Content
Freenet's founders argue that only with true anonymity comes true freedom of speech, and that what they view as the beneficial uses of Freenet outweigh its negative uses. Their view is that free speech, in itself, is not in contradiction with any other consideration — the information is not the crime. Freenet attempts to remove the possibility of any group imposing their beliefs or values on any data. Although many states censor communications to different extents, they all share one commonality in that a body must decide what information to censor and what information to allow. What may be acceptable to one group of people may be considered offensive or even dangerous to another. In essence, the purpose of Freenet is that nobody is allowed to decide what is acceptable.
Reports of Freenet's use in authoritarian nations is difficult to track due to the very nature of Freenet's goals. One group, Freenet-China, used to translate the Freenet software to Chinese and distribute it within China on CD and floppy disk until mid-2003.
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