Almost 2 years ago I wrote a seriously laughed article on whether free software can be used for evil and how the JSON license came about. But this time I will tell you about a more extreme example that occurred recently. This is not funny at all.
Once upon a time there was a group of insurgents recently converted into a caliphate whose current name is Islamic State (ISIS). The group is heavily involved with the Syrian Civil War and the Insurgency against the Iraqi Government and Yankee troops, although they recently disaffiliated from Al Qaeda. They stand out for the strong use of social networks to promote their activities, be it twitter or youtube to post images or videos where they make threats and show people about to be killed, or to recruit adherents and raise funds for their purposes. They even create their Android apps where they report their news.
But a few days ago they got tired of Twitter. They were having a lot of relevance because of a widely spread video where they filmed the beheading of a journalist and Twitter began a purge of accounts, in addition to launching a campaign against the dissemination of those images (#ISISmediablackout). So they said that it would be better to bet on decentralized social networks because obviously, under a centralized network the administrator can easily delete their accounts and messages, and that was not good for their cause …….so they went to diaspora and created new accounts, and probably they will have assembled their own pod. The core team members, who are themselves podmins (pod administrators) found out about the play and were quick to take action and kill a few accounts only on the main pods, in addition to issue a statement on the matter. For other accounts in other pods, you have to inevitably contact the respective podmin and let him decide what to do.
Obviously this was misinterpreted by the media saying that since Diaspora is decentralized, can't delete all accounts. Diaspora launched yesterday another statement denying it: «It is not that because it is a decentralized network we cannot eliminate all the accounts of the Islamic State, it is that because it is a decentralized network It is the responsibility of the podmin deciding whether to delete the accounts in your pod or not. If you find inappropriate messages, feel free to report them to the podmins. " You have to see the marathons de discussions around the freedom de expression and in the correct way to deal with these issues knowing what freedom 0 is.
My opinion: Diaspora will know how to overcome. I know this because if so far the good publicity they got for their focus on privacy and free software (driven by the Snowden disclosures) survived the suicide of one of its creators and the delegation of the project to the community, these are not going away. to be intimidated by a terrorist group.
The free alternatives can always be used for morally overwhelming ends, I think it's good that the podmin eliminate the accounts, it does not take much criterion to disapprove of the violence and cruelty that is experienced in the Middle East for x and y reasons despite the versions we have .
It seems to me that the right decision has been made in deleting those accounts.
It's complicated, I just say thank you for sharing the information.
As for Zhitomirskiy's suicide, I will always doubt if it was really a suicide.
Could someone explain how to open an account in diaspora? Once I wanted to open an account in diaspora following that manual and I couldn't.
Here you have a list of pods, look at the ones that are open to registration, you choose a good enough one and you register.
http://podupti.me/
Freedom is what you have that allows you to do what you want if you do not have responsibility or principles, but despite this it is always better than tyranny (although in this case it serves tyrants).
The old metaphor of the knife and its use.
Nothing to do, you are confusing freedom with debauchery. Your freedom ends where that of the other begins, and these people in particular, do not respect the freedom to live and subsist of other human beings, therefore they do not deserve any respect.
I'm going to troll you hehe. That freedom that you say is negative freedom, whose greatest representative is liberal democracy, which is governed by regulations, therefore my freedom goes as far as the law allows. The other freedom is positive freedom, and it is one that allows us to express and self-determine according to our own actions.
Thus, freedom in the case of positive freedom does not end where that of others begins, but on the contrary it expands. It is the logic of free software, the community.
In conclusion
@cris, freedom in every human sphere has always been subject to a series of statutes, rules, or mandates of some kind. This has been a constant in the human species since the beginning of it, regardless of the vision we take of its origin (I am talking about Creationism and Evolutionism), and the reason for this is: Bring a certain order to create a community viable. An example of this can be seen in: the Laws of God (in the case of Creationism), or with the simple hierarchical organization that the first civilizations and human groups followed and that they still put into practice (case of Evolutionism).
@cris you also talk about positive and negative freedom (utopian freedom and regulated freedom) and you compare it with the cases that we can see in the world, especially with what you called "Free Software logic", but you forget something, and it is that even in Free Software there are rules, and they have the name of Software Licenses. Yes ... you forgot those little friends who regulate software freedom, because no matter which one you choose, a license is nothing more than that, a regulation or statute that tells you what you can and cannot do with the software protected under them, even the BSD license, which is one of the most permissive, has certain restrictions on what you can or cannot do with software under that license.
In conclusion, no matter where you go, the rules will always follow you wherever you go (you can feel persecuted from now on 😀), because even the Universe itself and its strangest phenomena, such as entropy and chaos, are governed by a series of well-defined regulations, although we still do not know and understand those mechanisms ... for now.
Greetings.
What would happen if in a troll attack the creators of Backtrack and the like used the JSON license in their tools?
I can imagine them dislocating their jaws from so much laughter.
Software, be it free or proprietary, knows no good or bad. Men's actions do.
The licenses and their conditions work under a legal framework, and even if the software is proprietary or closed, nothing prevents another person from passing the licenses through the arch of triumph (unless a closed software has back doors ... which is not would be desirable for NO case and reason why free software exists).
If someone does not want their software to not be used in a way that they consider inappropriate, unethical, illegal, etc., the only realistic way to prevent it is not to create it. But that would make any ethical, useful, honest and beneficial use for all impossible.
As Alberto F said above, it is the old metaphor of the knife and its use.
Furthermore, ALL the software is the result of a purely intellectual work ... what prevents someone else from creating something equivalent to my idea if I did not share it? Absolutely nothing. It will surely be something different, but just as effective.
