A while back it became obvious to me that we need of a place where information can be distributed freely, regarding topics on which information is dificult to find. The reasons for the difficulty are varied. On one hand, the topic may be too niche, and as such there isnt enough drive in the community surrounding it to make good resources on the topic. On the other hand, perhaps the resources already exist, but are too remote (in some less explored part of the web) or scattered, or may be actively suppressed by institutions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, and even in the years before it, suppression of information became as obvious as it has ever been. Certainly, this used to be the status quo in the days before the Internet. Narratives would be woven, deals would be made, and media publications would allow only the disseminating of approved stories. After all, history is written by the victors, and the current governments of each country are the victors of whichever election or coup most recently took place.

There were often times means of "speaking truth to power" so to say. Fables were once written to disguise political and social criticism in times where that was politically or socially forbidden. Folk stories would spread which contained at their core worries or warnings of the common folk that could be passed down in a narrative form. Activists would have underground publications and secret meetings to spread their ideas under Communist/Fascist regimes. But there was never something on the scale of the Internet before. The Internet allowed, for the first time, the publication and distribution of knowledge and opinions that either lacked popularity or were activelly unpopular with the legacy distributors of thought. Not only that, but it allowed for the bypassing of financial barriers in the way of knowledge and entertainment.

However, in the modern day, that power is waning. The Internet long ceased to be the wild frontier it was in its inception, and has slowly been consolidated into a more coherent mass. What once used to be a network made of millions of little sites has now become a hard core of a handful of tech giants with smaller sites filling the gaps and the outskirts of these digital continents. I have my own critiques for this retegraphical𐤀𐤀. Portmanteau of "rete" (meaning "net" in Latin) and "geographical" layout of the web, but this is for another article. Instead I bring this up to highlight the fact that, with this digital tectonic shift, the leaders of the Cyberea Praesentia𐤁𐤁. From Cyberia, with the Pangea termination. In reference to Pangea Proxima (meaning "Next Pangea") however, as it is the current supercontinent of the Internet, not a speculative upcoming one, substituting "Proxima" for "Praesentia" meaning "at the present moment". are able to influence, direct, and filter the movement of ideas and culture. And this doesn't affect only the Internet. The Knights broke down the barrier between those two worlds eons ago. What happens online affects real life and vice versa. Most life takes place in the mesophasic space.

So what happens when the kings and queens (appointed by fate, surely, for none of them have built the ̶c̶o̶m̶p̶a̶n̶i̶e̶s̶ kingdoms they rule) of Cyberea Praesentia decide that politically advantageous narratives are truth, truth is misinformation, and people ought to have little to no involvement in the construction of their own opinions? You have a mix of the pre-Internetical media system combined with an amalgamation of algorithims which analyse anyone around to assign attributes, abuse addictions, and anihilate attitudes assumed antagonistic.

To solve the problems laid out above, those being the censorship of ideas, facts, and opinions, the paywalling of expert knowledge behind prohibitive price tags (such as Tuition Fees or academic journal fees/database subscriptions), as well as the consolidation of fringe and niche ideas and research into a single comprehensive body of work, I propose The Siphonophore Initiative. A project comprised of multiple projects, the foundation of which being cemented in the freedom of information, freedom of speech, and the marketplace of ideas𐤂𐤂. Buzzwords, buzzwords, and more buzzwords. Throughout the text it will be explained why I do feel these are absolutely necessary for the function and prosperity of The Siphonophore Initiative. These are not thrown in here to just be libertarian eyecandy.. This will require the construction of new usage licenses and the establishing of the Institute as a "constitutional organisation". These concepts, a detailed description of TSI, alongside an analysis of the issues of existing projects and organisations which aim to do similar things, and how TSI resolves those issues, will be outlined in this text.

To understands what stands in our way we must first know where we are headed. What are the goals highlighted earlier, how do they differ from each other, and why are they desirable? For the purposes of The Siphonophore Initiative the following terms are defined as follows:

Freedom of Speech - The ability to hold and discuss thoughts, ideas, and opinion that lie both in and out of the current paradigm of belief without legal reprecussion. Whithin it is contained the Freedom of Expression, allowing one to express those ideas in whichever way they see fit.

