Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stop using app icons for political activism

blog.efitz.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 265 posts

Re: Stop using app icons for political activism

#91

Post by snowwrestler »

daenz wrote: post #28

I have been part of a dance/art community in a past life. There's a prevailing belief that "the personal is political"[0], which basically manifests as all things (art/products/etc) being unambiguously imbued with your politics, because politics doesn't end at the public sphere. This idea became mainstream at some point, and the result is that we must now signal what team we're on in everything we create. Abstaining…

Politicizing the person is something that happens to some people against their will.

For example people don’t choose to be gay, it just happens like being tall or having blue eyes. But in Florida there is a law now saying teachers can’t talk about gay people in school. Totally still fine to talk about tall people, though.

This is why “Pride Month” is a big deal but tall people month is not. Gay people didn’t choose to become “political.” But since they are subjected to that scrutiny, they of course want to stand up for themselves, and other people who value equality under the law want to stand up with them.

Re: Stop using app icons for political activism

#92

Post by aaomidi »

cato_the_elder wrote: post #90
aaomidi wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> I would actively not hire you if I saw that in your feeds fwiw I wouldn't hire you as well. Having a functional and meritocratic workplace is much more important to me than virtue signalling. Also, your comment is clearly a personal attack and against HN guidelines.

That was a royal you, not to the OP. the you is the fictional person in that example.

Re: Stop using app icons for political activism

#93

Post by barrysteve »

aaomidi wrote: post #88
marginalia_nu wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is my belief the software is serving the betterment of society if it offends the people who don't approve my activism ;-) When has ideological grandstanding ever been a successful strategy for convincing anyone of anything? Surely it would just further entrench the convictions of those who disagree with you, harming your own cause and helping theirs gain legitimacy in the eyes of those who are not convinced eith…

I disagree with this. Minds don’t changed based on one interaction. It changed based on your observations from the world. Pride logos and icons in companies have made it so you can’t “not think” of LGBT anymore for example. This is HUGE for a lot of people. I’ll give you a specific example, before pride no one in Iran dared speak about LGBT. Now it’s unavoidable when all the apps and services you use have a pride ver…

This just gives fuel to the Christian street preachers who complain about pride being shoved in their faces and being unable to opt-out.

To oversimplify and quote Obiwan, you were supposed to bring balance to the force, not destroy it.

There are some people you're never going to win over, and pushing them into a position of persecution is sadly a naive political move.

Re: Stop using app icons for political activism

#94

Post by culpable_pickle »

mwint wrote: post #72
rbanffy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this means less money for you. My morals are not for sale.

Great! While we can argue over whether not changing an app icon is immoral, it is your prerogative to make that trade off. Let’s just not pretend the tradeoff doesn’t exist.

> I remember it being considered a problem for the seller if a potential customer does not like offered product.

That doesn't sound like making a informed tradeoff, that sounds like the adage of "The customer is always right", which is a very different approach to business.

I highly doubt any company making a statement by changing their app icon hasn't considered the impact and I'm sure is actively watching metrics like uninstall metrics. And I'm sure given they're making the change they found it an acceptable trade off.

So in short, I don't really understand what you're point was trying to make, unless you disagree with my premise that the companies made an informed decision to modify their app icon?

Re: Stop using app icons for political activism

#95

Post by barrysteve »

Etheryte wrote: post #14

I'm always confused by statements like these. You can see similar dynamics playing out on artists' social media feeds for example, where people are upset when the artist talks about politics instead of their craft. Artists, developers, and everyone else is at the end of the day still a human being, not a machine that's there only to produce the content you want to consume. Getting a useful app for free (!) and then g…

It's not for free if you're being sold a political ad. No such thing as a free political lunch for developers.

Re: Stop using app icons for political activism

#96

Post by aaomidi »

barrysteve wrote: post #93
aaomidi wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with this. Minds don’t changed based on one interaction. It changed based on your observations from the world. Pride logos and icons in companies have made it so you can’t “not think” of LGBT anymore for example. This is HUGE for a lot of people. I’ll give you a specific example, before pride no one in Iran dared speak about LGBT. Now it’s unavoidable when all the apps and services you use have a pride ver…

This just gives fuel to the Christian street preachers who complain about pride being shoved in their faces and being unable to opt-out. To oversimplify and quote Obiwan, you were supposed to bring balance to the force, not destroy it. There are some people you're never going to win over, and pushing them into a position of persecution is sadly a naive political move.

I legitimately don’t care what the Christian preechers are complaining about.

They’re not the group I’m optimizing for, and their population is dropping YoY.

If the existence of a group of people is triggering them that much, then they can go disconnect and live in isolation or something.

No one here is, for example, calling out marriot for shoving bibles and Book of Mormon into my face.

Christianity is constantly shoved into my face with no ability to opt out. They can deal with pride flags.

Re: Stop using app icons for political activism

#97

Post by mikkergp »

dmkirwan wrote: post #31

The main question I have after reading this is: what 'bargain' is the author referring to? Apps change their logos all of the time, as is their right. The timing of this post is coincident with pride month, and many companies changing altering their logo to use the pride colors. I disagree with the suggestion that changing the color(s) of the logos and icons hinder the user's ability to find the app. A rainbow versio…

> I disagree with the suggestion that changing the color(s) of the logos and icons hinder the user's ability to find the app.

I actually disagree. There are lots of inputs my brain is using other than the specific logo when I'm quickly moving through my phone looking for a specific app, and this could totally throw me off. Often times I think to save energy my brain looks for a "low-rez" abstraction of what I'm looking for rather than one that is in full detail. That being said, with everyone requiring an app these days my phone is so overloaded I just search for everything.

Granted, I don't thing the original posters concerns have as much to do with accessibility, and if it takes me a little longer to find an app, so be it.

Re: Stop using app icons for political activism

#98

Post by barrysteve »

aaomidi wrote: post #96
barrysteve wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just gives fuel to the Christian street preachers who complain about pride being shoved in their faces and being unable to opt-out. To oversimplify and quote Obiwan, you were supposed to bring balance to the force, not destroy it. There are some people you're never going to win over, and pushing them into a position of persecution is sadly a naive political move.

I legitimately don’t care what the Christian preechers are complaining about. They’re not the group I’m optimizing for, and their population is dropping YoY. If the existence of a group of people is triggering them that much, then they can go disconnect and live in isolation or something. No one here is, for example, calling out marriot for shoving bibles and Book of Mormon into my face. Christianity is constantly sh…

This is the naive blindness.

There is acres of christian art and media that simply doesn't register for the populace. People scroll by Jude Law as the Young Pope on Netflix and ignore the methodist Christian substructure of star wars. People can be told via memes that ObiWan is like space jesus and it's like water off a duck's back.

Christianity doesn't oppress people, they can't even identify it, when it is infront of the open eyes. People naturally don't even know what it is, that they reject. Can't describe what a priest would even say.

Bibles in the marriot is a charity and mormons are debatably not christian at all. Joseph smith was not jesus, sorry.

But make no mistake we all know what pride is, what lgbtq people want legislated and exactly how it's going to affect us. Our choice be damned.

Re: Stop using app icons for political activism

#99

Post by mikkergp »

marcodiego wrote: post #6

In a certain way, Free Software is political activism. Disagree with something? Fork it. Not using FLOSS? Contribute to one by using, coding, donating money or trying to make it more popular. Can't or don't want to do that? How about stop complaining?

It is ironic that software development has been one of the most politically active activities in existence, and yet somehow imagined as apolitical.
Post reply on HN