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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

#201

Post by nyczomg »

viro wrote: post #91
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.

If you think reddit only censors cancerous content ...maybe the issue isn't Reddit.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9a33ep/orlando-shooting-r...

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

#202

Post by davexunit »

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/

Yeah that ruled. Love F-Droid.

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

#203

Post by pferde »

cortesoft wrote: post #183
quotemstr wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. But when you start denying basic infrastructure to those with viewpoints you dislike --- domain names, DDOS protection, app store distribution --- you're no longer trying to just maintain some particular community's culture, but instead eradicate certain speech from public life. It should be illegal to deny fundamental infrastructure to someone on the basis of his philosophy or point of view. That's what a free s…

They are welcome to buy their own servers or even rent them. We don't have to subsidize their free use of internet resources.

Isn't that exactly what these federated platforms (and the apps to access them) are doing?

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

#204

Post by bccdee »

Spivak wrote: post #84

I think this is a good example of "you can't solve human problems with cute tech workarounds" because I think Google is actually in the right here (given you think their ban on hate speech is general is legitimate). It shouldn't matter at all the technical details of how an app works or the fact that it's federated or distributed. All that really matters to the policy is what a user sees when they download and open t…

The technical details do matter quite a bit though, because the same logic could be used to ban (for instance) web browsers. Because the web is an open protocol that can be used to communicate with any website, even objectionable ones, every browser is an app that gives access to hatespeech content. Google may ban the 8chan app, but they don't ban browsers despite browsers being able to access the 8chan website.

Of course, Google won't ban the web, but only because it doesn't suit them to. What we wind up with is Google having arbitrary control over which types of communication protocols are allowed on Android with no need to justify their decisions, because any protocol could carry hatespeech, and that's pretty concerning.

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

#205

Post by claudiawerner »

brightball wrote: post #106
mc32 wrote: post #95

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.

The is what I believe is the goal of placing restrictions on people based on “mental health”. It’s so open ended and not easily verifiable that it becomes a sliding scale.

If I'm understanding you right, the idea is that some harms, physical ones, are fair game for the law to cover, but other harms (mental ones) or a collection of boundary cases are less (if at all) within the purview of legislation.

I think there's a good conversation to be had as to what in particular makes physical harms so special as compared to others, and how existing law in every country (including the US) can constitutionally include some non-physical harms within its legislation (such as laws against sending threatening letters, or child pornography law, or fraud).

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

#206

Post by croes »

thomascgalvin wrote: post #169

> Like hate speech is bad and it’s not censorship if it’s not mandated by the government. To be fully accurate, this is absolutely censorship , but it's not a violation of anyone's First Amendment rights. People often conflate the two. We can argue about whether or not Google should ban certain opinions on their platform, or where the line should be drawn, but it is arguable that hey have the legal right to do so. An…

That's a clever trick. Make the medium you want to censor a private property than it's legal.

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

#208

Post by UnFleshedOne »

drdeca wrote: post #132
quotemstr wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there's no difference between "has some of it" and "is full of it". Where could the line possibly be drawn between those two? Why should your values in particular control other people's speech? If you don't want to participate on a discussion because it's full of something you dislike, that's your call. But big tech companies have no business shutting down other people's legal conversations.

Quantitative differences are still differences. 1% is different from 1.01% and from 80% . My preferences determine what communities I prefer to be a part of. I prefer to not be part of a community where the majority says super racist garbage. As such, I choose not to join such a community/website.

I think you guys agree. You are free to not participate. The point of contention is: are you free to deny others ability to participate if they want? (if you had that ability)

That's where idea of public platforms as infrastructure (and actual infrastructure like DNS and carriers) if coming from.

This reminds me of people wanting to ban or filter torrent protocol itself, instead of illegal content on it.

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

#210

Post by [deleted] »

RL_Quine wrote: post #102
viro wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes, if the only defense of your content is that it isn't literally illegal to produce and distribute, maybe choose something better to do with your time.

[deleted]
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