

I don’t have an issue with the billing arrangements I have with my ISP. That bill used to include a ISP email account and usenet access. > I'm billed monthly for internet access and have had this arrangement with multiple companies over the last 30 years. You would need similar for any Internet social forum of a similar size, scope and user base and if that’s not the goal, plenty of niche forums already exist that you don’t need to get through your ISP.
#Newshosting newsreader client download mod
The mods, for all the issues with Reddit’s mod community, are what make Reddit possible to continue to exist. It would be untenable for all the reasons unmoderated forums are untenable, and also too unappealing to develop a Reddit-sized mass. The truth is, USENET at the scale of Reddit could not exist without good moderation. ISPs previously did not have the same incentive structure, and were dealing with a different market and legal environment prior to 2002. I did try to see if this did change under the Biden administration but I have not heard of such a change nor could I find one.Ĥ. Even if it hadn’t been or if they were to be reclassified under Title II, see point 2. This rule was also repealed under the Trump administration and broadband service providers are once again regulated under Title I, which is to say they are not classified as common carriers. USENET or a modern-day like-service as a separate billable item would not necessarily be subject to the same common carrier provisions that broadband service providers were subject to when they were regulated under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act.ģ. They could choose which newsgroups to provide access to as part of their USENET access service.Ģ. Strictly speaking that’s not entirely true.ġ. > ISPs are a common carrier and never really moderated the content of newsgroups on usenet. until it didn't! But I don't think this "problem" was a meaningful contributor to the decline of USENET. If you were posting to a newsgroup that didn't permit such activity (there were some that encouraged/required it!), you might earn an angry email sent to your news administrator, who was generally connected to the authority structure (university or employer) and had little patience for your juvenile behaviour. Now, the readers of USENET at the time were also pretty savvy, and there were other noneditable headers attached to your message that might betray your malfeasance. Before EHLO and reverse lookups and server identification and SPF and DKIM and DMARC and spam filters and universal skepticism, email was simple to spoof. In this way, it was pretty similar to SMTP email in the same era. So it was fairly trivial to post articles From: anyone, Approved: yes. The content of the header was not important, just the presence.Įqually fun, your "From" address (just another header) was also under your control. To post to a moderated group, you would add an "Approved" header to your post before submitting. Taking action is crucial to prevent unfavorable outcomes and hold ourselves accountable. This was usenet.įailure to address these issues allows mega companies to exploit data and control access against users' wishes. Individual groups, academia, organizations running the communities but easily redistributed across to people who want it. Trustworthy individuals should run these forums, chosen by the community. These forums should encourage less anonymity and more persistent communication.Ĥ. The model needs to be rethought to ensure that the thoughts and knowledge of communities and users belong to them.ģ.

Different decetralized subgroups hosting and replicating the communities for others.Ģ. There has to be a movement at both protocol and community-level to bring a Usenet like forum for general consumption. The current structure of online communication poses a major risk.ġ. The current events of Reddit and Stack Exchange amplifying a thought that communities and users' contributions should be decentralized.
