F-Droids statement on their ban of Gab
f-droid.org
f-droid.org
Very bad decision here.
> "F-Droid won’t tolerate oppression or harassment against marginalized groups. Because of this, it won’t package nor distribute apps that promote any of these things."
You might as well not package FLOSS (Free Libre Open Source Software) Facebook/Twitter/Mastodon clients because there are also bad actors on those platforms who harass others based on their religion, race, gender and other differences.
What is the point of totally banning them when they are just going to keep forking open-source projects. Doing this sort of censorship defeats the purpose of FLOSS and violates the first freedom on how a user should use their software as they wish for any purpose.
As a result, Gab is just going to exercise freedom 4.
Unfortunately nobody taking a stance will lead to that horrible behaviour increasing.
The argument "Because X and Y have similar technical implementations in what users can do" is irrelevant here, it's about the intent/goals/policies/how widespread it is.
I welcome anything that reduces hate speech that is officially accepted on some platforms. That is a real problem and one that needs to be dealt with in any way possible.
I for one am deciding now never to use F-Droid for anything important enough that it risks being censored. I do not use Gab myself, but I think such platforms are very important to a free society.
It is ridiculous to try to censor a free speech-centered platform because people say disagreeable things on there; that is the point! We can not have "free speech, but only if I agree with you".
(Side-note: Of course, you can probably come up with a poll where a majority of people respond that they support free speech, but you know how easy it is to skew polls. Asking for "Yes" or "No" does not make people consider the ramifications of their answer.)
You say most people don't agree with free speech, then you state if you ask people if they agree with it actually most will say yes, but that's meaningless because their opinion would be ill considered.
I think all this shows is you don't care what other people think. Either they agree with you in which case they're right, or they disagree in which case it doesn't matter because they aren't smart enough to have an opinion, indeed, it's not even worth asking them because you can get any answer you want. That is the hallmark of totalitarian thinking throughout time.
My point is that free-speech advocates use opinion polls as an argument, saying that a majority supports free speech. But this argument is misguided because when you actually talk to people and make them consider the ramifications of radically free speech (e.g. "Do you support the right of other people to call for you being murdered?"), their opinions usually become much more nuanced.
And by the way, I'm sure I can easily take that person prevaricating because they were given the "calling for you to be murdered" example and bring them back to supporting "radically" free speech. Just ask if they've ever said something like, "Damnit, I'm going to kill that guy!" when they got frustrated or upset. And if the answer is yes, point out that if they're against "other people calling for someone to be murdered" then they'd themselves be in prison. They'd object by saying something like, yes but of course I didn't really mean it, that isn't the same thing at all, and then you ask how anyone could tell and how sure they are they could defend themselves in court, if an enemy was claiming it should be taken seriously.
In the end the reason for "radical" protections for free speech are logical - the consequences of not having it are worse than the consequences for having it. Genuine mob-raising "let's murder this guy" speech is so incredibly rare compared to political suppression it's not worth worrying about.
Gab is free to speak everything they speak: yayyyyy that is the right way we are indestructible
F-Droid is free to remove their app: what the fuck do these <a paragraph of notmentionworthy stuff here> this is unlawful and illegal and mandates prison
And when it comes to "not all Gab people are like that": these Gab users don't seem to perform much action against the harassers that exist on that platform - contrary to many other places on the Internet, whose communities actually do something about the hate speech problem.
Gab is just like any other Fediverse client - with an important difference. To show it, let's use an example: for instance, Firefox doesn't brand itself with the logo of a company that abuses free speech to promote and benefit off hate speech. This is exactly what Gab does and - at least for me - which is the elephant in the room that hardly anyone talks about. Free speech, free speech, but why is Gab so proud of performing and/or tolerating gestures that actively harm other people?
Gab, as a company, focuses on monetizing hate speech that it propagates via free speech. That's what I called the abuse of free speech previously in the discussion.
Since Gab is a corporate instance and access is offered for free, then I am the product, even if I'm just a number in their user count; it means that if I join Gab, I help Gab in its goals, also in the one that I stated above. I do not want to do this, and I consider other people who stay there complicit or supportive of that behaviour. If they were not okay with what Gab does, they would not stay there.
