For anyone who is out of the loop: F-Droid is an app store for Android that allows you to download free and open source apps. Think of it like the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store, but...
For anyone who is out of the loop:
F-Droid is an app store for Android that allows you to download free and open source apps. Think of it like the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store, but only free and open source apps (some apps connect to proprietary services like Youtube, but these are easily highlighted). It comes with it's own repository but the user can add their own, like the Guardian Project.
Mastodon is a decentralised version of Twitter, and again open source. This means that people can easily create their own Mastodon user instances and there is tools on each server to migrate your data over to a new instance if you wish.
Gab is a social network, really only for the alt-right under the disguise of "free speech". You can read more about their history here, but basically they've recently decided to take the route of running a Mastodon instance given how they've pretty much exhausted all their other options.
Some Android apps have blocked the Gab instance (Tusky), and others (Fedilab) haven't. F-Droid got roped into this as a platform that allows users to download these apps and they made their stance on neutrality and about apps.
OK with that out of the way, I really respect F-Droid's decision and statement here.
Firstly, the decision: it does make sense to not to take an approach either way as one app is actively blocking said website and the other is implementing mechanisms to allow the user to block whatever domain they like. This feels fair enough and a sensible solution. Besides, I feel like F-Droid will take actions if these apps get taken over by toxic ideologies.
Secondly, the statement: It's something that I've realised over the years - free speech isn't this perfect utopia of people saying silly or misguided stuff and then the other person either explains and the two learn something or they both have a quarrel and walk away with their own opinion and respect the other. It's a slow poisoning of the discussion with all sorts of toxic ideologies, and it's genuinely hard to combat these ideas as quickly as they come, which means that there is this timeline of people trying to come up with a solution to the problem when what would've stopped us being here is prevention.
+1. I think that "free speech advocates" don't realize or don't care that no discussion happens in a vacuum. The people in the discussion bring their prejudices, their foibles, and most...
... free speech isn't this perfect utopia of people saying silly or misguided stuff and then the other person either explains and the two learn something or they both have a quarrel and walk away with their own opinion and respect the other. It's a slow poisoning of the discussion with all sorts of toxic ideologies ...
+1. I think that "free speech advocates" don't realize or don't care that no discussion happens in a vacuum. The people in the discussion bring their prejudices, their foibles, and most importantly, their privileges into the space. So like, when a white cismale neonazi starts yelling about something in a "free speech zone," he expects no pushback, because the racist and sexist power structures that he exists in (that we all exist in) props him and his opinions up implicitly. So you're absolutely right -- just as there is no such thing as a free lunch, there's no such thing as truly "free" speech. Someone is coming to the table with more implicit power, and if there's no opposite pressure, discussion is going to fall into those same tired channels.
What do you mean? It's a little hard to follow because they wrote the post in such an obfuscated way to avoid naming Gab, but it seems like they're taking multiple stands here, including saying...
What do you mean? It's a little hard to follow because they wrote the post in such an obfuscated way to avoid naming Gab, but it seems like they're taking multiple stands here, including saying that Tusky has the right to prevent its users from using it for Gab.
What were you hoping for them to do instead, and what does sending people to Tusky directly accomplish, if the version of Tusky on F-Droid is the same?
Because they are allowing an app that promotes the tenets of National Socialism (aka Nazism), ie Fedilab. All other apps have blocked gab.com from using their app.
Because they are allowing an app that promotes the tenets of National Socialism (aka Nazism), ie Fedilab.
All other apps have blocked gab.com from using their app.
Thats not at all what they said. They have stated that they will not allow an app that promotes gab on the store but they will allow one that simply happens to allow you to type in the address of...
Thats not at all what they said. They have stated that they will not allow an app that promotes gab on the store but they will allow one that simply happens to allow you to type in the address of gab which is the most sensible decision since that rule would also require all web browsers to start including blocklists of undesirable websites which would ultimately be pointless since fdroid allows you to add custom repos which would allow someone to set up one containing clean versions of apps before all the filters were added.
Fedilab's main "feature" right now is allowing Gab users an access point to the their server. Every other fediverse app has chosen to blog gab. Fedilab is the sole one not doing so. They are...
