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Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

chaos.social

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Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#101

Post by [deleted] »

wffurr wrote: post #77
jorvi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still blows my mind that Mastodon was explicitly made to escape the 'dictator companies' of closed social networks but that many of the apps made for Mastodon contain blacklists. I don't agree with the content of said blacklisted Mastodon instances and I agree that developers can do whatever they want with their app, but blacklists seem painfully obviously against the spirit of what Mastodon is supposed to represe…

There's a joke (can't find the comic or article, darn you Google search) that says when you make a forum with "free speech" you get one civil libertarian and 99 trolls, neo nazis, child pornographers, etc. Moderation is essential for usable communities. These block lists are a form of moderation to make Mastodon useful. Otherwise it's pushed on to the user, many of whom will just nope out back to Reddit or Facebook,…

[deleted]

Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#102

Post by userbinator »

This brave new era of censorship is going to have some really horrible long-term effects that are not so apparent yet to its proponents. The echo-chambers and divisiveness will only get stronger as the edges slowly get squeezed out of the population.

"I don't agree with a word you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it."

Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#103

Post by solarkraft »

jeroenhd wrote: post #79
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #67

Tusky is still installed on my phone, though, so I guess Google hasn't decided to yank it off existing devices yet. Do they even have the capacity to do that? It would be quite irksome here, but I'd see it being useful in the case of apps that are found to contain malware.

They do have the capacity to uninstall apps remotely as far as I know, but I don't think they've ever used it. Perhaps the system triggers when Play Protect finds an obvious strain of malware, but in these cases the default is to remove the store listing and the available updates but leave the app on the device. Google showed their capability years ago ( https://www.tomsguide.com/us/Android-Google-Applications-And...…

> They do have the capacity to uninstall apps remotely as far as I know

As far as I know they have the capacity to do literally anything, since they have root rights on every phone with Play Services installed (which in most cases the user does not).

Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#104

Post by api »

_ea1k wrote: post #94
nargek wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not tolerating xenophobia, racism and bigots in general is a big point for a lot of people. The paradox of tolerance is something that many people should consider.

I'm not familiar with Gab, but was the app itself promoting that or just some content from users? If it is just users, why ban them and not browsers or anything that can access Facebook?

Gab’s purpose was to provide a home for fascists and racists when they were kicked off Twitter. The Pepe logo is a bit of a hint.

Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#105

Post by userbinator »

syshum wrote: post #68
thefounder wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just a matter of time

They will never bann chrome, but I am sure they wills start banning lesser known browsers that are not Chrome, Edge, and Firefox...

Thanks to the effective monopoly, anything other than those browsers are already quite unusable for app-sites.

Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#106

Post by bombcar »

chii wrote: post #52
matsemann wrote: post #32

Kinda ironic seeing Google Play's post today about " Boosting developer success on Google Play " [0] with quotes like " Helping developers build sustainable businesses ", except that your business can be gone at any moment based on the whim of some Google employee or automated algorithm. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26486737

The dangers of building on a platform that is unregulated. You wouldn't build your brick and mortar store on a contract that allowed the landlord to kick you out at a whim without compensation.

This can and does happen - but it’s usually limited to a locality (either the landlord or the local government) and you can move outside their jurisdiction relatively easily. It’s rarely a state or federal thing.

But here there is only two at the highest level - and nowhere to turn.

Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#107

Post by thepra »

jhugo wrote: post #58
swiley wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't sign up "for the app." The app speaks a standard protocol and you sign up on an external service (like qoto.org or mstdn.social.)

OK, so how do I know what the external service is doing with my personal information? And, separately, how do I know whether the app collects personal information itself (it's effectively in the transmission path between me and the external service) and where it transmits it if it does?

The app is on itself open source, normally it doesn't track users.

I'm also a hoster of my own fediverse instance and data is shared in the network only with the instances with which you interact, and the same thing is for me. And I don't have any privacy policy because I'm the only user in my instance.

Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#108

Post by cbradford »

skohan wrote: post #76
chii wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dangers of building on a platform that is unregulated. You wouldn't build your brick and mortar store on a contract that allowed the landlord to kick you out at a whim without compensation.

I think this is one of the great unsolved problems of our time. Apple, Google and Amazon (ok and Azure too I guess) are effectively gatekeepers in terms of what products are allowed to exist online. And during the pandemic this is especially relevant, because for a great many people online life is public life for all intents and purposes. I think almost everyone would agree that a handful of unaccountable corporation…

There is a framework for this that was created over 100 years ago when the same problem happened with railroads. They did they same thing and used their monopoly power to discriminate on who could ship goods by rail. Society said that was wrong and we have the idea of a common carrier that must treat all customers the same.

We should declare all app stores to be the same, common carries that may not discriminate. Bottom line, end of story. No BS about "hate speech" or other terms that are made up to make censorship sound more palatable.

Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#109

Post by pampa »

Kye wrote: post #80
pampa wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite zen koans is "Fire-poker Zen": "Hakuin used to tell his pupils about an old woman who had a teashop, praising her understanding of Zen. The pupils refused to believe what he told them and would go to the teashop to find out for themselves. Whenever the woman saw them coming she could tell at once whether they had come for tea or to look into her grasp of Zen. In the former case, she would serve the…

>> "It is a great metaphor. Nine out of ten applications of the tolerance paradox do not pass the fire poker test. One needs a certain level of enlightenment and maturity of judgement to apply it, otherwise it can turn into metooism, mob behavior and plain hypocrisy." You used a lot of words to make a mundane, unsupported assertion sound profound. Do you have any real examples?

>> You used a lot of words to make a mundane, unsupported assertion sound profound.

Well, that's the game, isn't it?

Btw, like some of your music. Do you have finished tracks online?

Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#110

Post by cbradford »

arnaudsm wrote: post #45

If they ban a client for the content it can access, why don't they ban web browsers entirely ? Google Chrome allows access to illegal and hateful content too.

They will do this. Firefox is starting with their extensions to block content that the devs are biased against.

Very soon only web browsers that censor to their bias will be allowed in the play store.

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