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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

#841

Post by skissane »

stale2002 wrote: post #597
skissane wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The First Amendment's guarantee of free speech is worded as an absolute, there are no exceptions in the text. However, no functioning society could allow unlimited free speech. There are many exceptions to the First Amendment – fraud, perjury, defamation, death threats, "shouting fire in a crowded theatre", speech in violation of privacy or duties of confidentiality, etc. I don't think the original authors of the Fir…

Countries in Europe have some pretty huge restictions on speech that go far behind things like making death threats and fraud illegal. Even the line that you quoted demonstrates this when it says things like "for the protection of morals". I really do not want the government infringing on speech rights, due to something as overly broad as "morals".

You object to one of the specific exceptions in ECHR Article 10, not to the idea of making the exceptions explicit. The point I was defending was that the exceptions should be explicit, not that the particular list of exceptions in the ECHR is the right list

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

#842

Post by joshuamorton »

kbenson wrote: post #788
dmix wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is forcing Google or their employees to write hate speech on a cake or an app though, that's a pretty massive difference in analogies. Nor are people asking for a free-for-all where Google can't delete any speech on their platforms. People were fine when they were deleting spam and had a limited content restriction policies against things like directly promoting violence or posting gore/cp and other obvious ti…

Both situations are really a matter of freedom of speech. Forget Google, does a person with a personal website that allows comments get to control what comments they want displayed on their site or not? Does that person get to choose what work they want to accept from a potential customer? Both situations boil down to freedom of speech. Both have extra, specific laws that deal with their situations. Without a well th…

There's a subtle distinction though: one is censoring based on the speech, and the other is censoring based on the speaker.

The cake example specifically is more subtle (legally), since there's an argument that the cake is custom. I think this gets very tricky legally, but on the broader point, it isn't hypocritical to say censorship based on concept is okay, but based on speaker is not.

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

#844

Post by nomdep »

m0zg wrote: post #694
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.

Twitter is literally a platform for hate speech right now, and people have been killed because of it. Will they be taking down Twitter?

I really hope they do.

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

#845

Post by joshuamorton »

djsumdog wrote: post #806
baddox wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That example is a crowd intimidating people with the intent to compel speech, of course, and they’re using the slogan “silence is violence.” But those are two different things. You could pick any slogan you want and have a mob recite it while intimidating people into agreeing. That’s not an indictment of the slogan.

That slogan specifically promotes this: https://twitter.com/KunkleFredrick/status/129834428507983872... and this https://twitter.com/rawsmedia/status/1298055028213678082 It's not just a slogan. That is the actual end result of such an ideology. Silence is not Violence. Silence is the opposite of violence. Silences is stopping, thinking, looking at all the evidence, carefully evaluating and coming up with a sound deci…

> This slogan says: "Be outraged immediately without knowing any real facts about the situation"

That doesn't follow.

But even if it did, it takes a special type of willful ignorance to be unaware of police violence at this point. And yes, willful ignorance is intentional support of the status quo.

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

#846

Post by verylittlemeat »

tpxl wrote: post #742
verylittlemeat wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You got it the wrong way around. If a lot of people consume a type of content, there are going to be people wanting to produce it for . To push the analogy to the extreme, consuming illegal pornography doesn't actually harm anyone, the production does, however the consumption drivers production, therefore the consumption does harm.

Yeah but we're not talking about "the knockout challenge" or destroying milk jugs in the supermarket. Most people don't murder for the lulz and they also enjoy not being in prison for decades. Despite the FUD pushed by popular media there aren't going to be that many people producing it for money/fame/kicks. The vast majority of gore on the internet is a product of security cameras or otherwise hidden cameras.

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

#847

Post by scarface74 »

mindslight wrote: post #246
scarface74 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can call of whatever you wish. But how did loading from any untrusted source work out for the average consumer for the last 30 years? Viruses, malware, ransomware, etc? Yes outside of the little HN/geek bubble, it’s way too easy for the average consumer to install malware on their computer. HN users have been whining about not being able to side load on iOS devices for years. What they really seem to want is to f…

You must get really tired after destroying straw men all day. 1. It worked out great by fostering tons of invention. 2. Untrusted code with sandboxing works well for the web/javascript ecosystem. 3. Yes "HN users" want the freedom to run software of their choice. Discussing a single aspect where one system is better is not some total endorsement of the whole system.

Regarding #3 Android gives you that choice. The open source community didn’t just complain about proprietary software they created something. Linux wasn’t easy to install along side Windows on PCs. But they made a product that some people wanted and advocated for their position until Linux is now the most widely used OS on phones and on servers - including Azure.

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

#848

Post by bccdee »

sfkdjf9j3j wrote: post #834
bccdee wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's necessarily anti-free-speech. The idea of free speech is that everyone should be able to express their opinions without being prosecuted for it, not that everyone is entitled to a platform for those opinions. You should be able to write an article about absolutely anything, but you're not entitled to put it in my newspaper. I of course agree that the mastodon ban is a bad move because it sets a dou…

I think what a lot commenters are saying is that within their conception of the bigger idea of free speech they do consider themselves entitled to have their thoughts distributed by established platforms. Or put more mildly, platforms like Google ought not ban people for their content because it's the right thing to do. But I don't see many people advocating for government intervention, not with specifics anyway.

I think that's kind of a strange take. Like, if you are entitled to put an article in my newspaper no matter what the article says, doesn't that unduly restrict my speech by forcing me to endorse your ideas by using my platform to distribute them?

If Google doesn't want to distribute your ideas, I think it's odd to say that that's wrong of them. I do think that it's a problem that they get to act as a gatekeeper like that in the first place. I think the solution is to break up larger platforms and create a diverse ecosystem of smaller options, not to forbid platforms from ever moderating their content.

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

#849

Post by hajimemash »

oehpr wrote: post #767
stusmall wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm not deeply versed in Gab's history... Maybe that's a sign you should pause. Sometimes it is okay to admit you don't know about a subject. It is okay to sit and listen instead of voicing an opinion.

Well... I mean really I was not trying to say Gab was innocent. I really didn't know until others provided some helpful context. I was speaking more to the original topic of this HN submission. I never know how to handle topic shifts in the conversation trees in Reddit, Hacker News, and others. Do you speak only to the comment you're responding to? Do you speak as if that comment is in the context of the submission?…

I found interesting your comment and subsequent replies to your comment.

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

#850

Post by scarface74 »

aequitas wrote: post #29
scarface74 wrote: post #16

Without getting into the details of this - yeah I disagree with it - but, Android allows side loading. Isn’t that what everyone wanted from Apple? On a higher level, what’s the problem and what should be changed? Google has a policy that people don’t like, Android can side load, isn’t that exactly what people want?

> This is particularly worrisome because for most people Google Play is the only way they understand to install apps at all. So this hurts discoverability and credability ("if it's not bad software, why isn't it allowed in the Google store like all the other apps?") of fediverse apps and networks.

You can’t both say that you want the main App Store, to be trustworthy and say that they shouldn’t have standards.
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