The Free Marketplace of Ideas - The arena within which ideas are most widely discussed, historically the public square (or forum), modernly the various large internet platforms (Google, YouTube, Twitch, X, Facebook, and Instagram) without censorship (overt or covert). Within it is contained the Freedom of Association, meaning individual groups within those platforms ought to be free to form communities which share similar ideas, and exclude those who do not.

The Freedom of Information - Knowledge ought to be made freely available in an accessible manner.

Currently a lot of hurdles have been overcome in the journey towards these goals, but many more lie just ahead, some new, some old, some bigger than we've ever faced before. This text looks only at the issues faced by Europe and the Anglosphere. In the future we may have a look at other places too, but that is unlikely to be soon. So what are the problems left to tackle?

Well, certainly hate speech legislation is one of them. But why is that the case? Would it not be good to live in a world without hate? Sometimes hate is justified. But I'm not here to argue morality on that level, not yet. The aim of hate speech legislation is, primarily, to protect the current paradigm of belief. This is not the true paradigm (in some countries it may be, but in most it's not), instead it is an imposed one. There is a whole history behind how this came to be the imposed paradigm, but it's long, and complicated (at times on purpose), so I'll describe it in short.

Following the Second World War the world was split in two. The USSR saw the developments made by the US and not only sought to steal that information but to take the US down. This is how multipolar worlds work, there is always a fight for power. But they couldn't attack the US directly, as nukes are now at play, so they devised a plan to subvert it. This plan was played out in multiple other countries in Africa and Asia, partly as an experiment, partly as a means to amass power. It was put in play in Europe and the US around the 50s and 60s. It involved infiltrating Western universities with the goal of nudging the next generations of intelectuals progressivelly further towards the paradigm of the USSR. The plan worked (somewhat? It combined with other strains of thought in France, Austria and Germany, and became intersectional, as opposed to purely focused on financial classes) but by that time there was no one to take advantage of it as the USSR had disolved (the US had similar campaigns in the Soviet Union).

Until there was. Tony Blair in the UK, and similar Liberal figures across Europe and the Anglosphere siezed this opportunity as a means of retaining control. This didn't take much hold in the US, partly because it had constitutional protections against it, partly because it's own political class had developed different methods of retaining control. Hate speech legislation, as such, is a simply a cover for a tool which aims to restrict the dissemination of information which threatens the current political system.

But let's say you reject this view of history completely, and that this is merely schizoposting. Why else would we reject limits on the freedom of speech? Well take it this way. Ideas act in similar way to genes, they seek to reproduce. That's why Dawkins coined for them the term "meme". The stronger an idea is, the more it will spread. That is not a measure of it being good or bad, though good ideas tend to be stronger. But what if a bad idea is starting to grow? Wouldn't a restriction on that be good? Well, who is to say it's a bad idea? When confronted with a problem like this, you as the individual, need to analyse if you are the only one who thinks this is a bad idea, or if the thought that this is a bad idea comes from within or without you. If you have overcome these tasks and still feel an idea that is spreading is bad then it's your DUTY, your RESPONSIBILITY, to come up with a stronger idea that outbreeds that one.

But sometimes it's not the strength of an idea that prevents if from reproducing, but the charisma of it's host (same way charisma stops some people from reproducing). In that case you must try to get your idea out there to at least one person who is a more charismatic advocate than you are. Failing this, maybe that idea which you tried to combat is really just better than yours, and you don't have much of a strong argument against it. In that case, you really lack the standing to say that idea ought to be banned anyway.

Some claim that freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequence, and to that I agree. But the consequences of yesteryear were far to severe. So long as hate speech legislation is still around, they still are, but failing that there used to be some harsh punishments for expressing forbidden opinions. The loss of a job is one of the biggest ones. My argument against that is what happens outside the workplace ought not to be the domain of the employer. Another consequence tended to be the loss of platform. This is where we enter the discussion surrounding the free marketplace of ideas

What is a platform? How does it differ from a publisher? I'm glad you asked. A publisher is a distributor of content. As the publisher has editorial choice over what is and isn't distributed by them, they are also the ones held liable for that content. The benefit of editorial rights comes with the detriment of legal liability. A platform, on the other hand, is not held legally liable of the the content posted on it. As such, they ought not to remove something from their platform unless it is highly criminal in nature (CSAM, revenge porn, material obtained via illegal means). In the US, this does not include "hate speech" or "misinformation", however this does not stop these platforms from removing such material. Online platforms act as editors, without the legal liability that entails.

