepared for this edge case and having a viable alternative seems extremely important.