Fedilab's main "feature" right now is allowing Gab users an access point to the their server.
Every other fediverse app has chosen to blog gab. Fedilab is the sole one not doing so. They are actively providing cover to neonazis.
F Droid allow users to install and use third party repos is not the question here, but rather that F Droid's official repos host the Gab client now.
That's hardly it's main feature. How is it not a problem that FDroid can be configured for neonazi repos but becomes a problem when it's Fedilab? And bringing back what Octofox said, why is it not...
That's hardly it's main feature. How is it not a problem that FDroid can be configured for neonazi repos but becomes a problem when it's Fedilab? And bringing back what Octofox said, why is it not a problem when the web browsers don't block gab either?
There was something that somebody posted a while back, I think on one of the "Mastodon is blocking gab" threads, that tolerance must reserve the right to be intolerant of intolerance, or else that...
There was something that somebody posted a while back, I think on one of the "Mastodon is blocking gab" threads, that tolerance must reserve the right to be intolerant of intolerance, or else that intolerance just spreads. And that makes sense.
I don't think it makes sense to extend that intolerance a step further though. You can't force people to be activists. Insisting that everyone around you be an activist (even if every one of those people agrees with you) is a good way to make everyone around you not want to be around you anymore.
Everyone holds up WWII as some big ideological fight, ignoring the fact it was 99.9% nationalism and the ideology was a glorification tacked on after the fact. You think if Mussolini decided to...
Everyone holds up WWII as some big ideological fight, ignoring the fact it was 99.9% nationalism and the ideology was a glorification tacked on after the fact. You think if Mussolini decided to ally with France/GB from the start that he would have been strung up at Nuremberg? Not a chance. It took being attacked for the US to actually step up beyond financial support in the first place.
Rather than attack everything as lumped together nazism (which the other side just throws out as hyperbole, and most of the apathetic middle think doesn't actually exist and therefore MUST be hyperbole), it would probably be better to identify the parts of what they're doing that people know still exist and are against - like white supremacy (the KKK well and truly predates nazism and more accurately describes what is going on) and hypernationalism and warmongering (again, predates nazism).
It also describes the sheer stupidity of what they are doing, too. Nazism had a foundation of legitimate grievances after WWI and Versailles that they used to motivate the population into rabid support and direct against people who had nothing to do with it. The KKK had more or less the same 'faux problems' of the current alt-right where it wasn't a case of 'we are suffering' but 'we are losing our ability to make others suffer'. In that respect the Nazis were morally superior to both.
For anyone who is out of the loop:
F-Droid is an app store for Android that allows you to download free and open source apps. Think of it like the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store, but only free and open source apps (some apps connect to proprietary services like Youtube, but these are easily highlighted). It comes with it's own repository but the user can add their own, like the Guardian Project.
Mastodon is a decentralised version of Twitter, and again open source. This means that people can easily create their own Mastodon user instances and there is tools on each server to migrate your data over to a new instance if you wish.
Gab is a social network, really only for the alt-right under the disguise of "free speech". You can read more about their history here, but basically they've recently decided to take the route of running a Mastodon instance given how they've pretty much exhausted all their other options.
Some Android apps have blocked the Gab instance (Tusky), and others (Fedilab) haven't. F-Droid got roped into this as a platform that allows users to download these apps and they made their stance on neutrality and about apps.
OK with that out of the way, I really respect F-Droid's decision and statement here.
Firstly, the decision: it does make sense to not to take an approach either way as one app is actively blocking said website and the other is implementing mechanisms to allow the user to block whatever domain they like. This feels fair enough and a sensible solution. Besides, I feel like F-Droid will take actions if these apps get taken over by toxic ideologies.
Secondly, the statement: It's something that I've realised over the years - free speech isn't this perfect utopia of people saying silly or misguided stuff and then the other person either explains and the two learn something or they both have a quarrel and walk away with their own opinion and respect the other. It's a slow poisoning of the discussion with all sorts of toxic ideologies, and it's genuinely hard to combat these ideas as quickly as they come, which means that there is this timeline of people trying to come up with a solution to the problem when what would've stopped us being here is prevention.
