Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

qoto.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 996 posts

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

#361

Post by lotsofpulp »

ben_w wrote: post #240
lotsofpulp wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never seen a shopping mall with a sex shop. Maybe lingerie or some novelty items at a Spencer’s, but I doubt mall operators would want to deal with people complaining about their kids walking by a store selling pornography and sex toys. They usually end up in undesirable locations or in rundown strip malls.

I go past a mall with a dildo shop inside it on my current walking commute to work. I saw another one of the same chain in the main train station of… I think it was Hannover? I was travelling a lot by InterRail and the places are blurring together. Zürich has (or had) a sex shop with the wares clearly visible from the outside in the expensive bit of the city centre. Cambridge (UK) has an Ann Summers in its main shopp…

Sorry, I meant in the US. I can easily see them in places with healthier attitudes about sex.

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

#362

Post by [deleted] »

kikokikokiko wrote: post #329
antoinealb wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that why we have safe harbor laws to encourage platforms to self regulate and collaborate with law enforcement in exchange for not being sued for those violations ? Without those provisions no website could allow user created content, as they would instantly be sued to oblivion. (Standard disclaimer of working for Google)

If Google wants to be viewed as a safe harbor, so Google should behave as one and stop deciding what is "hateful". What you/Google/government consider hateful can be what I or the people in Belarus consider the truth. This trend of "censorship for your own good" needs to stop.

[deleted]

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

#363

Post by spiznnx »

I think censorship of hate speech is good, but doing so through the play store is a terrible idea. This will just promote more side loading which is not good for the security of android as a platform.

The play store needs to be fairly permissive in terms of content, so that people keep their phones secure. The primary purpose of app review needs to be security and quality, not censorship and rent-seeking.

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

#364

Post by augustt »

john_moscow wrote: post #297
viro wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, I can tell you what's bugging me personally about this. There's a growing divide in our society between the "equal opportunity" and "equal outcome" camps. And while the "equal opportunity" people mostly have the "just let me grill" attitude, "equal outcomers" are pushing increasingly harder, while doing their best to silence any opposing voices. It's now getting to a point where raising one's kids to be proud o…

Any evidence at all that self-improvement is under attack, or are these all euphemisms for something else? Maybe "pick friends based on shared values" means "I wouldn't let my kids play with kids from the other side of the tracks", which should indeed get some pushback.

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

#365

Post by _pd19 »

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.

Capitalism rests on a negative conception of freedom, so yes.

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

#366

Post by masukomi »

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.

not really. it's just saying "this is mine, it's not public property or a public service, and thus i get to manage it how i want." I think MOST people would agree that that's a reasonable approach.

just because a lot of people rely on the google play store doesn't mean it's a public service in the legal sense. It's a very private piece of software that is NOT open source and is very obviously owned and managed by a single entity.

just like you get to choose who you let in your house. they get to choose how their software is used.

side note: monopoly is a separate issue.

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

#368

Post by john_moscow »

UncleMeat wrote: post #345
john_moscow wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Places like voat consistently have holocaust denial and calls to actually murder jewish and black people at the very tippy top. There are few places that can be more accurately called "filled with hate speech" than voat.

In my personal opinion, Voat is completely bonkers. So I personally don't go there and consider the problem solved.

Other places on the list are much more reasonable.

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

#369

Post by ivanbakel »

colpabar wrote: post #275
IntelMiner wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet. There's a certain "side" that wants to have that both ways Private companies can't censor "bad opinions" But private companies can also arbitrarily refuse service for say, making a "gay wedding cake" How is this disconnect rationalized?

doesn't it go both ways? if you flip both positions, it's also inconsistent.

How so?

The first hypocrisy is the defense of the right of a business to make arbitrary decisions w.r.t. service (not bake the cake), while simultaneously demanding that the business not have the power to refuse service (condemning private censorship).

The reverse position is not hypocritical in the same way, because condemning discrimination against customers on LGBT grounds is not at odds with censoring discriminatory speech - in fact, the two positions are aligned.

You could try to argue that private censorship is itself a form of discrimination, but most people who hold the second position would not concede that the people who practice hate speech are a minority worthy of protection - so for them, no discrimination is occurring.

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

#370

Post by kfthrowaway4321 »

tinyhouse wrote: post #101

On a related topic. I was trying to search videos from the Wisconsin shooting of the 17 year old who shot and killed two people and injured one. Every video I clicked on was already taken down due to offensive content. I found it strange given that Youtube is full of videos of shooting incidents. Now, I do understand the families of the victims may want the videos taking down. But it seems to me the mob of people fla…

Hit up the kiwi farms for archives of this kind of thing. Wash your hands (and maybe your eyes) after, though
Post reply on HN