@alexa.smith It is not very clear to me as to why Dfinity decided, at first, to abstain on this particular vote.
This, of course, is in light of the fact that it did vote, eventually, no after the content was removed.
Very good point. Interested to see how this is going to play out.
The NNS making or not making a decision is just one part of the issue.
The ICP operates within societyâs existing constructs and influences.
Deciding to take a node or data centre offline is a business decision that will be informed by the operatorâs assessment of legal risk. It is possible to weaponize a takedown process by dropping a copyrighted work on the ICP and then relying on a large corporation with a well funded legal team to send DMCA takedown notices. This is the ICP crypto equivalent to swatting.
Node operators and data centre operators likely will want to wash their hands of any legal risk. A malicious actor, dropping canisters containing offending copyrighted content could place a real chill on any ICP node or data centre operator housing nodes who is in a country that provides copyright protections and mechanisms.
Nodes being yanked will cause issues. A node would have to be ressurected and join a different subnet without the offending content in order for them to continue operating and earning rewards. This is an operational complexity and not very appealing. Nodes operators need to be shielded from this type of barrage.
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It was necessary because Facebook is a massive corporation beholden to its shareholders. The idea with decentralised systems is that theyâre beholden only to their users.
Itâs precisely that everything is a trade-off that itâs best to stay out of politics. If you donât youâll get dragged back into an intermediated, nation-state regulated system.
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Iâm not so sure this logic stands. Finance is much more heavily regulated than social media/content platforms yet states havenât tried to marginalise Bitcoin and Ethereum. Historically states only really involve themselves in the governance of things when there are locii of power. If thereâs no locii of power they simply attempt to mediate externalities from certain systems in other ways.
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It comes down to, who do you want running YouTube? A US tech corporation, or a blockchain governance system? The latter can be designed more fair and transparent, with the option to not comply (at the cost of reducing node presence).
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I donât see the difference between a globally owned (via shares on the Nasdaq) US tech corporation making censorship decisions and a globally owned IC via ICP holders making censorship decisions TBH. Whatâs the difference in your view?
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US tech corporation has to comply with US law. Blockchain network has option not to. There is also more governance options available to implement, like liquid democracy, quadratic voting, egalitarian voting, futarchy, full decision transparency, etc.
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Spot on. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. We have to potential to devolve into Lord of the Flies here.
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I think itâs really naive to think the US will stand by and watch the NNS grow powerful. Theyâll allow the IC grow powerful. They wonât allow the NNS. It wonât have the option not to comply. Theyâll either find the power brokers in the NNS or force all CEXs like Coinbase to remove ICP or be cut off from the dollar.
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I think itâs really naive to not even try to stand up to the US.
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Bitcoin and Ethereum are working just fine. Theyâre managing that by staying out of politics. By being credibly neutral.
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No one has tried to sue Ethereum node operators for hosting copyrighted content, but theoretically it could happen just the same as IC. Itâs just more expensive to upload data to Eth blockchain so it hasnt happened out of practicality. But you are drawing a philosophical line in the sand that doesnt exist between Eth nodes and IC nodes.
Blockchain networks are anti-fragile and Iâm sure of gov tried to take down IC, we would go full badlands (household nodes).
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Is it possible that the diversity of the internet computerâs capacity is complicating the issue, ie the question requires framing?
What should the IC do about content that is publicly posted/displayed without the owners permission?
Whether it is encrypted or not is a moot point because it is publicly accessible.
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Qualifying this statement by putting âdemocraticâ in parenthesis is precisely where this argument falls apart.
Facebook has been on a massive global lobbying campaign to pander to national governments on all sides of the âmoral spectrumâ in order to have the permission to continue to operate in those jurisdictions. While Facebook lobbyists have successfully convinced democratic governments that they are willing to combat fake news, mental health crises, etc, theyâve also successfully managed to convince governments in Brazil, Myanmar, and elsewhere, that their platform should continue to operate, even though its widely known that itâs used to facilitate propaganda on behalf of tyrannical leaders (i.e. WhatsApp chat groups used to spread Bolsanaroâs message) or even genocidal acts (video streams of live killings in Myanmar).
Like others in this discussion, I am afraid that the IC will be weaponized by oppressive nationalist regimes and democratic states alike, by creating a fractured governance landscape where node providers are forced to cow toe to the whims of governments / regulators and even potentially getting embroiled in geopolitical feuds (just like what we see with Big Tech).
