[pera]

This is like saying "E-Mail cannot stop X mails" or "XMPP cannot stop X chats", which is pretty obvious. The whole point of a decentralized service like Diaspora is that it can't be completely censored. Internet providers could partially block the access to pods that don't censor this kind of content, but then they could setup their own Diaspora pod in a Tor hidden services...

[srslack]

"Bitcoin cannot stop Islamic State transactions"

[JoeAltmaier]

Nor can 'cash'. Its fungible. But cash requires a physical relationship. BitCoins take it to a whole nother level with virtual payments. So it really is a new thing. And we may not like all the ways BitCoins get used.

[kordless]

Doesn't it operate as a social network, where some content is available publicly? That would make it a bit different than email...

[juliangoldsmith]

As I understand it, it's a network of federated servers. The Diaspora team doesn't control the servers, so there's nothing they can do.

[chimeracoder]

> Doesn't it operate as a social network, where some content is available publicly? That would make it a bit different than email...

There's no technical reason that email isn't public, just social convention. Emails are like postcards, and the content is visible to all routers that they pass through on the way to their final destination.

In theory, we could have decided that email was an open discussion platform (more like USENET) with almost no technical changes.