alt Hacker NewsExtremely depraved things are not the only thing to use freedom of speech for, and freely speaking can result in all kinds of repressions.
And even without agreeing on whether people should be anonymous on the Internet,
it could be agreed that replacing a software which guards against a certain threat model (repressions) with one which does not,
without changing the name, is not exactly a wise decision.
Replies
> Extremely depraved things are not the only thing to use freedom of speech for
I’m not a fan of “think of the children“ arguments but the Internet cannot actually be a complete free for all and “freedom of speech” is not some magic shield that overrides all other ethical considerations. CSAM is not a particularly high bar and frankly if you want people to throw in with you then you can’t brush it off so lightly.
> Extremely depraved things are not the only thing to use freedom of speech for.
And yet, it's materially all anonymity is actually for in practice, within a margin of error. Tor - mostly crime & CSAM. Crypto - mostly crime. 4chan - mostly degeneracy, some crime. Faceless Corporations - used for crime, and things that should be crimes, but hide under other names.
The new Freenet will support the creation of anonymity systems as services on top of it, which is much better architecturally than tying the platform to one approach to anonymity as I did when I designed the original Freenet.
We will also have a decentralized reputation system that will protect people from being exposed to unsavory or illegal content, a common criticism of the old Freenet architecture.