Cassie Heart
@cassie
Years ago, when I started building a decentralized discord clone, people asked me why. I wanted a communication tool that was truly decentralized, in a way that no state actor was able to gain control over. Signal's design wasn't capable of group chats beyond a certain size. The features only went so far. And it has failure points such that countries block them by firewall and have to rely on the good graces of others to run proxies, which ultimately get shut down or blocked too. App stores do not share in this ideal — their concern is profit, and will bend backwards when forced to by regulatory bodies. Amazon and others are complicit in helping state actors maintain their control of the web, and are profiting handsomely from the arrangement. None of this happened by accident. And I only saw it getting worse. I realized what I was building in this chat application went beyond just chat, and how pressing it was to make this general purpose.
38 replies
236 recasts
912 reactions
Cassie Heart
@cassie
I took the time to pivot, to build what Nick Szabo called a god protocol. A protocol capable of being a globally shared computer — but truly one, not facing the extreme bottlenecks of the existing block chain paradigm. And I began to sound the battle cry: the internet is under attack. I argued that the four axes of control over the web: - ISPs - cloud providers - identity/backup/mail/general service providers - state actors All of them were engaging in a multisided attack on internet freedom. I argued this before founders were getting arrested and charged for uncensorable platforms. I argued this before tornado cash's developers were arrested. I argued this before protesters in Canada saw their bank accounts frozen. I argued this before government and major social media went on a collaborative purge and information hole campaign on topics related to COVID, labeling/hiding "misinformation" that later was proven to be true (lab leak, mask effectiveness, economic policies that are coming due as we speak)
6 replies
38 recasts
329 reactions
Cassie Heart
@cassie
And I dealt with a lot of people who did not believe this was a "serious problem". That the acts of one nation would not be replicated and amplified amongst them all. That it wouldn't get worse. My messaging changed. The internet wasn't just under attack, the internet was already dead. That we needed to move quickly, and continue to push for privacy and censorship proof protocols. That the MEV bot wars and government controls on speech were different sides of the same coin. And that the window is closing on having a chance at fighting. The message spread. But it spread in strange ways. Suddenly I found myself working towards a protocol launch to do these things, and my act of talking about it caught the attention of a few different crowds: - those who believe in the ideals - those who wish to destroy the ideals And the latter camp has been in our public square, telling everyone how much they care about this technology, how much they wish to support it and help it grow. They told me the same.
3 replies
3 recasts
75 reactions
Cassie Heart
@cassie
Whether it's self delusion on their part or malice, they have sold a lie that they care about the future of this technology, and it shows bare in their acts: - they buy the reward of the protocol and focus on protocol builders to design it to be scarce in ways that make them wealthy - they buy the labels of "backing community driven projects" and put up large banners to claim their involvement in the space of all these things, and then drop them when the wave that project was in dies down - they lead on builders for months (or even over a year) that the support is around the corner, hoping to exhaust them until they out of desperation will bend their morals They are the fifth axis of the attack on the internet, and their words should be met with the same skepticism that is given to any other actor that has been complicit in letting things get the way they have.
2 replies
6 recasts
74 reactions
Cassie Heart
@cassie
We are days away from the launch of what I have been building towards for years, a rally cry for freedom on the web. And we will not bend to anyone that wishes to stop our mission in securing every bit of traffic over the web, in ensuring people have the right to transact, the right to speak, the right to peacefully assemble, the right to compute, and the right to do such in private. And we will not negotiate with any of the axes for those rights. We will not ask permission. We will not cower in fear of consequences that have no basis in the rights of man. We will not take their money. This is a war for our rights, and a war we will win. Get with it, or get out of the fucking way. The internet is dead. Long live the internet.
25 replies
9 recasts
135 reactions
bird flzoo
@zoo
0 reply
0 recast
0 reaction