Hi all!
Been doing my research since discovering ICP just a week ago, and wonder just how secure and bulletproof ICP is to censorship. Less than 100% guaranteed?
I mean, let’s say a team puts together a project for a hit movie, and launches it only on ICP for rental streaming, is the project/movie at any amount of risk of cancellation on ICP just as it would be anywhere on Web 2.0/3.0?
Basically yes. The NNS can control anything through votes. If there is enough voting power that wants to take down your application, then it will go down.
Right now it all rests on the decentralization of the NNS, the independent distribution of voting power. Right now it seems that DFINITY has quite a lot of voting power, followers, and practical sway.
I’d love opinions from others if I’m mistaken on any of this, but I don’t believe I am.
This doesn’t mean your application will be taken down, but you are exposed to the risk.
So an offshore DMCA-ignore server/host is still the safest option for censorship-free content?
That sounds more bulletproof than ICP…even if the movie actively promotes ICP as the only true decentralized blockchain.
I wasn’t suggesting ignoring copyrights or just laws
I think it depends on what the movie is. It takes an NNS vote to remove a canister, but censorship can also happen at the boundary node layer based on the laws and restrictions of the country in which that node is stationed.
You can still bypass this with a VPN and hitting a different boundary node.
So decentralized, yes.
Censorship proof - it’s not possible to censor completely through a single government, but it is possible via the NNS or many governments all across the world acting together.
A 3D animated satirical dark comedy with political undertones, a la Team America: World Police, might ruffle some sensitive feathers. 
Is it? The single offshore company that runs the DMCA-ignore server can take down your content anytime.
So what truly is the best attempt at censorship free streaming content on any blockchain…
if any?
Because I do think ICP is different from all other blockchains in that regard, but originally thought upon discovery it was 100% guaranteed censorship-free.
Let me help you, there’s no such thing as 100% guaranteed censorship-free hosting unless you own and operate the entire global infrastructure yourself.
Ahh, ok…
I’ll get to work on that right away.
At the moment considering it is dubious to which degree the NNS DAO is decentralized and IC’s boundary nodes being exclusively run by Dfinity you’d get much better censorship resistance by deploying a service on some offshore dedicated server with a backup server ready in case anything happens, this setup has worked pretty well for the past 20 years considering piracy, unauthorized gambling and dark net sites are still a thing.
In your specific case I think it is unlikely Dfinity would block it or the NNS vote to remove it, but the possibility is there albeit remote, in which case you wouldn’t just have to go through the trouble of deploying elsewhere, but also rethink your backend a bit due to IC’s unique programming model, opposed to a standard web hosting where you can easily deploy a docker image in a couple minutes on pretty much any rig powerful enough to run it, that is IC’s platform risk.
I can’t swear to the total accuracy of what I say here but the AltTech video-sharing platform Odysee runs on the LBRY blockchain that uses its own independent protocol. Odysee is “free speech” at the moment and I realise this is a comparative measure, so let’s say “in comparison to Big Tech Social.”
In addition, as with most platforms, they have to further conform to the terms of Google’s and Apple’s stores. Odysee controls (I assume) what can get uploaded to its platform initially, e.g., no snuff movies, and then can further control what gets surfaced on the website.
As I understand it, once uploaded, videos sit on the LBRY blockchain. If Odysee themselves become authoritarian then they can stop a video from appearing in Odysee itself. However, they also supply an application that points directly at the LBRY protocol and Odysee has no control over that. So if Odysee goes “evil” and “bans” a video users can still view it via the LBRY desktop application and also download to their desktops. Plus there’s nothing to stop anyone else from writing their own “free speech” web viewer clients to LBRY.
What I don’t know is how decentralised LBRY itself is. Plus the company is currently being unjustly clobbered by the SEC!
What about making the movie a NFT, permanently minted on ICP?
Then sell time sensitive NFTs based upon the NFT movie.
The publisher would just need to not ever “burn” the movie NFT to guarantee its
existence in perpetuity??