+1. I think that "free speech advocates" don't realize or don't care that no discussion happens in a vacuum. The people in the discussion bring their prejudices, their foibles, and most importantly, their privileges into the space. So like, when a white cismale neonazi starts yelling about something in a "free speech zone," he expects no pushback, because the racist and sexist power structures that he exists in (that we all exist in) props him and his opinions up implicitly. So you're absolutely right -- just as there is no such thing as a free lunch, there's no such thing as truly "free" speech. Someone is coming to the table with more implicit power, and if there's no opposite pressure, discussion is going to fall into those same tired channels.
If anyone is curious, these are the lines you would have to remove to unblock instanced in tusky https://github.com/tuskyapp/Tusky/blob/39a59f4adeaf9cada325e62d2a21365baa4a02df/app/src/main/res/values/donottranslate.xml#L113
Well, since F Droid won't take a stand, I will stop recommending it to people, and just keep pointing people right to Tusky.
What do you mean? It's a little hard to follow because they wrote the post in such an obfuscated way to avoid naming Gab, but it seems like they're taking multiple stands here, including saying that Tusky has the right to prevent its users from using it for Gab.
What were you hoping for them to do instead, and what does sending people to Tusky directly accomplish, if the version of Tusky on F-Droid is the same?
Because they are allowing an app that promotes the tenets of National Socialism (aka Nazism), ie Fedilab.
All other apps have blocked gab.com from using their app.
Thats not at all what they said. They have stated that they will not allow an app that promotes gab on the store but they will allow one that simply happens to allow you to type in the address of gab which is the most sensible decision since that rule would also require all web browsers to start including blocklists of undesirable websites which would ultimately be pointless since fdroid allows you to add custom repos which would allow someone to set up one containing clean versions of apps before all the filters were added.
Fedilab's main "feature" right now is allowing Gab users an access point to the their server.
Every other fediverse app has chosen to blog gab. Fedilab is the sole one not doing so. They are actively providing cover to neonazis.
F Droid allow users to install and use third party repos is not the question here, but rather that F Droid's official repos host the Gab client now.
That's hardly it's main feature. How is it not a problem that FDroid can be configured for neonazi repos but becomes a problem when it's Fedilab? And bringing back what Octofox said, why is it not a problem when the web browsers don't block gab either?
I would love if web browsers blocked neonazi sites. The globe decided in 1943 that Nazism is not a valid ideology.
There was something that somebody posted a while back, I think on one of the "Mastodon is blocking gab" threads, that tolerance must reserve the right to be intolerant of intolerance, or else that intolerance just spreads. And that makes sense.
I don't think it makes sense to extend that intolerance a step further though. You can't force people to be activists. Insisting that everyone around you be an activist (even if every one of those people agrees with you) is a good way to make everyone around you not want to be around you anymore.
I believe intolerance of intolerance is one of the core principles of Tildes also.
Everyone holds up WWII as some big ideological fight, ignoring the fact it was 99.9% nationalism and the ideology was a glorification tacked on after the fact. You think if Mussolini decided to ally with France/GB from the start that he would have been strung up at Nuremberg? Not a chance. It took being attacked for the US to actually step up beyond financial support in the first place.
Rather than attack everything as lumped together nazism (which the other side just throws out as hyperbole, and most of the apathetic middle think doesn't actually exist and therefore MUST be hyperbole), it would probably be better to identify the parts of what they're doing that people know still exist and are against - like white supremacy (the KKK well and truly predates nazism and more accurately describes what is going on) and hypernationalism and warmongering (again, predates nazism).
It also describes the sheer stupidity of what they are doing, too. Nazism had a foundation of legitimate grievances after WWI and Versailles that they used to motivate the population into rabid support and direct against people who had nothing to do with it. The KKK had more or less the same 'faux problems' of the current alt-right where it wasn't a case of 'we are suffering' but 'we are losing our ability to make others suffer'. In that respect the Nazis were morally superior to both.
How can software avoid being political any more than any of us human beings? Avoiding to take a stance is still taking a stance.
I think banning Fedilab would have been the correct answer. They are providing cover for the ideology of national socialism, aka Nazism.