No, this is not a Freedom Zero violation. Refusing to distribute software is not equivalent to banning you from running that software as you wish - unless there's some vrmsPhone out there that only runs signed F-Droid packages. Refusing to peer with a particular Mastodon node is also not violating Freedom Zero - I mean, "do not connect to Gab" is a valid way to use the software and plenty of people do not want to talk with people who use Gab. Are we seriously saying that having a blocklist in an app is a Freedom Zero violation now?
Furthermore, not wanting to talk with someone is not, in and of itself, censorship. If this were Google or Facebook, then maybe you could argue that they have monopoly power, or that we should have some kind of common carrier regulation on them. But those are, at best, special cases justified by the outsize market power of FAANG companies. The argument being put forth by Reclaim The Net is that freedom of speech isn't about being able to speak to willing ears, but about forcing people to listen to you.
If User C's instance of the F-Droid server hosts a repository with Gab in it, and User D connects that repository to their F-Droid client, the client would be able to download and install Gab. This shows Freedom 0 in action.
That is a strong misunderstanding on your end, then. F-Droid is a free software client to a repository of free software apps, for people who prefer free software and maybe even contributing to the possibility of running free software only on your android phone.
It has nothing to do with being a home of rejected apps from the Play Store.
Censors are biased like everyone else. There are always extra casualties.
Facebook has literally been used to livestream rape and murder!
And your own source says Gab turned everything over to the FBI. What, exactly, is the fault here? Them not having a time machine?
Inaction in the face of injustice, means you are advocating for the status quo. E.g. the white moderate from Letter from Birmingham Jail.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union...
If there are other open source app stores that Wire is on, feel free to add those in a comment and/or a submission. Coming here just to hate on f-droid for a past decision does not seem productive to me.
While it is absolutely true that hate groups have been doing their darndest to infect Republicans and conservative Americans with their hatred, that does not legitimize their hatred, and it should never, ever be tolerated in a civilized society.
>[...] is not a legitimate "political viewpoint".
Can you apply this on the other side as well? eg. "believing that people don't deserve property rights (ie. communism) is not a legitimate 'political viewpoint'".
They absolutely should not be legally forbidden from speaking/publishing. There is no conflict with our first amendment rights. They need to be appropriately labeled, and platforms that promote them should be publicly shamed. Gab allowed, encouraged, and protected some of the most vile white supremacists on the internet. It is absolutely within F-Droid's rights (and IMO their moral obligation) to deny their app.
> F-Droid as a project soon celebrates its 9th birthday. In these 9 years, F-Droid’s mission was and is to create a place where people could download software they can trust – meaning only free, libre and open source software is available on its flagship repository. As a project, it tried to stay neutral all the time. But sometimes, staying neutral isn’t an option but instead will lead to the uprise of previously mentioned oppression and harassment against marginalized groups. We don’t want and won’t support that. F-Droid is taking a political stance 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. This includes that it won’t distribute an app that promotes the usage of previously mentioned website, by either its branding, its pre-filled instance domain or any other direct promotion. This also means F-Droid won’t allow oppression or harassment to happen at its communication channels, including its forum. In the past week, we failed to fulfill this goal on the forum, and we want to apologize for that.
Sad thing about free speech on the internet is that while i'm largely in favour of it mostly it does create breeding grounds for openly hostile and harmful opinions/people.
Given the lack of education in most of the world this is sadly utterly terrifying and i have no idea what to do about it.
IMHO, accounts need to have non-trivial value, to all users. Social pressure will do much of the rest.
The problem with Gab, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, even HN and such is that accounts are free and do not meaningfully increase in value with time and activity. This allows bad actors to thwart social pressure by simply switching accounts at their leisure.
It also doesn't help that there _usually_ exists few barriers to access to online communities; people tend to have a romantic view of being open and welcoming, and social networks have an incentive to keep access generally open as it increases user retention.
