> it is precisely the "unfree" parts of HN that make it attractive ... stuff like a culture of down-voting destructive, inflammatory or snarky comments ... a strong focus on certain topics etc.
Cultures of upvoting/downvoting are completely orthogonal to whether protocols or applications are free software or proprietary. Neither does the subject matter focus on a news aggregation site.
> What if the free platform you are hosting is used by a ring of child molestors and pedophiles?
Guess what? The telephone network is used by "rings of child molesters and pedophiles". And strangely enough, nobody expects the phone companies to "deal with this". Same goes for a decentralized instant messaging and chat platform.
Also, the government and corporate opponents of privacy routinely inflate the prevalence of rings of supposed terrorists, pedophiles etc., because bringing them up instills excessive fear and clouds our judgement. You write that you're "aware" of this, but apparently you're fine with it, as you're making that the center of your argument.
> Do you accept that freedom for all also means freedom for them?
Your question is phrased ambiguously, to manipulate us into believing that a free decentralized communications platform means that we agree that people are "free" to molest children, whatever that means.
Well, you should be free to pick up the phone and call whichever number you like, without having to first prove you're not a child molester. And the same goes for putting up some flyer on a neighborhood notice board. And for putting up a website.
> One where the discussions enrich... or rather the lawless zone...
The risks are overblown, and so its ok to create places with decentralized freer speech.
Firstly- I removed the parts where you stated that this is like the phone network.
Phone calls are temporally limited, once you are done with a call its over. You can't hear that voice again, or relive that conversation, except through memory.
Text on a forum combines the worst of phone calls and books.
Not only is it easy to create and respond in real time (Like a phone, and unlike books or letters), but it is also persistent so people can read and participate in that moment of emotion repeatedly (like a phone call).
These are great and greatly bad depending on how they are used, but they are dramatically different from the way a phone call impacts human beings.
Which brings us to the second point - it isn't only the information, it is the emotion, or in combination the "content" of speech on forums/social media that matters.
Having actively tried to push for free speech and then managed speech, I can guarantee that without moderation, forums/social spaces collapse. They fall victim to our neurology, and the scale of people on it.
So you can't avoid the use of force here, the question is the amount of force being used, and whether it is commensurate to the specific event it is being used to mitigate.
Fair point regarding the difference between phone conversations and textual forum/group discussions.
However - I disagree with your bottom line. Perhaps on the level of the _individual_ forum/channel/board you may be right. But not on the level of the _platform_. Specific forums/spaces/channels etc. which collapse - collapse, that's a problem for their founders and members.
In that respect, I'll make a different analogy: Mailing lists and newsgroups. Also not a perfect analogy, but - a mailing list or NNTP server does not have to police anything, but individual lists often need to set up some sort of moderation to avoid collapse into flame-wars etc.
So you can't avoid the use of force here, the question is the amount of force being used, and whether it is commensurate to the specific event it is being used to mitigate.
Cultures of upvoting/downvoting are completely orthogonal to whether protocols or applications are free software or proprietary. Neither does the subject matter focus on a news aggregation site.
> What if the free platform you are hosting is used by a ring of child molestors and pedophiles?
Guess what? The telephone network is used by "rings of child molesters and pedophiles". And strangely enough, nobody expects the phone companies to "deal with this". Same goes for a decentralized instant messaging and chat platform.
Also, the government and corporate opponents of privacy routinely inflate the prevalence of rings of supposed terrorists, pedophiles etc., because bringing them up instills excessive fear and clouds our judgement. You write that you're "aware" of this, but apparently you're fine with it, as you're making that the center of your argument.
> Do you accept that freedom for all also means freedom for them?
Your question is phrased ambiguously, to manipulate us into believing that a free decentralized communications platform means that we agree that people are "free" to molest children, whatever that means.
Well, you should be free to pick up the phone and call whichever number you like, without having to first prove you're not a child molester. And the same goes for putting up some flyer on a neighborhood notice board. And for putting up a website.
> One where the discussions enrich... or rather the lawless zone...
If-by-whiskey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If-by-whiskey