More censorship

Story: Public Statement on Neutrality of Free SoftwareTotal Replies: 9
Author Content
seatex

Jul 19, 2019
10:36 AM EDT
How great that censorship is so pervasive now, all accepted by those with thin skin who are easily offended - actually, many of them constantly looking to be offended.

With free speech, you have to deal with being offended. Today's precious snowflakes just can't handle that.
jdixon

Jul 19, 2019
6:22 PM EDT
> How great that censorship is so pervasive now

It's strange how so many who theoretically embrace the concept of free software have difficulty understanding that without real freedom, free software is mostly a useless toy. Or how quickly such censorship can be turned against Free Software for that matter.
mbaehrlxer

Jul 20, 2019
2:48 AM EDT
agreed. unfortunately there is also the other side. allowing apps like this one could turn into f-droid being shunned. unfortunately there is a lot of: 'the friend of my enemy is also my enemy' going around. so the f-droid maintainers are between a rock and a hard place. no matter what choice they make. someone will get angry.

however the way out of this is to make it more visible that people can actually add their own repositories to f-droid. and there are multiple repositories, so that the app ends up not being banned from the f-droid ecosystem altogether, but only from a particular repository, and you are welcome to add another repo where this app is still included.

greetings, eMBee.
jdixon

Jul 20, 2019
9:37 AM EDT
> so the f-droid maintainers are between a rock and a hard place. no matter what choice they make. someone will get angry.

Yep. So you do what you consider "right".

F-Droid has done so, as is their prerogative. My opinion is that their decision as to what's right is both wrong and short sighted, for the reasons stated above.
mbaehrlxer

Jul 20, 2019
10:36 PM EDT
yup, and i agree with you. so the next question is: how could this be solved to make everyone happy? is that even possible?

greetings, eMBee.
jdixon

Jul 21, 2019
11:00 AM EDT
> ...how could this be solved to make everyone happy? is that even possible?

Given the current political climate, I'm afraid it's not possible. Left wing and right wing biased repositories seem to be the only viable solution. The question is whether they can exist under the same umbrella organization. Events to date indicate the answer is probably no, for the reasons you mentioned.

Gab's stated free speech policy is fairly simple: If it's legal in the US, you can post it. As little as 30 years ago, that was the standard both the left and right used for free speech. That's no longer the case, and as a result Gab's policy is now verboten in much of the tech world.

This is a symptom of a much larger political divide in the US, and it portends problems far more serious for society than simply those being seen in free software. I don't see an easy solution.
mbaehrlxer

Jul 22, 2019
12:35 AM EDT
you are unfortunately absolutely right, in my opinion, especially about this being far more serious for society.

the real solution to this problem is to educate society, and to eliminate hate-speech and racism alltogether.

and my eliminate i don't mean outlaw, but to remove the reasons for it occurring.

the reasons are largely lack of understanding about other people, which is a form of lack of education. the idea that others are to blame for your issues. the idea that you are helpless to change your fate. etc...

these things can be addressed, and society is working on addressing them. in fact the current rejection of hate-speech is a part of this development. unfortunately the current proposals to solve the problem are not yet mature. (the tendency right now is to outlaw what we don't like, but that tool is way to blunt to be useful without causing more problems than it solves.)

greetings, eMBee.
jdixon

Jul 22, 2019
5:48 AM EDT
> the real solution to this problem is to educate society, and to eliminate hate-speech and racism alltogether.

I don't see that happening. People have a long history of hating each other. It doesn't even have to involve race. See Rwanda for just one example.
mbaehrlxer

Jul 22, 2019
8:58 AM EDT
well, first of all we need to agree that it is the right solution. if not, we need to agree to find the right solution. the then we can figure out how to achieve it. i am confident that we can achieve it if it is the goal we want and if we are united to work towards that goal. maybe not in my lifetime but maybe sometime in this century.

greetings, eMBee.
jdixon

Jul 22, 2019
10:22 AM EDT
> ...well, first of all we need to agree that it is the right solution.

Well, it hasn't worked so far, though an argument could be made that the effort has actually been sabotaged over the past several decades by various groups. But fighting human nature is probably a losing battle.

> if not, we need to agree to find the right solution.

Ah, there's the rub. There are probably several workable solutions to the problem. But getting people to agree on one is problematic, at best. Again, human nature.

> i am confident that we can achieve it if it is the goal we want and if we are united to work towards that goal.

Unfortunately, when a significant minority of the population is best served by the current status, it's hard to get them to agree to change it.

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