open source "no-fly list"?
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Date: Fri, 03 Sep 2021 21:55:22 UTC
71b14ab035100755c7fbbd649358aa304ec8bba7ab2c9d7f933ab7f39f8982e3 Various large tech, financial, and media companies have been active in selective cancellations of people and ideas they don't currently agree with. They steer information in specific directions and stop questioning, but fully allow harassment and incitement of violence against their targets. These companies include heavy users und significant contributors to the open source and Unix community. Around a decade ago, many of these same companies espoused freedom of speech and encouraged the use of their platforms to help people have a voice under their difficult governments. They claimed they were part of important revolutions. Today, these companies use content moderation and business suspensions in a collaborative way. They use biased fact checkers paid for by their own. Instead of allowing people to choose their own news to follow, to participate in debates, and to moderate their own sources of information, they manage community "no-fly lists." It is not profit-driven nor based on crime-based sanctions. Even governments and celebrities have asked these companies to cancel their users, which they fully oblige. Some groups can threaten deaths and destruction with impunity while others can politely ask a question and be censored. To what level should this censorship and cancellation continue? Using working ideas and technologies from the online advertising networks, dissidents can be flagged, identified, and tracked. Software can be extended to poll these databases to create restrictions on their use. They can upload "fingerprints" to help build the "net" around the voices they don't want heard or shared. This can share and track current and past email addresses, IPs, hostnames, social media handles, facial or other photographic identifiers, names, street addresses, government identity numbers, vehicle tag numbers, and various other personal or related attributes, cross-referenced with friends and family. They can be scored by their preferences, such as believing in journalism integrity, unbiased news, book reading, and open access to history, academic, scholarly, and technological data. Should the kernel, IP stack, NGINX, Postfix, NSD, Rsync+SSH, NTP, Mailman, and other software use a enemies "no-fly list"? What about other software filtering? Should all open source software query and block these people in real time? Is it okay to cancel the ink and paper orders for the newspaper you disagree with? Banking and fund-raising platforms already participate in the cancelations, but this can be extended to more financial institutions and chip-and-pin cards. How far will it go? Turn off or limit electricity? Limit access to fitness clubs, home owner associations, and other community groups? Should churches use this "no-fly list" to exclude memberships to heaven? Exclude access to job boards, trade schools, home services, and contractors directories? What about parks, theaters, arenas, and restaurants? Or toll roads, flights, subway, bus rides, and ride-sharing services? Or ride-hailing, delivery, and courier services? The petrol pump? Local stores and big chains checking IDs at the entrance? If you are on the no-fly list, can you have your water turned off at the street? Sewer access? Garbage pickup? Cancel or limit phone use? Lose access to the library and its TTY? Where are the open source and open data advocates? (Some of our peer donors, recipients, and participants of these cancel companies will read this.) Do you fund the fact checkers? (Do you support the cancel companies?) Should IP addressing, IP transit, routing, and DNS be used to cancel? Ist es okay to turn off software for someone you disagree with? Where does this cancel culture stop? Will an open source community kick out committers based on the "no-fly list"? Do you burn books or knock over pulpits? Does your hum count if you have tape over your mouth (or double-masked)? Is it okay to have a megaphone for humming? Will you cancel the (IP) pigeons?