False. Gab recently became Activity-Pub compatible by forking Mastodon code, so now either your Fediverse instance's administrator or you must ban what Gab people post.
So, obviously, you can see what Gab people say even without installing the app, which contradicts your implication.
If you love hate speech hiding behind "oh, but of free speech!" nothing forces you to use their store.
See, that argument goes both ways.
Anyone who writes a racist comment usually gets called out on it and called an idiot and mocked anyway on Gab.
You cannot have both free speech and a code of conduct at the same time. You either allow everything or censor and ban things to a degree.
Most of these racist comments are made by teenagers who think the N-word is funny and trolling people. So they post it over and over again.
Of course you can have free speech as a person and a code of conduct for your service. You are free to say anything, and your platform has a right to not want to hear or spread anything.
There's worlds of difference between hosting content and promoting content. The first is act of broad tolerance, the second is act of encouragement and agreement. This distinction is so important that the very first Amendment of US Constitution is based on it - the US government is obliged to tolerate any religion, but is explicitly forbidden to promote any.
> and your platform has a right to not want to hear or spread anything.
Once platform takes control over the right to hear, it ceases to be a neutral platform and becomes an editorial force. With private companies, it's usually not a problem - even if an unpopular opinion is suppressed and censored on one platform, it can be published on another. With growing monopolization of social networking, and with low-level infrastructure providers being slowly roped into facilitating censorship, this is becoming less and less true. And then we have to remind ourselves - why exactly do we have that First Amendment? If censorship is so good, why not let the government do it - after all, they are the ones that can do it best! Obviously, there are some bad downsides to it. We should remind ourselves from time to time what are those.
I mean it's just teenagers using the N word...
I feel I should point out that this is a point of view that's very popular in the US, but not universal. F-Droids' website makes me belive that they are somewhere in Europe, where the rules for "Free Speech" are different.
Also, I'm admittedly not familiar with the nuances of freedom of speech in the USA, but I would believe that your statement is not entirely correct in there either.
The only people that seem to really have an issue with our current hatespeech laws are the AfD fraction in the Bundestag.
"Hatespeech" on top of the "legal"/national definitions for what is sometimes also called free speech (but isn't at all) are just contraptions to censor people, usually the political opposition.
Does anywhere have that? The US certainly doesn't.
The US has slander, for example, which can certainly land you fines or jail time. Lying in certain circumstances too.
>are just contraptions to censor people, usually the political opposition.
Which political opposition is being censored in Germany that isn't just a reincarnation of the NPD/PEGIDA/MLPD? And please don't bring up anything that is a decision by a private entity, they can "censor" all they like and it wouldn't violate any free speech laws at all.
Many German citizens have been raided, sued, fined, jailed or otherwise silenced because they criticized the current government, in particular the political decisions since 2015. Many people are opposed to that. And most of them are not of the group you mentioned.
Maybe these people are actually in the groups and just employ the standard tactic of claiming to be a lone wolf when asked.
That doesn't mean that these things don't happen. Just one recent example:
https://www.einprozent.de/blog/meinungsfreiheit/friedlicher-...
or this:
https://www.vice.com/de/article/8xe7jg/kuchen-tv-volksverhet...
If you really think that the guy deserves an unjust sentence for being right-wing, then I'm afraid of people like you. That is exactly what this argument was about: Political opposition being silenced.
This is a recurring theme for the right wing in America. There's little reason to respect or trust their good intentions; fascists are an autoimmune disease of liberalism and they are demonstrating nearly every symptom.
You are applying a US-centric definition of "free", in which "freedom" means roughly "no one can tell me what I should or should't do". Under this definition, you are free because no one is forcing you to do anything.
However! Other countries apply a different definition of "free", meaning roughly "the most vulnerable members of our society cannot be truly free if we let those with the bigger clubs do whatever they want". Under this definition, curtailing the "freedom" of some increases the average "freedom" of society at large, and is therefore more free.
Both definitions have problems, and I feel plenty of discussions speak past each other because two people use the same word for two different things. I understand your point of view, but once it leads(like other commenter says) into "Europe doesn't have free speech" I get suspicious.
