译文/Translated：
网络让人们获得了前所未有的自由和开放的交流。这种开放交流让数百万计的人们可以摆脱电视和报纸中受管控的故事，不受宣传的影响。如果人们有心寻找，那么更多人便可以获得真相。
网络时代早期，人们通过电子邮件、留言板、自主托管的网站分享信息。当时没有搜索引擎，人们要通过专门的路径寻找内容。随着网络逐渐成熟，我们有了诸如谷歌之类的强大服务帮我们寻找内容，后来，社交媒体发展到了一定程度，任何人发帖和分享都显得无足轻重了。做事越容易，我们对大科技公司的依赖程度就越高。
而我们现在面对的世界是这样的：如果一个社群的观点和主流观点不同，那么苹果、亚马逊、谷歌等大公司就不为这个社群服务。其目标是再次控制舆论。这比审查人们在某公司自己的平台上的言论还糟糕，其他人根本没办法创造自己的平台了。
我们生活的世界里，从支付平台、域名注册商、主机提供商，所有这些成了武器，针对妄图通过分享资料了解世界的个体。而这一切都是打着“保护人民”的旗号进行的。很明显，人们都心智不全、容易被“虚假”信息带坏和操控。这些所谓的“虚假”信息是社会的一大威胁！人们会反抗现状、想要寻求一些“对大家都不好的东西。”
我觉得这个论证很有趣。如果人们真的那么容易被“虚假”信息操控，那么如果你能控制他们被允许看到的所有信息，那操控大众该多么容易啊。有权宣布“真实”或“虚假”的那一方就能利用这点推行自己“对大家都不好”的革命了。在舆论战中，审查就是让你的对手没有反击之力。
但如果“错误的”人有了审查的权力呢？上帝没让川普的支持者控制苹果、脸书、推特和谷歌。否则，他们可能会开始审查关于共产主义优点的信息、炮轰每一个认为性别不止两种的人。疫苗安全和有效性的信息也很难通过！很可能和平的抗议者还会被说成侵犯民主、法律和秩序的暴力武装起义分子。
现代大多数审查不是来自政府官方，而是来自屏幕背后的私人力量：他们控制了人们可以阅读、浏览和分享的信息，继而控制了政府。这不会持续太久的，最终这种 “软”实力也会受到法律的保护。
我们唯一的出路就是不能再依赖网络巨头提供的基础架构了。这就意味着，我们要创造一个不依赖应用商店、云端主机、域名的社交网络。从基础架构的角度来说，我们就要回到90年代，但这是我们唯一的希望。
这就是说，哪怕hive.blog和steemit.com依托的区块链能够存活下来，其提供的服务也有风险。voice.com这类平台面对的风险更大，除非它们能把自己的基础架构去中心化。
如果我们想创造一个平台，让所有的想法都被呈现、被讨论，那么我们可能需要更多关注ZeroNet.io等。其设计的核心理念是用户必须能够托管包含IPFS/BitTorrent类型的数据分享的数据。mastodon.social这类联邦式系统可能是一个不错的折衷选择，但是，哪怕是mastodon都很难做到把整个社区分散出去，最终还是要依靠主机提供商。
最终的结果可能是联邦化的ZeroNet类型服务的组合。热爱自由的信息追寻者需要承担责任，在自己的电脑上运行节点。
原文/Original：
The internet enabled free and open communication like never before. This open communication has enabled millions of people to break free from the controlled narratives propagated by TV and newspapers. The truth was made available to more people than ever before if they were motivated enough to seek it out.
When the internet was young people shared information by email, messages boards, and self hosted websites. There were no search engines and people had to discover content by following curated directories. As the internet has matured we were given powerful services like Google that helped us find content and then social media evolved which made it trivial for anyone to post and share. The easier things became the more dependent we became on large technology companies.
We are now facing a world where companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google are denying service to communities which share information and opinions that run counter to the prevailing narrative. The goal of this is to recapture control over the narrative. This goes far beyond censoring what people post on a companies own platform to denying others the ability to create their own alternative platforms.
We are living in a world where everything from payment providers, to domain name registrars, to hosting providers are being weaponized against people attempting to understand the world by sharing information. All of this is done “in the name of protecting people”. Apparently people are so weak-minded that they are easily led astray and manipulated by “false” information. This so called “false” information is a danger to society! People might revolt against the status quo and demand something “bad for us all”.
I find this reasoning fascinating. If people are so easily manipulated by “false” information, how easy it must be to manipulate the masses if you can control all information they are allowed to see? Whoever has this power to declare things “true” or “false” can use it create their own revolution that is “bad for us all”. In a war of words, censorship is an attempt to disarm your opponents.
What happens if the “wrong people” gain the power of censorship? God forbid Trump supporters gain control of Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and Google. They might start censoring information about the virtues of communism and firing anyone who believes there are more than two genders. Information about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines might be hard to come by! Mostly peaceful protests might be framed as a violent coup against democracy, law, and order.
Most of today’s censorship is not being carried out by official government agencies, but by private powers behind the scenes which control government by controlling what people are allowed to read, watch, and share. This will not last, eventually this “soft” power will be enshrined in law.
Our only option is to remove our dependency on the infrastructure of the internet technology giants. This means creating a social media network that does not depend upon app stores, cloud hosting, and domain names. This will take us back to the 1990’s in terms of infrastructure, but it is our only hope.
This means that services like hive.blog or steemit.com are at risk even if the underlying blockchains are able to survive. Platforms like voice.com are at even greater risk until they decentralize their infrastructure.
If we want to create a platform that enables all ideas to be presented and discussed then it will probably need to look more like ZeroNet.io. The key design consideration is that the users must provide the hosting of the data with IPFS/BitTorrent style data sharing. Federated systems such as mastodon.social may be a good middle ground; however, even mastodon comes under pressure to expel entire communities and is ultimately dependent upon hosting providers.
The ultimate may be a combination of federated ZeroNet-like services. Freedom loving information seekers will need to take on the responsibility of running nodes on their own computers.
原文链接/Original URL:
