It seems like every single thread about IPFS on HN has several people asking "what happens if you run an IPFS node and a random person online puts something illegal on it?", and that's just not a thing that happens with IPFS.
Luckily for you that blurry line between mainstream and "fringe" is rapidly shifting, and the list of permissible opinions continues to shrink. More and more people will be forced to decide how important guilt by association is to them, and will either make use of the stigmatized tech - or simply shutup.
> But some kind of control is unfortunately needed.
To what end? Are we protecting the children? Are we preventing the rise of Turbo-Hitler?
> Otherwise a platform like this will always spiral out of control and kill itself.
How do you imagine that happens? Shaming from people saying exactly what you have just said, leading to reduced uptake, justifying censorship - because only bad people use the dark web.
Here is a clue: look at what has happened to lesbians, they are already going through this. I know this because I frequent a thoroughly demonized site run by a free-speech absolutist (well, almost). One day a whole bunch of these women showed up to complain about some insane pre-op transsexual who had succeeded in getting them censored on every major platform. These ladies absolutely hated the site and everyone on it, but they had no alternative.
I'm not doing the demonizing, just pointing out that this inevitably happens.
PS: Who's against lesbians??? I'm pretty sure they are by law protected against discrimination, including the US?
The solution is very simple: enforce the law, force the choice between platform and publisher. If there truly is a need to curtail free speech on a legally protected platform - pass a law making that speech illegal. I'd be curious to see how many heads explode when people learn that "hate speech" is not illegal - and couldn't be made so in the US without hilarious consequences.
I'd rather not name the individual in Canada that was targeting women, but I will say this: some biologically born men have found an interesting loophole in both the political arguments and legal protections afforded on the basis of class and identity. Some lesbians were unimpressed with the idea that they had a moral obligation to grant equal sexual preference to both biologically born women and biologically born men who declared themselves to be women. This is something that has been going on for a while now, and nobody is really allowed to talk about it - because "hate speech".
Unfortunately, that didn't turn out very well. Let's just say the 'fringes of free speech' took the upper hand and really started defining the platform in the public view, to the point of being strongly associated with the platform. Why would you run a node if it was mainly used for horrible stuff. Same as what happened to tor services, but to a bigger extent.
I really believe in the idea freedom of speech. But some kind of control is unfortunately needed. Otherwise a platform like this will always spiral out of control and kill itself. I think it's one of those things that sounds great in theory but doesn't work in real life.
Perhaps some kind of user voting could be implemented, but it would be extremely slow, too slow to catch up with new content being published. It's a very hard thing to tackle. Free speech is unfortunately not as black and white as its advocates like to see it.