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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

#241

Post by john_moscow »

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

We live in a time of extreme devaluation of terms. The Democratic Republic of Congo is a hardcore dictatorship. The People's Republic of China is run by a close circle of elites. Likewise, "Hate Speech" is used far too often to shut down fairly reasonable criticism against the "equal outcome, not equal opportunity" policies bundled together with original sin and Orwellian struggle sessions.

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

#242

Post by michaelt »

MyNameIsMyName wrote: post #117
quotemstr wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Censorship not related to government always strikes me as just complaining. Private entities, whether they be individuals or businesses should be free to determine what is an acceptable uses of their services, and what is not. Do you allow any form of speech in your house or is your house a platform that censors speech?

I think this specific case is a bit different, as Google sold the house (i.e. phone) to me, yet they want to retain control as if they were the owner.

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

#243

Post by arendtio »

I think the problem is, that two things are getting mixed up.

First, there are content providers like Facebook or Youtube. Those platforms store the content of their users and if the content can be publicized the content providers have to apply their rules.

Second, there are software providers like the Play Store in its original function, Apples App Store or Amazons App Store. Those platforms should not care about content but just about software. If the software is malicious, ban it. But they should not ban software because if the content you can reach with it. That is the job if the distributing content providers.

That said, I am not a particular friend of censoring content at all. I just accept, that some content providers have their own rules about which content they accept and which content they don't want to support.

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

#245

Post by stillbourne »

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…

> 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.

It's not censorship, its moderation and editorial discretion.

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

#246

Post by mindslight »

scarface74 wrote: post #58
superkuh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to go off-topic, but the entire existence of the word 'side-loading' is some 1984-level language manipulation. As if installing applications without getting the permission of some abstract corporate owner is the weird thing. No, having to get permission is the weird way to install things.

You can call of whatever you wish. But how did loading from any untrusted source work out for the average consumer for the last 30 years? Viruses, malware, ransomware, etc? Yes outside of the little HN/geek bubble, it’s way too easy for the average consumer to install malware on their computer. HN users have been whining about not being able to side load on iOS devices for years. What they really seem to want is to f…

You must get really tired after destroying straw men all day.

1. It worked out great by fostering tons of invention.

2. Untrusted code with sandboxing works well for the web/javascript ecosystem.

3. Yes "HN users" want the freedom to run software of their choice. Discussing a single aspect where one system is better is not some total endorsement of the whole system.

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

#247

Post by huntertwo »

croes wrote: post #206
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.

I don't think it's a question of the medium but a question of the actor doing the censoring. If the feds mandate the censoring on a private medium, I don't think it makes it legal. I think one difference is the enforcement, Google can't censor an individual universally, just on their platform, whereas the government can enforce it universally with force/jail/etc.

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

#248

Post by djsumdog »

daniel-s wrote: post #13
doiwin wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know about them. But I would have to root my phone to install them. And that means trusting some binary blob from someone on the internet. So I would not do it.

Not true on Android, you just need to download and install F-Droid; a free software app store.

True, but it's still a terrible user experience for the average person.

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

#249

Post by kanox »

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…

This definition of censorship is bad and must be changed.

Large general-purpose platforms should be forced do distribute all content which is not otherwise illegal, and only perform removal based through the standard legal system.

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

#250

Post by tenebrisalietum »

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.

Kindly take this as a devils advocate post before you reflexively downvote.

It looks like letting people say anything they want on major social media platforms is only having one major positive effect: a few advertising companies are becoming very rich.

The negative effects include:

- incited violence (gang-oriented gun crime in Chicago is often fanned by social media posts for example)

- bad medical decisions (vaccine/COVID misinformation)

- cancel culture/political manipulation (people taking other people's posts as facts when they are not)

I would like to uphold the principle of free speech and forcing social media providers to be free speech agents even though they are private companies, but it's starting to get hard to defend. I am losing faith that strict adherence to free speech is going to result in a smarter, happier humanity. It might be better if less people speak their mind.

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