There's no other sensible definition of "free". Of course one can say word "free" and mean something having nothing to do with freedom, but that would be just an Orwellian perversion of language, not substantial discussion. Words are means of communicating ideas, and the only idea of freedom of speech that makes sense is one where government can not dictate what can and can not be spoken.
> Other countries apply a different definition of "free"
They are subverting the language in hopes that not talking about censorship would mean citizenship are not aware they they live under a censorious regime. However, whether you talk about it or not, the fact censorship is there and there is substantial and qualitative difference between having and not having government censorship of speech. Saying "we just have different definition of 'free'" is like alcoholic saying "I just have a different definition of 'sober'" - he can have any definition he wants, but that doesn't change the fact he's drunk.
> curtailing the "freedom" of some increases the average "freedom" of society at large, and is therefore more free
It's just sophistry, these word do not signify any real things or events behind them. There's no such thing as "freedom of society at large", not combined of freedoms of the people. Of course, you can talk about it - you can talk about anything, words are malleable - but these words would be just simulacrum, motivated reasoning, juggling words. You can say "freedom is slavery, the true freedom is embracing the state control of everything" - but these words are not defining the idea of freedom, they're just perverting the word for propaganda purposes.
> "Europe doesn't have free speech"
It doesn't, for most countries and virtually any sensible definition of "free speech" that does not hollow the term out to make it mean "whatever the state censorship wants to be spoken, can be spoken".
No - it's merely exercising the right F-Driod has as a private entity to exercise it's rightful freedom. However, no one strapped anyone to chair and force fed them Gab content. Unless one wanted to access Gab as an exercise of their free will, one wouldn't just stumble upon it, especially with the mass banning of it's federation by other vendors.
I respect F-Droid's right and decision to censor, but reject the hyperbole and demegaogary. A condemnation & guide on avoiding Gab would have sufficed, and furthered my respect for F-Droid.
And who is all this for anyways? Are the tech savvy software devs & power users who gravitate towards F-Droid incapable of avoiding a site they really don't want to visit?
What will they do about the 500M other domains on the internet? All accessible via F-Droid's browser apps!!
This! I am horrified by this kind of babysitting because it sure as hell backfires.
So, you're saying if I use Skype, I agree with everything Microsoft does, if I use Gmail or Chrome, I agree with everything Google does, and if I use Facebook, I agree with everything that company does? That seems to not match the reality in about 99.9999% cases.
Gab went to Mastodon to be part of the federated universe but federated apps block their URL now.
F-Droid too is just a set of protocols. The default app is open source as well and you're free to modify it if you want.
Some apps and some instances do that. I totally see the future when you will have more fedeverses that promote specific view on human rights.
Nobody is forced to deal with the kind of people who post and stay on Gab. The action that you see here is the direct effect of many, many people exercising their freedom of speech to say that they do not want to deal with the people who follow the brand of this software.
Gab has the right to speak freely; it does not have the right to a free audience and/or megaphone. The decision you see here is a direct consequence of them refusing to address the problem of hate speech festering on their platform.
But just like F-Droid would never allow a Stormfront app, it won’t allow a Gab app.
And a good one as well.
Don't provide nazis with anything.
I didn't follow the case and I'm only tangentially aware of it, I don't know who said what to whom and to how any of it is handled. I can't say with 100% certainty knowing the full explanation of the case that I would side with either the Christian bakers or the customer.
However though, it should be within a business owners right to deny someone access to a paid service or good on essentially any grounds.
Homosexuals pay taxes for streets and cops and electricity, under threat of violence.
Using those taxpayer services to then deny some taxpayers the same service you provide others is the functioeconomical equivalent of slavery.
For example, it should be illegal for a charter school to refuse to accept a gay student because they receive funding directly from the government. Same with a vehicle emissions test business that provides registrations. Or a hospital that has an emergency room.
Every business gets some amount of benefit from government services, but that isn't the same as it being funded by or operating in behalf of government.
If that reasonable human runs an open source app store, more power to them.
Intolerance of intolerance promotes tolerance, and F-Droid isn't the US government.
The main f-droid.org repo is a contributor-curated collection of apps, just like every other F-Droid repo, so it will never include every single app. This is not censorship, this is curation.
Pretty clearly a ban, whatever you think of it.
It wasn't yet submitted to F-Droid when this piece was published.
Thats hilarious :)