Ultimately, it's a problem that all pro-freedom platforms have to deal with: How much freedom should you give people to take away other people's freedom? When one group of people wants another to be less free, any action you take will result in a loss of freedom for someone.
This is the very purpose of law according to John Locke who heavily influenced America's founders. To John Locke, the way to maximize freedom for everyone was by establishing laws which restrict people's ability to remove others' freedoms.
Having platforms like F-Droid self-govern and establish rules to try and maximize freedoms in the world is a pretty interesting experiment and a great showcase of small government, and thus should be widely supported by conservatives :)
Most modern day "conservatives" are not in fact conservatives. They dont seek a return to or a preservation of any traditional value at this point and instead seek radical change into a new and uncertain future. They have largely abandoned conservatism and replaced it with something entirely more terrifying.
Speech control (Censorship) is used to remove 'independent thinking' as a state of mind.
The current view in US, Russia, UK, China, Canada, etc and most of other countries -- is that 'leadership', 'business leaders', and 'the scientists' -- know better.
Independent thinkers usually, not simultaneously fluent in economics, biology, geopolitics, financial services, etc. So when they question not just 'status quo' promoted by the 'leadership', but also the motives behind that -- they are labeled various bad names (eg. uneducated, backwards, etc..)
Gab exists for independents to share, develop, often change the position that one builds up questioning the authorities.
The authorities, of course, consider that a threat. And so does F-Droid.
F-Droid, therefore is not for freedom. It is for complacency.
I am Jewish, was an atheist just a year ago, now studying Torah, Talmud, etc. My background is mathematics (abstract algebra) and CS. Not observant (yet) – as I writing this on Shabbat.
My family escaped dictatorship before, and now I am seeing it is being built up here -- different words, of course, but same action as was done by Mao, Stalin, Hitler (label, suppress, exterminate (or suffocate economically as in case in UK/US/Canada) )
I visit gab quite often (well ... a couple of times a week, for me that's often).
Most of the posts, just like on HN -- I do not find intellectually stimulating. A lot of repetition, etc -- but for me, they key is to know that people have freedom of communication and expression. It is more important than if I agree with what they express.
I am also glad that Gab now have some politicians, and people who are running (in US politics) on there as well.
Doctors (with anti mRNA-mandate stance), like Robert Malone is there as well.
I also think that this un-reasonable boom in bitcoin valuation made a number of people rich enough -- to not go through the typical ladder of VC/financial services, high-paying jobs route.
Which means that we now have a number of millionaires who want to project their influence, their position on free speech -- who did not grow up in the 'status-quo' world. This is also a positive outcome of BTC (even though I missed the boat on crypto!)
I'm happy to hear that more people are finding value in religious texts.
However, like Gab, it has all the same “oppression and harassment”, or everything that F-Droid has quoted:
'Things like racism, sexism, verbal abuse, violent nationalist propaganda, discrimination against gender and sexual minorities, antisemitism and a lot more things become popular on such instances.'
Those same people that are on Gab are also on Telegram. So why have they not taken a 'political stance' against it or 'banned it' like they have banned Gab?
> Widely described as a haven for extremists including neo-Nazis, white supremacists, white nationalists, the alt-right, and QAnon conspiracy theorists
For one example of many, here he is decrying the evils 'Judeo-Bolshivism', a literal Goebbels era Nazi propaganda concept from the 1930s that somehow the Jews invented communism as a part of their master plan to control the world.
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/andrew-torba-deactivates-gab-...
So it doesn't seem like that unfair of a characterization to me.
"Haven for all sorts" is the "destiny" of any unmoderated communication platform.
No. That violates free speech and I'm not intellectually dishonest.
> uniquely by alt-right / fake news writers / neonazi / hateful people
How do you know?
Nobody goes to a FREE (as in beer) app repository for politics.
The maintainers should resign if they have any sort of moral compass (I'm not holding my breath)
At least we can all finally agree on where authoritarian censorship comes from -- the radical left. Why is that? Can't win any arguments?