The UK government recently introduced the Online Safety Act. It's stated purpose is to prevent children from accessing "harmful material". As a result online platforms are forced to verify a user's age to access content. On the face of it, a noble goal. This is often the case for totalitarian over-reach. The main purpose of this legislation is, in fact, a way of restricting speech and the distribution of media between users, locking it behind having the user reveal their identity to the platform. Most of these systems require the sending of images of the user's ID, or a facial scan. This is a massive breach of privacy for users, as no platform is guaranteed to use the data safely. Just recently an application called "Tea" has been breached and resulted in the leaking of user driving licenses and more. Moreover, this doesn't just restrict access to pornographic material, but also that relating to alcohol, tobacco, drugs, self-harm, depression, anorexia, and "hateful material". This means any user has to reveal their identity to an unuaccountable body in order to post on a platform, essentially stripping away any aspect of anonymity. A variety of websites have entirely pulled out of the United Kingdom, including Gab (which doesn't allow pornography to begin with), Bitchute, 4chan, more.

More recently, another threat to the free market of ideas has been that of payment processor-driven censorship. Visa and MasterCard hold, in most countries, an absolute monopoly over payment processing. As such they have decided that if certain material goes against their newly set policies they will suspend their services to the platform on which that material is hosted. It has been mostly used to censor legal pornographic material. This sort of material seldom finds outspoken support by people and as such is an easy target. Destruction of one's pubilc image can be very easy if they pose resistance to this sort of material. However the definition of it is very loose, and can be stretched to be applied to any content they desire. This is supposedly done to protect the image of the brand. However when you are a monopoly, there is no such thing as brand image. You are the sole provider, everyone uses your services. This does not imply endorsement.

Lastly let us look at attacks on the Freedom of Information. Currently the main threats to it are those of, again, censorship, but even more pervasive being that of "paid knowledge". Paywalls have plagued academic resources for as long as academic resources have been a thing. They come in a myriad of forms, with some places requiring payment for academic articles on a specific topic not freely discussed anywhere else. Other places (quite well observed in physics) require a person to be considered "qualified enough" to be allowed to even access specific information. These qualifications do not necessarily measure aptitude, and one may be apt to understand and use the knowledge kept therein but could not afford the acquisition of said qualifications. The entertainment industry has its own set of barriers in the way of learning skills and techniques required to create new and interesting things. The biggest enemies to the Freedom of Information are gatekeeping, copyrights, and patents. And the ever expanding lengths of the last two have been driven by a shift in their goals. Initially copyright and patents aimed to foster and incentivise creativity. If anything has been revealed in the past half century by the American pharmaceutical industry, and in the past 20 years by Hollywood, is that now their length serves only to milk an intelectual property of every single cent it could possibly produce, at the COST of creativity.

Censorship, deplatforming, attacks on anonymity, suspension of payment processing, paywalls, copyright and patent legislation, all are big threats to the outlined goal of the Siphonophore Initiative. These things will be difficult to overcome, but not impossible. Remember, in the end, we win.

So what about it? Other places do just fine! There are many places which do exactly what you outline and those work just fine.

Well, I am not so certain of that. Let us take a look at the variety of organisations and services which aim to do something similar and how they fall short.

Wikipedia: The Free Online Encyclopedia that Anyone* Can Edit

*anyone so long as the cabal of head moderators agree with them

Well, back in the day, many a teacher would tell their students that the quality of Wikipedia articles was rather poor. As time went on, this changed. Open-source knowledge does really work, especially as more and more people with highly specific special interests join the platform. However, also as time went on, another thing happened. The administration of Wikipedia decided to elect "trusted editors" with an elevated level of authority to regular users. This tended to be people who contributed to the website most. This was fine, to begin with, but slowly, slowly, a political consensus formed within the team of trusted editors. Even one of the original founders of Wikipedia admits to this being the case. And Wikipedia articles began to get bad again, this time in a different way. Back in the day, the main issue used to be lack of expertise by editors. Nowadays the problem is political bias in the tone of editing as a practice. It is generally a left wing bias. The 2020 Riots article was the best example of this, with it being titled "George Floyd Protests", denying the widespread rioting that was part of the event. This bias carries through in the vast majority of articles regarding current events.

