601–610 of 996 posts
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.
> 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.
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> 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. Do the apps connect by default to a server that allows hate speech? If that's the case, is this an instance of bad defaults? Maybe the apps could work around this by just connecting to a server that's moderated to be acceptable to Google, but leave…
No. You need to explicitly connect in most fediverse apps. They're like browsers
It's pretty egregious to ban an app like that.
Still, I wonder if an innocuous default server (or set of them) might smooth things over with Google. That would increase the friction of accessing the content they don't like.
Android's also relatively open, so if they only have issues with specific servers, maybe the app could just drop a text-file blocklist on the filesystem that a user could tecnically edit to change it (but just not via the app).
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That's a clever trick. Make the medium you want to censor a private property than it's legal.
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?
Allowing speech on your speech platform is not the same thing as compelling others to speech.
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This sort of decision by Google does make me rather uncomfortable (the entire situation is uncomfortable... https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691957/mastodon-decentr... ). But it's worth understanding why the situation may be a bit more complicated than is described above. What seems to be happening is not an absolute ban on Fediverse apps , but a ban on specific implementations that make it easy to join specific…
This justification still implies Chrome & Firefox also ought be content aware & be censorship machines. This is grossly unacceptable. Apps need some safe harbor too. Apps can not be responsible for every possible use of the app.
The is the first I (as well as others here, apparently) had ever heard of the "fediverse". Wikipedia [1] helps me out with what it is technically... but can anyone who knows describe what its content is actually like? In terms of hate speech or illegal content... does that make up the vast majority of fediverse content, in the way that pirated media makes up the vast majority of torrents? (Even though torrents can al…
Anyone could start their own 'Twitter' server, and doesn't matter which server you are in, you can send messages/follow anyone in any server, unless the person or server blocks you/your server.
In Mastodon, it's mostly about legal content, but with different servers focusing on different subjects, or offering different levels of privacy and/or free-speech. Some servers focus on a safe-space for transgenders, others, a non-censored place for alt-right people.
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When your content is too cancerous for Reddit ...maybe the issue isn't Reddit.
There are some non cancerous communities that aren't welcome on reddit. Lots of legal gray area ones that revolve around data hoarding / archiving are constantly threatened and sometimes taken down for piracy. The subreddits try to police the most blatant piracy but due to the nature of why people archive/hoard data it can be difficult.
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I could see that backfiring pretty badly. Just think of all the politicians who want to regulate (or even try to ban citizens from using Bitcoin) being able to say it's chock full of 'Hate Speech'.
It's hard to ban at this point - they could limit cashing out options, but the blockchain itself will live on as long as there are some places in the world where you can cash out.
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This sort of decision by Google does make me rather uncomfortable (the entire situation is uncomfortable... https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691957/mastodon-decentr... ). But it's worth understanding why the situation may be a bit more complicated than is described above. What seems to be happening is not an absolute ban on Fediverse apps , but a ban on specific implementations that make it easy to join specific…
> If you happen to be the target of this hatred and violence, and feel it is an existential threat to your livelihood, you might believe that it is a good thing to make it more difficult for those who are engaging in this behavior to enlarge their communities. I’m indeed being threatened by various hate groups (one of them actually tried, and almost succeeded, to kill an acquaintance), but strangely enough they are n…
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Exactly. This is Google drawing the line on where this "hate speech" is from and they believe that such "content" can be accessed via the Fediverse. To see how ridiculous this sounds, Google might as well completely take down the entire social media and internet browsing category on the Play Store since I keep seeing the same content from both extremes on all these platforms. Just wait until you tell them to take dow…
The fascinating part of this is that Google has officially claimed the mantle of arbiter of what is allowed on the internet ( they are not exactly a gate keeper yet, but given how people have trouble accessing information outside FB, Apple, Google gardens, they are well on their way ). edit: Trouble in a sense that it is inconvenient for them.