I mean, groups glomming up to push particular ideas or concerns are probably part and parcel of having a federated network with people independently operating servers. Various people are going to have various views on content. Some Usenet servers wouldn’t forward content of particular types and all that.
There Is No Cabal (abbreviated TINC[1]) is a catchphrase and running joke found on Usenet.[2] The journalist Wendy M. Grossman writes that its appearance on the alt.usenet.cabal FAQ reflects conspiracy accusations as old as the Internet itself.[3] The anthropologist Gabriella Coleman writes that the joke reveals “discomfort over the potential for corruption by meritocratic leaders”.[2]
The phrase There Is No Cabal was developed to deny the existence of the backbone cabal, which members of the cabal denied. The cabal consisted of operators of major news server newsgroups, allowing them to wield greater control over Usenet.[4]
The backbone cabal was an informal organization of large-site news server administrators of the worldwide distributed newsgroup-based discussion system Usenet. It existed from about 1983 at least into the 2000s.[citation needed]
The cabal was created in an effort to facilitate reliable propagation of new Usenet posts. While in the 1970s and 1980s many news servers only operated during night time to save on the cost of long-distance communication, servers of the backbone cabal were available 24 hours a day. The administrators of these servers gained sufficient influence in the otherwise anarchic Usenet community to be able to push through controversial changes, for instance the Great Renaming of Usenet newsgroups during 1987.[1]
During most of its existence, the cabal (sometimes capitalized) steadfastly denied its own existence; those involved would often respond “There is no Cabal” (sometimes abbreviated as “TINC”'[5]).
On Usenet, the Usenet Death Penalty (UDP) is a final penalty that may be issued against Internet service providers or single users who produce too much spam or fail to adhere to Usenet standards. It is named after the death penalty (the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for a crime), as it causes the banned user or provider to be unable to use Usenet, essentially “killing” their service. Messages that fall under the jurisdiction of a Usenet Death Penalty will be cancelled. Cancelled messages are deleted from Usenet servers and not allowed to propagate. This causes users on the affected ISP to be unable to post to Usenet, and it puts pressure on the ISP to change their policies. Notable cases include actions taken against UUNET, CompuServe, and Excite@Home.
To be effective, the UDP must be supported by a large number of servers, or the majority of the major transit servers. Otherwise, the articles will propagate throughout the smaller, slower peerings.
Regardless of one’s position on whether this particular case is warranted – I certainly am not sure that it is – my guess is that at some point, one is likely going to have people trying to form groups of instance operators to put pressure on other instance operators. Has happened before, probably will continue to do so.
I mean, groups glomming up to push particular ideas or concerns are probably part and parcel of having a federated network with people independently operating servers. Various people are going to have various views on content. Some Usenet servers wouldn’t forward content of particular types and all that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Is_No_Cabal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backbone_cabal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet_Death_Penalty
Regardless of one’s position on whether this particular case is warranted – I certainly am not sure that it is – my guess is that at some point, one is likely going to have people trying to form groups of instance operators to put pressure on other instance operators. Has happened before, probably will continue to do so.