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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

#611

Post by postnihilism »

archgoon wrote: post #418
jwalgenbach wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, not so much. The difference is in the legal definition of protected class. It is illegal to discriminate against someone based on their membership of a protected class -- ethnicity or disability for instance. Removing an opinion or banning a user based on violation of an agreed upon term of service is not the same thing. Having an opinion does not make you a member of a protected class, and a private corporatio…

I don't see the word 'law' showing up anywhere in kbensons comment. It's disingenuous to claim that kbenson was making a legal argument.

kbensons is explicitly referencing a legal case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...

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

#612

Post by verylittlemeat »

mike00632 wrote: post #385
limteary wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liked /r/watchpeopledie in a morbid curiosity way.

I know you're just expressing a common curiosity. A friendly reminder that snuff film production is a thing and if a community creates a big audience/market for this stuff then the consequences are horrific.

Isn't this the justification for every kind of moral panic? If we let kids watch sex scenes they'll become prostitutes. If we let kids play grand theft auto they'll shoot up their school. Everything has the potential for negative externalities. I don't expect anyone to "think of the poor morbidly curious people" because it's strongly taboo in our culture but suggesting that - cause and effect: gore equals more murder for snuff - is a stretch.

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

#613

Post by fuzxi »

retpirato wrote: post #533
jfarina wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why isn't that believable?

How does Google know this unless they have some access to the databases of each of those sites/instances? Why would google have that kind of access?

Such apps tend to advertise that they block instances. Tusky, for example, blocks all Gab instances and says so right in the FAQ [1].

[1]: https://github.com/tuskyapp/faq bottom of the page

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

#614

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

pyronik19 wrote: post #495
tshaddox wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does everyone agree on what murder is? Of course not. Does that mean murder should be legal?

Well a bunch of people are running around now saying speech is violence...so in the not too distant future we might be saying someone was murdered by words.

It is interesting that you say that. In English, we do use phrases like "X was destroyed by Z" ( I forget the exact idiom, but kids seem to be using it -- god I feel old ), where no actual destruction beyond verbal attack took place.

I know you were referring to something else, but it got me thinking that we are already using the phrase. Our legal system just does not allow a lot of 'word damage' to be adjudicated.

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

#615

Post by VLM »

djsumdog wrote: post #492
tsherr wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's precisely what they are doing. They don't care about hate speech. If they did, they wouldn't have Trump ads on the YouTube banner. This is justification to get rid of apps they don't like.

Not allowing a parties political ads would be clear favoritism in a political situation. You might not like Trump, but it's quite the jump to say republican ads are "hate speech." .. in fact that's quite literally weaponizing the word "hate speech" to censor political opinions you don't like.

Which is the whole point of hate speech laws. Can't market censorship of one party, but who could ever oppose censoring hate... then redefine hate to be anything you'd like censored, and ... that's what we have now.

Any time anyone complains about censorship, roll out the excuse of holocaust denial, regardless whats actually being censored.

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

#616

Post by frank2 »

colordrops wrote: post #342
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.

Hanlon's razor has hobbled everyone's ability to see what the establishment is doing. This isn't about good intentions gone wrong. The loss of control of the narrative due to the internet has been a severe setback for the powerful, and they have been slowly clawing it back by limiting access to alternative media. Various think tanks, NGOs, board members with multiple irons in the fire, foreign interests, and the gove…

>The loss of control of the narrative due to the internet has been a severe setback for the powerful

How was the narrative controlled by the powerful before the internet became a part of everyday life? Specifically, how was the narrative controlled in the US in the decades before 1993?

I'm asking for recommendations of books written by historians, journalists and other serious people. (Understanding the situation decades ago is probably a lot easier than understanding the current situation -- partly because the powerful will take pains to hide their controlling actions from the public.)

In the US I get the general sense that politicians and holders of government offices have never been able to exert a lot of control of the narrative with the result that journalists and the prestigious universities have so much influence that they are best thought of as essentially part of the government.

That suggests that the efforts of the establishment to rein in the big social media companies will prove largely ineffective with the result that Facebook and Google will probably join the New York Times and Harvard as parts of the de facto governing structure of the US.

EDITED: changed "rein" to "rein in".

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

#617

Post by djsumdog »

gerbal wrote: post #491
djsumdog wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want the truth. That's something all US media is failing to give us right now.

> I want the truth. That's something all US media is failing to give us right now. What truth is this you are so deprived of? I presume you have some "real" source of truth that's more reliable than media that fact-checks itself and issues corrections?

> that's more reliable than media that fact-checks itself and issues corrections

oh boy. I'm not even going to start in on this one. If you actually believe any of the "fact checks" done by your favourite news outlet, instead of going out and doing a lot of research from a bunch of different sources and viewing the full actual video of events in context, you're not getting the right picture; not even remotely the right picture.

We've never had a media that's more blatantly bias and unreliable than the one we have right now.

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

#618

Post by baddox »

djsumdog wrote: post #563
baddox wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have always been limitations on freedom of speech, including speech that incites violence. So your example, while deliberately hyperbolic (I don't think anyone would say that words literally murder people), has always been a normal thing.

> while deliberately hyperbolic It's not hyperbolic at all, or have you not seen the "Silence is Violence" rhetoric everywhere? It could literally come from Orwell's world of "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength" The book, The Coddling of the American Mind, does a great job of showing how the goalposts for what is and isn't violent have been moved considerably in the past few years in academic cir…

> It's not hyperbolic at all, or have you not seen the "Silence is Violence" rhetoric everywhere? It could literally come from Orwell's world of "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength"

I’m aware of the “silence is violence” slogan. It means that inaction in the face of injustice is tacit support for the status quo. It doesn’t literally mean, for example, that all people are being violent while they are sleeping, or that people who are unable to speak are being violent. I’m sure there are some people who use the slogan in preposterous ways, but that’s true of all slogans. You’re looking into this way more than necessary. There’s a pretty clear reasonable interpretation of the slogan if you’re willing to look for that interpretation in good faith.

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

#619

Post by josephcsible »

baddox wrote: post #536
valvar wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't get that logic. Of course, everyone agrees that hate speech is bad (and so are a lot of things, but I digress). But how is it not censorship when one of the world's most powerful companies does it? Do they get a free pass because they are governed by shareholders and make a lot of money? I can see how it's not censorship if Bob does not want people to post things he disagrees with on his cat picture fo…

Do you consider is censorship if a huge Internet/media company removes illegal content like child pornography, explicit calls to "imminent lawless action," phishing/fraud attempts, explicit misinformation (like false claims that an election date has been moved), or content that goes against their own community guidelines (pornography, violence, etc.)? Do you consider those things censorship or opposition to free spee…

You're mixing up two different things: sites removing illegal content because they're mandated to do so, and sites removing legal content because they choose to do so.

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

#620

Post by VLM »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #407
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one of the problems we have in Tech (as an industry and on social media) is to allow individuals who make poor and bad decisions to hide behind the collective of a company/organization. And we continue applauding them for their great work they do in areas that are removed from the political. But these days innovation acts as a shield where we let the innovators get away and reap praise as individuals (the inventors o…

The tech industry is a place where people generally prefer to talk things out rather than yelling and shaming. I think that's worth protecting, even if we see short term gains that might be available from defection. After all, once Google realizes the norms have changed, won't they be able to leverage their resources to find people who yell louder and shame more frequently than you?

The old days are gone.
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