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234 points gloxkiqcza | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.21s | source
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sunshine-o ◴[] No.44572385[source]
I came to the realisation recently that the free Internet only happened (in the West) because:

- The Silent Generation, in charge at the time, had no idea what was this Internet thing about.

- The US Intelligence community understood it was a powerful tool to operate abroad.

- Nobody dared derailing the only engine of growth and progress in many economies

It obviously got out of control and is very abnormal in fact if you consider how power really works.

As of today, as a user of a reputable VPN, I am blocked from a lot essential websites or have to prove I am an human every 5 minutes, it sucks.

Anyway we are one major cyber disaster away for our the state to switch from a blacklist to whitelist paradigm. A safer and better Internet for everyone.

We will probably still have ways to access the "Free" Internet. It is gonna be fun, slower and might get you in serious troubles.

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1. thomastjeffery ◴[] No.44575428[source]
Every computer is a general purpose computer. What would you do to force me to participate exclusively in your nanny-net? I suspect any answer to that question requires an incredible amount of coordination and participation.

The real problem with the internet, as I see it, is centralization. This is a product of monopoly, which is the core feature of copyright. A truly better internet would replace the authoritative structure of copyright with a truly decentralized model.

As far as I can tell, the only hard problem left in decentralized networking is moderation. No one wants to browse an unmoderated internet. The problem is that moderation is structured as an authoritative hierarchy, so it's not compatible with true decentralization.

I propose we replace moderation with curation. Every user can intentionally choose the subset of internet they want to interact with, defined by attestations from other users, all backed with a web of trust. This way everyone is the highest authority, and users can help each other avoid content they are disinterested in.