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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

#681

Post by electrograv »

huntertwo wrote: post #247
croes wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unfortunately, it becomes virtually universal when a small set of massive companies (with similar censorship ideas) control 99% of all our communications and social media.

I think this evades the spirit of the legal protections here, at least.

Note: I'm not disagreeing with you, and don't really have a solution here. Just pointing out how the current situation feels like dangerous territory.

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

#682

Post by savingsPossible »

dependenttypes wrote: post #609
tasogare wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Which groups?

Does that matter?

If op is lying, he or she is lying.

But are some groups ok to threaten? Are some people ok to threaten?

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

#683

Post by dahfizz »

jwalgenbach wrote: post #402
kbenson wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that there's also a side that wants the opposite of that, to censor bad opinions, but not be able to refuse making a gay wedding cake. Hypocrites are not limited to specific groups, they're universal.

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…

> but it is disingenuous to claim that the two are the same thing under the law.

Have you ever heard the term "strawman"?

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

#684

Post by quanticle »

frank2 wrote: post #616
colordrops wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dec…

If that is true then that suggests that the efforts of the establishment to rein the big social media companies will prove largely ineffective with the result that Facebook, Google, etc, will probably join the New York Times, Harvard, etc, as part of the governing structure of the US.

That's exactly what "reining in" looks like. Instead of being an alternative to, e.g. the New York Times and opposing the next Iraq war, social media just becomes yet another rah-rah cheerleading mouthpiece of whatever opinion the "serious people" hold.

I don't know if you consider Chomsky to be a "serious person", but Manufacturing Consent does go into how the people actually in charge of the government (professional civil servants, corporate lobbyists, etc) manage to make it seem as if their opinions are infallibly correct and countervailing opinions are thinly veiled crankery. What social media did (at least in its early days) was give everyone the ability to manufacture consent at a scale that previously was only the domain of the large media corporations. The establishment media is obviously threatened by this and are working to ensure that the new media follows the same guidelines as the old, even if that means censorship.

Of course, that's not how the establishment media phrases it (and probably not even how they believe it). They see it as "protecting" the people from unsavory "Russian fake news". In reality, though, that's just a lie they tell themselves and tell us to justify their continued hold on the ability to decide which opinions can be held by "right-thinking people". If they were truly interested in "the marketplace of ideas", they wouldn't be pushing so hard to make platforms as centralized, controllable and censorship friendly as they are.

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

#685

Post by jakelazaroff »

thelean12 wrote: post #626
jakelazaroff wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No idea. Look it up if that would sway you.

I'm not defending these hypothetical Fediverse apps that don't moderate. I'm saying that compared to Fediverse apps exposing a few thousand people to hate speech, Facebook and Twitter actively promoting bigotry, propaganda and conspiracy theories to tens or hundreds of millions of people is far more harmful — even if they make a nominal effort to prevent it from happening.

And, more to the point, I'm alleging that the reason Google is taking down the Fediverse apps and not Facebook or Twitter has nothing to do with their moderation policies, and everything to do with money.

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

#686

Post by KillahBhyte »

jounker wrote: post #530
nybble41 wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And for good reason. It doesn't make sense to mandate equal time for mainstream and fringe positions, rational proposals and ones riddled with contradictions. Either some government censor is responsible for deciding which positions are "serious" enough to warrant equal time or the media eventually gets overwhelmed with nonsense and conspiracy theories. If you want to see where the "fairness doctrine" leads, just hav…

Evidence suggests that the fairness doctrine worked really well until we ended it. Until it’s elimination mass media news in the US was pretty middle of the road.

Was it truly that? What evidence?

Seems to me around the time that it was ended there were several other things going on.

The advent of cable news networks which gave a massive incentive to sensationalism and strong partisan ties as multiple players joined the space with a need to create a sustainable viewership.

Satellite feeds became common ensuring a single message instead of having a layer of abstraction in the form of a local or regional newscaster; instead of relaying facts, they can relay a highly opinionated version.

Local and independent news stations were being purchased and consolidated into national telecom companies with their own partisan editorial bends, a la Nexstar and Sinclair.

I have to believe that all of the above had a much greater influence on news discourse in the past few decades than the elimination of the fairness doctrine. Furthermore, if you give government the power to regulate anything; always expect the current party in power to use that regulation as a weapon. Can you imagine what our leaders would do given even more power to control and manipulate the media narrative? Ending this was a good decision.

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

#687

Post by [deleted] »

rektide wrote: post #524
avivo wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#688

Post by IronWolve »

jhardy54 wrote: post #28

Shouldn't this policy apply to all communication apps? Web, IRC, SMS, and even phone calls can connect you with a hate speech provider if you know the right address to dial. This sets a dangerous precedent and highlights why we should continue removing Google/etc as dependencies in our lives.

Like google mail marking all Trump/Whitehouse emails as spam, Comcast banning SMS from Republican fund raising.

All depends on who the companies consider a hate group.

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

#689

Post by andybak »

hinkley wrote: post #581
gowld wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never, because morality is not the same as religion. Morality is well established as a basis for law.

I opened this door, but I'm not gonna walk through it.

I don't understand your point.

Religion and morality are distinct and the rationale for the separation of church and state is because of the power that religion wields by virtue of it's structure. Look back to the religious conflicts that were raging and provided the background for these decisions.

As much as morality can share certain qualities with religion, there is a fairly clear distinction that's worth maintaining.

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

#690

Post by djsumdog »

avivo wrote: post #506
humanistbot wrote: post #47

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.

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…

Free Speech Extremist. Shitposters Club. No Agenda Social. Lets all love Lain.

There are ton of instances which much of the Fediverse blocks, but if you set up your own server and follow people on those instances, it's not 80% hate speech and racism as others would have you believe. Yes there is some of that, but there's also weebs, and anime and political discussion and weird gaming discussion and videos not posted anywhere else and memes and the great diversity of through we use to have on Reddit before it became a monoculture.

There are also straight up anarchist instances that justify violence and destruction of the state like Rage Love, Anticapitalist Party, and others.

It's a very big space, with new players entering and leaving every month.

Banning apps because they do or don't have block lists greatly misunderstands how the Fediverse works.

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