This argument isnât about being pro or anti libertarianism. Itâs really a concern rooted with the prevailing MO of Big Tech / political hegemonic powers and seeing that those structures are not replicated in Web 3. It appears that this proposal may very well set a precedent that makes it easier for communities to censor. As bad as Web2 governance is, itâs possible that this proposal would exacerbate those issues in Web 3.
iiuc, this proposal combined with liquid on-chain governance would make it relatively seamless to take nodes offline, which can make it much easier for bad actors to act quickly outside of existing legal/political systems which always require some elements of negotiations around tradeoffs. Obviously, the Foundation holding majority voting power could prevent this, but then that opens up a major problem for the role of the Foundation (which should be to steward but not to be the governor-of-last-resort).
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I personally think the ICP needs to define its value proposition first and then provide rules/government that support this proposition. Once these rules are created, I think it should be incredibly hard to change them and they should be the same across geographic jurisdictions. Changing the rules over time and space changes the value proposition of the ICP.
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I wanted to share my experience with this issue. Last spring/summer, I was contemplating starting a node of my own. I have a unique opportunity to host one in a secure facility in my jurisdiction, as I have hosted servers there for many years, and built a good relationship.
During my due diligence I identified this as an issue, that I would not fully understand what content I am hosting, and that if an authority came at me, I would have no other option than to shut the entire node down, as I would not be able to suspend the individual bad actor.
I am not the arbitrator of truth, but if youâre going to put out 100âs of thousands of dollars through leasing, you need to know you will be able to recoup that investment so you are not left holding the bag. This reality means I need to somehow be able to control if I am working within the laws of my jurisdiction. I am not a billionaire, so I do not have the resources to personally fend off large corporations and governments based on principal, to backup a canister which might be in the end a bad actor.
My opinion is that there should be some kind of ânetwork policy enforcementâ team, that can act fast, governed by a set of rules (terms of service) set/updated by NNS votes. I donât want to vote on every DCMA complaint but the smaller IP owners that are not huge Nintendo, they should have rights as well, and not just get overlooked. There could be an appeal process for suspended canisters, that can confirm if the enforcement process went properly, which would go back to an NNS vote, while the canister is suspended. This could lead to more granular outcomes, rather than just remove or allow, the community could tell a canister to act differently before turning back on.
Bad actors are out there and WILL push the limits. There are issues that canât wait for an NNS vote, like if someones life is in immediate danger, and we should respect that. But we should also respect that community, moderated by the NNS, should be OK with every decision made by the enforcement team and there may be times the community wants to stand up against corporate/governmental bullying and that should be allowed as well. In those cases, before un-suspending the canister, a node operator facing heat should be able to move the canister out of their jurisdiction, so they have a leg to stand on.
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Dominic was asked very specifically about issues of this nature on a panel with Joe Lubin.
By definition, this is not a ânew questionâ by any stretch of this imagination. Suggesting otherwise already casts doubt on the intentions behind your writing this here.
In fact, I raised even more dangerous issues repeatedly with one of your product managers in a private conversation. I was told that your legal team was devoting substantial resources to the matter (well before the takedown request that spawned this whole debate).
In summary, it appears that the DFINITY Foundationâs response to one ounce of backlash of the type that you KNEW was coming (and explicitly built the network architecture to survive) is to immediately float a proposal for 1984 on the âOpen Internetâ.
Why donât we just spin up a âMinistry of Truthâ neuron and make it official, huh?
I support Dapp creators/local ecosystems being able to set their own terms of service and be as censorship-happy as they like, especially so that such developers can be exposed in an atmosphere of competition.
Any censorship capabilities that scale are, to put it rather technically, @#&@#$&@#$ bullshit.
By even suggesting this, you have singlehandedly managed to destroy in roughly 180 seconds every piece of trust that you have gained with me over several months.
Let big brands war over acquiring enough ICP to try and take various canisters down, and itâll be what the economics of the Internet Computer are meant to be.
The blockchain that is supposedly being built to withstand an electromagnetic pulse attack is somehow incredibly threatened by a complaint from Nintendo â I guess Iâll just mull that over awhile.
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And in response to @Deepsea and for those who want a more constructive response than what I posted above, I can say that Iâd personally take a look at donating to some kind of lobbying and legal campaign to exempt node providers and the Foundation from any liability for content served than I ever would at backing this kind of thing proposed.
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And to those who believe that the legal code of various countries provides an effective callback function on this, thereâs that whole history of slavery and that Holocaust thing or the history of the court system in Soviet Russia under Stalin which kind of blow a hole in that viewpointâŚ
And in the modern day, of course, things like this:
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