It's not for being the devil's advocate, but the rest of the snuff fans need to go to / dev / null as well. And as if that were not enough, there are cases in which they do practically nothing with respect to this kind of sadism and all kinds of perversions (even television and the big news agencies participate in it by showing these videos).
And last but not least, the journalist's beheading is nothing compared to the pair of Russians who popped the head of a poor motorcycle driver for love of the snuff in a video called "3 guys, 1 hammer" (I swear that said video has kept me wide awake for two nights in a row).
Anyway, that the snuffers settle for the TOR network.
Was there reason to mention the Ukrainian murderers? I don't start talking about the Canadian psychopath either (another narcissist, on top of that necrophiliac)
Unlike those cases that we have mentioned (which, fortunately, have not had so much repercussion in the press), the Al-Qaeda thing does, because it is normally used as a psychosocial agent, and it lends itself to many false statements (as you just mentioned. to expose in an article on your blog).
In Peru, even though there is a clear crisis at the level of citizen security, they continue to use the already disintegrated terrorist group Sendero Luminoso to generate more paranoia and disinformation.
And that is why I reaffirm that the snuff stays in the TOR network, which, although it hurts, is better than in the Superficial Internet (On the TOR network, despite the server raids by Anonymous and the FBI, it is a quieter place to find enough information).
They should check this place (the narco's blog): It is worse, although its administrator seeks to manifest freedom of expression, to show the cruelties that are experienced in Mexico, which the media do not transmit and hide through lies.
Note from diazepan: I remove the link and only mention the name for whoever wants to search for it. Here we are not going to generate visits.
Hello Diazepan!
Interesting article. It reminds me of one I wrote a couple of months ago about the use of free software in the military:
https://blog.desdelinux.net/esta-bien-que-linux-se-use-en-desarrollos-militares/
https://blog.desdelinux.net/la-marina-de-eeuu-usara-linux/
At that time, the discussion revolved around whether the GNU licenses should not include a clause that prevents the use of such software in military developments.
Regarding this specific case, I think that the bottom line is not the use of free software for non-sanctified purposes but rather the very idea of anonymity on the net (which is what networks like Diaspora ensure). On this point, I share an article that may interest you:
https://blog.desdelinux.net/anonimato-en-internet/
Anonymity on the Internet is a good or bad thing? I leave them itching ... read the article. They will not find definitive answers, but they will find the main arguments used by those who are for and against.
A hug! Paul.
diaspora is not an anonymous network. is a network that respects privacy.
The free software is not the problem and they put it on the internet or it is not something that they will continue to do, do not be fooled, a pedophile or murderer will not stop being so because they censor them.
The solution does not go there and if we want to prevent groups like ISIS from existing, we would have to ask ourselves more political than informative questions.
It is not a question of whether or not to stop doing it, that is what the laws and international laws are for, what it is about is not to use free software to promote a clearly criminal activity and in any case if they want to promote that it do on the deep web.
Are you forgetting that the "deep web" is actually free software (the tor network)? And why is it more acceptable there? Has no sense
@daryo the Deep Web is not only the TOR Network, the Deep Web has existed since the beginning of the Internet as a means of communication open to the public. It was the military who began to create the Deep Web, using other hidden services, but still in the same infrastructure of the world Internet.
Likewise, there are services such as I2P, Freenet, which are also known as Deep Web.
yukiteru I know that, freenet and i2p is also free software by the way I said it because it is what 99% of people know as "deep web" ahhgg how I despise that term xD
The problem is that these networks give importance to anonymity (Freenet, GNUNet, TOR), and at most, social networks like Diaspora * do not have a good integration when installed in these deep networks.
Here we must distinguish the concept of free software from the provision of a service with free software.
The SL has no moral can be used to do good as well as bad things since morality is subjective, of people and cultures. Software is one thing, just like a book or a knife and by way of example the latter can be used to cut bread or to hurt a person.
From my point of view it is silly to put a moral clause to the use of free software
Now with respect to the issue of providing a service, as in this case of social networks, it generates responsibilities to the domain owners for the content that is published, whether for terrorism, child pornography, the issue of the right to be forgotten, intellectual property of images and content, etc, etc. even though they are not the authors of the content, the responsibility falls on them.
I think the only way to have a "totally free" social networking service would be under some kind of program that uses the p2p protocol where there would be no administrators with responsibilities
The article is very interesting, the debate takes a long time.
I believe that everyone is responsible for the use they give to the networks, freedom is always a positive thing.
Can free software be used with negative interests?
- Yes, it is possible, like the recorders, the cups and the cars. The fault is not free software. When the tool is very general, it can certainly be used for bad purposes. But not having those general tools is no better. RMS (2004)
one thing is freedom. another debauchery.
theory and morality are important issues. I understand why the debate. For the last 200 years, freedom has been the central axis of Western culture in terms of its ethics (freedom of thought, freedom of expression, freedom of business and entrepreneurship, etc.) the problem is that we do not have a consensus regarding the kind of freedom we want to promote. Some, the most "libertarian and liberal" whose extreme are the Mamertos, advocate positive freedom (freedom is when nothing and no one prevents you from doing what you want to do ”, others are more conservative and in my humble opinion, more sensible, advocate negative freedom (freedom is when a person makes decisions based on self-knowledge and reflection, when hasty decisions are made, or in ignorance, one cannot speak of freedom).
between freedom and slavery there are various shades of gray. What remains on the table is to what extent doing what we want, without regulations or restrictions, makes us more free. perhaps each one should start by rethinking what kind of freedom is needed.
I think that these Manichaean debates do not come to place on a website like this, that of evil and good is very relative
Someone send me an invitation I would like to have an account here
dsaavedra88@gmail.com
Here you have a list of pods, look at the ones that are open to registration, you choose a good enough one and you register.
http://podupti.me/