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Google is apparently taking down all/most Fediverse apps from the Play Store

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Re: Google is apparently taking down all/most Fediverse apps from the Play Store

#91

Post by viro »

john_moscow wrote: post #64

For anyone else concerned with the recent Big Tech censorship, people are actively building alternative social medial platforms and they are taking off. The RedditAlternatives subreddit [0] provides a fairly good overview of them. Some are rather extreme, others are more reasonable, but there are alternatives, and it's up to us, the reasonable people, to choose where we want to spend our time and money. [0] https://w…

When your content is too cancerous for Reddit ...maybe the issue isn't Reddit.

Re: Google is apparently taking down all/most Fediverse apps from the Play Store

#92

Post by gilrain »

grahoho wrote: post #77
daniel-s wrote: post #18

A reminder that F-Droid [1] is a free software app store that can be used to download free/open source software, including Mastodon clients. [1] https://f-droid.org/

A reminder that F-Droid banned Gab from their store. https://reclaimthenet.org/f-droid-bans-gab-app/

A reminder that Gab is not a gray area edgecase, but a purpose-built platform for conspiracies and hate speech.

Re: Google is apparently taking down all/most Fediverse apps from the Play Store

#93

Post by komali2 »

grahoho wrote: post #77
daniel-s wrote: post #18

A reminder that F-Droid [1] is a free software app store that can be used to download free/open source software, including Mastodon clients. [1] https://f-droid.org/

A reminder that F-Droid banned Gab from their store. https://reclaimthenet.org/f-droid-bans-gab-app/

That article was written with such blatantly bad faith language it had the opposite of the intended effect and made me start distrusting whatever Gab is (I had no idea before this thread)

> F-Droid won’t tolerate oppression or harassment against marginalized groups. Because of this, it won’t package nor distribute apps that promote any of these things

If this accurately describes Gab, I don't have sympathy for Yet Another Racist Community pretending that they're defending freeze peach.

Re: Google is apparently taking down all/most Fediverse apps from the Play Store

#94

Post by Medicalidiot »

john_moscow wrote: post #64

For anyone else concerned with the recent Big Tech censorship, people are actively building alternative social medial platforms and they are taking off. The RedditAlternatives subreddit [0] provides a fairly good overview of them. Some are rather extreme, others are more reasonable, but there are alternatives, and it's up to us, the reasonable people, to choose where we want to spend our time and money. [0] https://w…

I was an early adopter of Voat during the first Reddit purge but it turned into a racist cesspool. I'm wondering how many of these alternatives will follow that trend.

Re: Google is apparently taking down all/most Fediverse apps from the Play Store

#95

Post by mc32 »

It always starts like that. People agree to very sensible things. Like hate speech is bad and it’s not censorship if it’s not mandated by the government. Eventually the definition of hate or whatever it is that’s offensive is very removed from the original meaning, and now we all bear the brunt of the sensible people who with best intentions wanted to make things better.

Re: Google is apparently taking down all/most Fediverse apps from the Play Store

#96

Post by quotemstr »

moneywoes wrote: post #89
john_moscow wrote: post #64

For anyone else concerned with the recent Big Tech censorship, people are actively building alternative social medial platforms and they are taking off. The RedditAlternatives subreddit [0] provides a fairly good overview of them. Some are rather extreme, others are more reasonable, but there are alternatives, and it's up to us, the reasonable people, to choose where we want to spend our time and money. [0] https://w…

All of those alternatives seem full of hate speech though

So? Any platform free of censorship is going to have some speech you dislike.

Re: Google is apparently taking down all/most Fediverse apps from the Play Store

#97

Post by raverbashing »

humanistbot wrote: post #47

The rationale they gave is that hate speech appears on these apps, because some of the microblogging sites that can be accessed via Fediverse have this kind of content. Based on this rationale, I look forward to Google Play removing Chrome, Firefox, and all other web browsers from the store as well.

Cool. So if the issue is hate speech I'll be waiting for Google to ban the FB app as well

Re: Google is apparently taking down all/most Fediverse apps from the Play Store

#98

Post by komali2 »

onion2k wrote: post #88
CodeArtisan wrote: post #31

There is probably more than what is being said here otherwise clients for reddit or 4chan would have been removed a long time ago.

The thing that isn't being mentioned is that Google allow apps that make "reasonable" attempts to block content that violates their anti-hate speech policy. Reddit has shown that they're willing to ban the very worst content. No idea about 4chan. In the case of the Fediverse apps they can't block anything because firstly there's no resources to police it, and secondly it's kind of the whole point of federation to let…

Last I checked 4chan bans CP and literally nothing else except that weird picture of two miscellaneous mascots riding a scooter.

Re: Google is apparently taking down all/most Fediverse apps from the Play Store

#99

Post by mkl »

judge2020 wrote: post #57
humanistbot wrote: post #47

The rationale they gave is that hate speech appears on these apps, because some of the microblogging sites that can be accessed via Fediverse have this kind of content. Based on this rationale, I look forward to Google Play removing Chrome, Firefox, and all other web browsers from the store as well.

There is a specific exception to web browsers, so Mastodon app(s) could probably classify as one by prominently displaying the web url of a post above the post.

Where do we find the rules about exceptions? Are group communication apps excepted as well?

It's not obviously in the Restricted Content policy page: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/topi...

The rules there are extremely general, and technically cover all sorts of things which are currently let into the Store.

Re: Google is apparently taking down all/most Fediverse apps from the Play Store

#100

Post by scarface74 »

1_person wrote: post #69
chii wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as a computer moves ever more towards a white-label appliance with a single purpose, the act of "installing" becomes more and more alien. It sucks, but a majority of the computer-using population cares not for it, and only want it to work. Think washing machine - have you ever seen people want to install apps into their washing machine?

If the singular fucking purpose of the washing machine was to run apps, I sure as fuck would expect to see people wanting to install apps on their washing machine.

And Android doesn’t stop you from doing that - from anywhere you wish. So what’s the problem?
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