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Hierarchies and Newsgroups

The Free Hierarchy

The free groups (free.*) are similar to the alt.* groups: Every user is free to do there whatever he likes (also in case of creating new groups) and that's why most ISPs treat free.* groups like alt.* groups. They only carry certain free.* groups if one of their customers request for it.

The difference between free.* and alt.* is: The name free.* comes of the word Freedom and most important in free.* is the Freedom of Speech! Because there are no rules in alt.*, ISPs often apply filters to alt.* as a whole. Many try to filter Spam, Trolls or other behavior they see as abusive. While this looks like censorship to you, nobody forces you to use a certain ISP and if you aren't happy with the way they filter Newsgroups, you are free to go somewhere else.

If an ISP filters in free.*, the supporters of this hierarchy will immediately complain about that, as it destroys the whole idea behind free.*! The idea is "No control at all", not even if it looks like somebody is committing net-abuse. Users shall protect themselves of abuse on their own (using filters in their client for example).

The free hierarchy is younger than the alt hierarchy and nobody knows how it may develop in the future. It was started as an experiment some years ago and survived up to now, similar to alt.*. Nobody had every thought that alt.* will become as popular as it is today, so who knows. Skeptics on the other hand don't give free.* any chance to ever become a popular hierarchy, I am one of them. There's just too much garbage in this hierarchy.

The motto of free.* is: "Nobody is allowed to limit your freedom."

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