Beyond that, the policies regarding what is and is not allowed to be used as a source are also troubling. Primary sources are forbidden. Instead, the only permitted sources are "approved" secondary sources, many of which also suffer from the inherent bias of the trusted editors. Beyond this, the limiting of approved sources limits the ability of users to expand on articles regarding niche and overlooked topics. This leaves massive holes in the space of human knowledge which the platform does not seek to remedy.

The Internet Archive

The Internet Archive's wayback machine has not been under nearly as much pressure as their library has been which is a great thing! However, it reveals the cracks in their policy when a single journalist, bitter that she had her hipocrisy rubbed in her face, demanded the Internet Archive remove an older copy of her article from their Wayback Machine, to which they conceeded without contest. The purpose of the Wayback Machine is to archive digital history, both good and bad (bar that which is illegal, understandibly). This, and their blanket refusal to archive specific websites which they deem hateful shows there are some problems in the way IA runs their platform.

To tell the truth, however, IA is swamped in lawsuits regarding copyright infringement, so this can be understood as avoidance of another lawsuit. However the gaps it leaves are still noticed. Certain archives, like Archive.Today do not have this issue (yet those do suffer from a highly reduced pool of content, with worse browsing capabilities). Some people critique their library system, implemented as a result of lawsuits, however I don't take much issue with it, it's a good compromise. However vast amounts of content have been completely removed from the archive for good. As such, I see the IA is weak in their lack of drive to stand up to corporate or governmental bullies who seek to censor their library.

National Museums, Libraries, Archives and more

Despite being the official institutions dedicated to discovering, researching, cataloguing, and documenting the history and culture of their respective nation or region, museums, libraries, and archives have done a horrible job over the ages at actually making their collections publically available. The British Library has one of the largest collections in the world, however the vast majority of it is not yet digitised. For that content, one must obtain a Reader's Pass, which is free but locked behind ID verification, from either their locations in London or Yorkshire (digital acquisition of them has not yet been restored since a cyberattack damaged their systems in 2023). After this, one must place in a request for what they wish to read, and wait for it to be prepared in their reading room of choice, picked from one of the two locations mentioned before. The lack of accessibility to these documents is staggering.

Moreover, let's say you wished to access one of their already digitised newspapers. Well if you wished to do that, prepare to pay £15 per month (or less if you're willing to be billed for longer). This is part of this country's heritage! The main source of income for it is government grants, paid for out of the taxpayer's pocket! And they CHARGE to access a digital library? This is horrendous abuse of access to information. Information on which they have a practical monopoly.

As the Internet became a thing it has been very obvious that museums, libraries, and archives have, for the most part, failed to adapt. Despite the possibilities for digital showcases the Internet provides they fail over and over again to use the resources at their disposal. Many times this happens as a result of lack of interest, with many members of staff of museums being advanced in age, they do not see the internet as something worthwhile to port their collections to. Other times it is lack of ability. Some museum directors may not know how such a thing could even be done, or who to hire to make it a possibility. Sometimes it is a lack of funding which is forbidding these institutions from making their collections more available and accessible. However, I fear that in the vast amount of cases, this is a thing which has been going on since way before the Internet. Institutions tend to gatekeep knowledge, information, and resources. This, now more than ever, is done to ensure no other institution can take their place through merit of doing a better job at being the guardians of the artifacts which they hold.

So, in other words, what does The Siphonophore Initiative intend to do?

Let me paint you a picture dear reader. Imagine, if you will, a grand archive of human knowledge. A library with every book, digitised and freely publically available. Public domain books available for free, and newer books available in with a borrow system akin to that of the Internet Archive. Imagine a newspaper library, all scanned from paper or microfilm, with its contents entirely readable by OCR. Each newspaper can be found by searching key words, and once found a suite of tools can allow the user to make clippings of them on a particular subject, which the user can print themselves, or can order from TSI printed on news paper or archival paper. Imagine a great compendium of knowledge, more fit for the current day. One that provides the user with every side of the issue and allows them to tally up arguments against each other and make up their own minds on it. Imagine, if you will, an ad free wiki for each piece of media, as detailed as possible, covering every which aspect of it. Imagine an organisation which stands up to copyright and patents, which aims to put media, knowledge, and technology in the hands of people capable of making a change. Imagine workshops and laboratories designed to provide public domain cures and treatments for diseases, bypassing ever rising medicine prices. Imagine the introduction of constitutions for organizations, which hold them legally liable if they steer away from using the funding provided to them for the purposes they outlined.

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