Thread

1. anthonyskipper · 1789563494 · focus · HN ↗

   It's awful to see people still using this. Freenet was a terrible mistake, it achieved none of its goals, but it ended up being an amazing tool for pedos and child porn.

   If any of the devs read this please find a better project to contribute to.

   1. qcl820DV34 · 1789568145 · focus · HN ↗

      Lots of bold statements, zero arguments except the usual fear mongering. "Think of the children!!!"

      Hyphanet (formerly Freenet) works, people are actually using it.

      Meanwhile, almost every single day there is news on hackernews about the corporate surveillance dystopia that the regular internet has become.

      Yet a project which provides actually private, anonymous communication and publishing, and has a track record of decades of doing so, is attacked with such vitriol.

      You should rather ask yourself:

      Are you doing society a service by trying to discourage the very few people who, as unpaid volunteers, actually provide an alternative to the adtech-funded walled garden that the internet is nowadays?

      1. anthonyskipper · 1789580749 · focus · HN ↗

         If you ever ran an actual freenet node and you looked at the content that flowed through it you realize that solution doesn't make the world better, and all your flowerly arguments are bs. Censorship resistance isn't a good goal... many countries have strong free speach laws, but even they put limits on it for good reasons. This is one of those reasons, and building a tool to deny justice (called censorship resistance) where it should be done is not a good thing.

         The right thing to do here is probably not to encourage the developers to find something better to work on, but instead get the FBI to realize if they just got a warrant for every freenet node and they siezed that machine it would have child porn in the cache or local storage and you could arrest and prosecute a bunch of people for child porn who deserve it just for running a node even if they didn't make it or look for it.

         There is no way this project does more good than bad. It's a pedo platform.

         1. unrented7977 · 1789611518 · focus · HN ↗

            You're still just hand wringing and fear mongering.

            You presuppose that were not for freenet there'd be less CSAM on the internet. This is false. Your local politician is going to find their kiddie porn somewhere or another. If you care so much, why are you on the internet at all? You should be advocating to shut down the entire internet. After all, think of the children!

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