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[–]LarrySwinger2 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I'll reiterate the point I made in the other thread, since this is the place to discuss it. We already have decentralization in that anyone can set up their own forum, and people can point their web browsers to the sites they like or subscribe only to RSS feeds they like. Your vision still allows moderators to abuse their powers. If that happens on a large scale (like it did on Reddit), that means people have to mass migrate to new forums, and that takes a long time. Platforms like Facebook and Reddit are still alive in spite of their censorship and spying on users, simply because it's hard to get people to move to alternatives. What this vision achieves is that there's a lower barrier to creating a new forum (since people don't need technical skills or a budget for professional hosting), but is this enough? Why is it important to allow moderators to censor speech?

Also, can users pick what view they want to use, overriding the moderators' decision?

[–]fschmidt[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Decentralized social forums requires exchanging data which is what you call federated.

Moderators must be able to control their forums. Otherwise all forums will be overwhelmed by masses of moronic modern scum hurling empty insults at anyone who isn't a moron.

I assume that users can't pick a view because the view defines more than just appearance, it also defines what functionality is available.