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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

#621

Post by verylittlemeat »

ptd wrote: post #607
verylittlemeat wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you give an example of such a community?

The highest profile one is /r/piracy. The illegal sharing part of the subreddit spawned a forum for good general piracy discussion. It was at serious risk of being deleted and had to go to extreme lengths to preserve the community that formed around the actual illegal sharing part.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvygwq/reddits-piracy-sub...

/r/datahoarders and /r/opendirectories are a couple other I personally have seen similar things happen. In my opinion they're a couple of the greatest subreddits out there so the fact that they could be banned out of nowhere on a technicality is a little concerning.

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

#622

Post by baddox »

josephcsible wrote: post #619
baddox wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not all of the examples I gave were illegal content.

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

#623

Post by mulmen »

benibela wrote: post #580
ziddoap wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not on Googles side here, but... As nice as your sentiment is, there are plenty of real problems which have to be addressed. Who defines, and what are the definitions of "Large" and "General Purpose" in this context? Am I allowed to moderate content as fits with my ToS at X number of users, but at X+1 users I become forced to publish all content which is "not otherwise illegal"? In regards to what is "not otherwi…

The courts decide what is a large platform. And they decide what is "not illegal" In Germany, there were actually cases where courts have ruled that facebook is not allowed to delete non illegal posts: https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Oberlandesgericht-Me... One big part of the argument of the judges was based on contracts. When a user makes a facebook account, it creates a contract between the user and facebo…

Why would we ask the courts to decide what is large? What if I don't like their answer? Surely this is a legislative question.

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

#624

Post by ptd »

verylittlemeat wrote: post #621
ptd wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example of such a community?

The highest profile one is /r/piracy. The illegal sharing part of the subreddit spawned a forum for good general piracy discussion. It was at serious risk of being deleted and had to go to extreme lengths to preserve the community that formed around the actual illegal sharing part. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvygwq/reddits-piracy-sub... /r/datahoarders and /r/opendirectories are a couple other I personally ha…

Interesting. Thanks for sharing. I suppose these are the results of the gap between technology and legislation.

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

#625

Post by pixxel »

Forbo wrote: post #135
twirlock wrote: post #73

I'm glad I degoogled. This kind of thing is why. It wasn't even hard after I got email switched over. If they didn't have a video monopoly, I would never have to use their stuff.

Not sure why this comment was dead, but I vouched for it. I've been slowly separating from Google for a while now for slightly different reasons, namely that I've grown increasingly distrustful of surveillance capitalism on the whole.

[flagged]

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

#626

Post by thelean12 »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #288
thelean12 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bad faith argument. Twitter and Facebook do a lot to take down hate speech from their platforms (with exceptions made for "public interest" cases like high level politicians). Some servers on the fediverse specifically allow unfettered hate speech.

No, it's bad faith to pretend that some random Fediverse server that allows unfettered hate speech has the same societal impact as the mountains of misinformation and bigotry that flourish on Twitter and Facebook, despite their half-hearted efforts to look like they're fighting it. Just look at the scale at which Facebook enables the distribution of right-wing propaganda: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/technology…

Have any of the Fediverse apps that were banned from the app store done anything to prevent the issues that you say Facebook and Twitter have? I'll take the simple banning of a harmful server on their app as a way to change my mind on this issue.

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

#627

Post by felipeko »

SkyBelow wrote: post #565
felipeko wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing intrinsically superior to either SCOTUS or any group or organization's interpretation. I'm pretty sure you are able to interpret it as not allowing even in the worst and most extreme cases, you just don't want to. There's no need for an argument from authority.

I'm not trying to claim any one group is authoritative. I'm saying that I'm not aware of any group, regardless of their level of authority, who uses an interpretation that includes the worst material. Everyone (that I'm aware of) makes an exception for at least one form of material, even the ACLU or similar organizations. Even the Libertarian party, one of the groups most in favor of limiting government, is not again…

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I am anarcho-capitalist, and I have no trouble being absolutist about freedom of speech inside one's own property.

So there's that.

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

#628

Post by dman »

raxxorrax wrote: post #447
dman wrote: post #431

How long before platforms start blocking websites using this logic? Or get rid of the web browser which suffers from this exact flaw? Disclaimer: Views expressed are my own and do not reflect my Employers position

When I was young I always asked myself for whom such a disclaimer is a necessity until I was confronted with a very real case of infinity.

:)

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

#629

Post by VLM »

rightbyte wrote: post #144
Barrin92 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It always starts like that. many places have cultures and also law that for decades has worked perfectly fine reigning in the very worst forms of hate speeech (say holocaust denial in my country) while not descending into a sort of activism that starts to get silly. There's no automatic mechanism that turns sensible rules into insensible ones, and it's also need not be the case with sensible hate speech rules. With…

Historic revisionism as an subgroup of hate speech is a prime example of slippery slope and moving of definition. I would add "fake news" to hate speech.

"Fake News" is merely the 7% of journalists who identify as Republicans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias_in_the_United_State...

The problem is the political spectrum of journalists is wildly biased compared to the average citizen. This also apparently shows up with censorship of phone apps.

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

#630

Post by monoideism »

I'm not sure what the end-game here is for Google, or for Apple, both of whom have recently been pretty openly flexing their monopoly power. There seem to be too many of these changes to be a coincidence, although that's obviously a possibility.

They seem rushed to establish some kind of precedent. Is there someone on Biden's team who is known to be a strong anti-monopolist, and this is in preparation for a administration change? I don't think Biden himself has ever had strong feelings here.

Or maybe someone at the Trump admin has pretty much given them a green light?

Rank speculation, all of what I wrote, but there seems to be a behavior pattern emerging recently among some of the most powerful tech companies.

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