True free speech does not have tools of censorship

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寮、 2023/01/02 — technology, internet, webdev

Whew, what a time to be alive!
We’re finally seeing a turning point in a way.
On one hand, big tech is on the collapse, while on the other hand, Web3 is basically dead.
So the good news is, Web3 and appification of the internet will never happen anymore.
The bad news is, Web3 and appification of the internet will never happen anymore.

Alright, let me explain what I mean by that.
You guys know that I’m against satanphones, Web3, and the rest of the New World Order bullshit.
However, a few days ago on IRC, we were discussing on how we might get the good old Web 1.0 back once all the normies have dumped their web browsers in favor for satanphone crapps.
So I thought, now I suddenly support the raise of satanphones!
Those who want to get scammed by the New World Order should get what they’re asking for, as long as you let those of us who prefer the old internet have computers, I have no issues with that.
But we know full well that they want to force all the rest of us into their slavery soystem as well.

Now you might be thinking, what does this have to do with having tools of censorship or not, and free speech?
Because Web3 was never built to allow you to have free speech, their tools are still centralized, except in other people’s hands.
The closest we can get to true free speech are the darknets, IRC, XMPP, email, Mumble, web forums, and Fediverse.
Some might argue that you can have true free speech on the clearnet by hosting on an IP address rather than a domain name.
On paper it’s true, in reality not so much.
Hosting from home means that if you don’t have a static IP, you’ll have to update your bookmarks all the time, and have a channel open to announce your IP changes at any time.
If you do have a static IP, you might get the feds knocking on your door if it happens to be an ISP provided IP address, much safer if you get one from a 3rd party static IP provider, but might not be usable if you happen to live in an unsupported area.
Or you could use an IP address from a VPS provider, but they too aren’t waterproof solutions, since they can just deprive you of your VPS when their feelings get hurt (AWS) or get copyright (which is a scam) notice (Linode).
Or you could get a VPS in Russia, until one of your users starts saying how evil Putin is, and that’s the end of your VPS.

Darknets are much more untouchable.
I2P jump services like reg.i2p can still delist you, and stats.i2p, identiguy.i2p, inr.i2p, and notbob.i2p will.
But nothing’s stopping me from hosting an address helper myself (like in the menu of this very site for example), and a B32 address can only be taken away from me if my server dies and I was stupid enough to not back it up.
Likewise, an Onion address can’t be taken away from me unless my server dies and I didn’t backup my keys.
And there are other darknets out there, but I don’t like them as much since most others require you to host everybody else’s websites too, and who knows what kind of bloat they have, plus they dox your IP address.
A few others that might still be relatively worth at least something, like Lokinet and Zeronet, are kind of dead or lacky in a way.
But it took both I2P and Tor 20 years to even gain any popularity, so who knows, maybe Lokinet and Zeronet would become serious options to consider once each of them hit the 20 year mark as well?

Regardless of technology, you might also expand by creating communication channels and communities which you’d host yourself.
An IRC server, Mumble server, web forum, imageboard, or BBS can be set up for large scale group conversations without the worry of getting censored.
At least, you the owner doesn’t have to worry, your users still do, so free speech is still a matter of discipline.

On the other hand, you can set up a federated communication channel like email, XMPP, or a Fediverse instance, and just lock it into a single user instance, which still gives you access to their wider networks.
You the owner can’t censor anyone, and others can’t censor you.
It’s still possible to niggerlist your server/instance, but you require no permission to set up a server/instance, neither can anybody stop you from doing so or take it down without your knowledge or consent.
So in this case, just like having your own website, free speech is an environment rather than a promise.
Your only threat is still the clearnet VPS or ISP providers, but there are actually ways to set them up on the darknets and federate with clearnet instances, althougth it requires some alterations on both ends.
For example, 076 SNS federated with Tor and I2P instances before Postgres ultimately destroyed it, even though it is/was a clearnet-only instance.

Whether you agree or not, the only people who support censorship are authoritarian psychopaths who seek to have full control over literally everything.
Never bend the knee to them, and if you get to talk to them, make clear that they’re not welcome here early on (trigger warning: uncensored NSFW) to protect the environment.
If you don’t protect the environment, the warlords WILL subvert it from the inside out.
Like I did in the link above, @spiritsplice@pieville.net is a glownigger (at least, his glow can be seen from the opposite end of the universe) that needs to stay the fuck away from gaining any power over the Fediverse, they’re only on the Fediverse to subvert it for their government overlords.