Is Freedom From Censorship a Double-edged Sword?
What happens if Skycoin’s decentralized ecosystem is used for evil, rather than for good?
The Skycoin project is building Skywire, a global peer-to-peer meshnet that bypasses centralized ISPs and government-controlled infrastructure. Skycoin has also released CX and CXO, a programming language and immutable objects system that integrates with Skycoin Fiber blockchains.
This technology will be used to build decentralized versions of Wikipedia, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook and other social networks, helping to end the scourge of online censorship.
But will this freedom from censorship be a double-edged sword?
Critics of the project have sounded alarm over three potential concerns:
- A lack of censorship means hate speech will flourish. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube banned Alex Jones, but nothing will prevent him from speaking his mind on Skycoin-based social media platforms.
- Since governments and ISPs will have no control over content hosted on Skywire infrastructure, the network will become a haven for illicit activity such as drug dealing, terrorism, and child exploitation.
- Governments will view Skycoin as a threat and simply shut down the network. They’ll make it illegal to operate a Skywire node, and you’ll end up in prison if you use Skycoin services.
So let’s examine each of these arguments in more detail.
1. Hate Speech
When the world’s major social media platforms banned InfoWars (the website operated by Alex Jones), his critics rejoiced at the cessation of hate speech, while his advocates lamented the assault on freedom of expression.
But who decides what constitutes hate speech? I’m going to present several ideas for an article topic, and while you read through them, consider whether each article might constitute hate speech.
- Why I Hate Rats
- Why I Hate Dogs
- Why I Hate Tall People
- Why I Hate White People
- Why I Hate Black People
- Why I Hate Americans
- Why I Hate Asians
- Why I Hate Politicians
- Why I Hate Priests
- Why I Hate Christians
- Why I Hate Muslims
As you scanned through the list, some headlines probably seemed acceptable, while others appeared distasteful. You might think some of those articles should be banned or censored. But where did you draw the line? Why did you draw it there? Do you think all readers drew their lines in the same place?
So who decides whether a particular topic is hateful. Politicians? Faceless organizations like Google, Twitter or Facebook? Well, yes, that’s precisely who does make the decision today.
But when we give these organizations the power to suppress online content according to their definition of hate speech (or some other criteria) then it’s a slippery slope to indiscriminate censorship purely on the whim of the censor.
And that’s exactly what’s happening today with sweeping account deletions, shadowbans and information suppression on all popular social networks.
So Skycoin won’t censor anyone. That’s the fairest approach.
On social media platforms built using Skycoin technology, users are free to be as pleasant or hateful as they choose. Likewise, other users are equally free to rebuke that pleasantry or hatefulness.
And if you don’t want to hear from certain individuals, then don’t follow them. But don’t expect to dictate what others can say or view on Skycoin-based social networks, because that’s simply not an option.
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
― S.G. Tallentyre, The Friends of Voltaire
2. Illicit Material
Governments and ISPs have no control over information hosted on Skywire nodes. They can’t even see what’s there, unless a node owner chooses to make their own data publicly accessible.
By default, all Skywire data is encrypted, both in storage and in transport. As traffic flows through the network from one node to another, those transit nodes can’t see the contents of the encrypted packets that pass through them, nor can they determine the source or the destination of the data.
All they see is the blockchain address of the next node to which the encrypted packets should be sent (and those blockchain addresses can’t be resolved to a physical location, unlike IP addresses).
So yes, it will be possible to use the Skywire network for illegal activity, and nobody will ever know, apart from those involved.
But is this really any worse than what’s happening today, on the regular Internet? The Internet is already a haven for illicit activity such as drug dealing, terrorism, and child exploitation. It just happens in parts of the web that are hidden from view.
Only 4% of Internet content is easily accessible through normal search engines. The other 96% resides in the deep web and dark web — sections of the Internet that can only be reached if you already know what you’re looking for, and if you have the necessary tools to get there. In these murky depths, illicit activity is commonplace.
So Skywire won’t enable any criminal activity that doesn’t already occur on the regular Internet. But what it will do is give honest citizens the ability to avoid censorship, break free from expensive and monopolistic ISPs, and protect their personal information from corrupt governments, corporations and advertisers.
3. Blockchain Legality
Even as recently as last year, many were concerned that governments would rule Bitcoin and make other cryptocurrencies illegal. In 2017–2018, China “banned Bitcoin” so frequently that it became a meme among the crypto community.
But the reality is most governments recognize the potential of the blockchain, and are gradually accepting — if not yet embracing — the inevitable global mass adoption of this technology. It now seems highly unlikely that any major government would ban a cryptocurrency like Skycoin.
So what about Skywire? That’s a bit different, since it’s not a cryptocurrency, but rather a decentralized meshnet that will wrench power from ISPs, and hinder government’s ability to control what citizens can do and see online.
Earlier this year, ISPs in Australia and New Zealand banned access to 4Chan, Voat, LiveLeak, Archive and ZeroHedge, in order to prevent citizens from viewing footage of the Christchurch massacre. This type of censorship would be impossible with Skywire.
But how exactly could a government enforce a ban on Skywire? Skywire nodes are simply computers, with direct connection to other nodes either wirelessly (Wi-Fi/radio/laser) or via direct cable (Ethernet, fiber, coax). A Skywire node can run on any computer. Could they ban all computers?
What about antennas then? Maybe they’ll ban those. That would mean banning radios, baby monitors, mobile phones, televisions, home CCTV systems, iPads. And computers too. Because all those devices have antennas and are capable of wireless communication.
So it’s simply unfeasible to ban Skywire. A ban couldn’t be enforced, unless the government was willing to send police door-to-door searching attics for small computers and antennas (wireless signals pass through walls, so antennas don’t need to be external).
Where I live, the government can’t even find the resources to fix potholes, never mind search everyone’s home for Skywire devices. A ban on Skywire is not going to happen. In fact, Skycoin has had discussions with several governments who are interested in deploying national Skywire infrastructure in order to reduce their country’s reliance on ISP monopolies.
Conclusion
Skycoin technology allows users to communicate freely, without being tracked or monitored by ISPs and government agencies. It also enables the creation of uncensorable applications, such as social media platforms. And there’s no practical way for any government to shut it down.
Yes, this means Skycoin’s decentralized ecosystem could be used as a platform for hate speech, criminal activity, and proliferation of objectionable content.
But this stuff already happens on the existing Internet. So the positives of the Skycoin ecosystem vastly outweigh any of the potential negatives that the project’s critics like to bring up.
Skycoin is about giving power and control of the Internet back to the people, where it belongs. It’s about having the freedom to communicate globally, without oversight and censorship from ISPs and governments.
Join us at https://t.me/Skycoin, and become part of the Internet revolution.
It’s your Internet. So take back control.
