> "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.
There is a difference between facebook/twitter that disallow those things, will remove them and app that when presented with those behaviours says that they are welcome. You know that.
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.
As you can see by the downvotes of your comment the crowd here o HN is already for censorship and full of silicon valley and other type of tech lefties who hate free speech and are very PC. This is not the first time I realized that. In fact I had already a account shadow-banned for daring not to have mainstream PC approved opinons. This one already has -6 Karma. I should actually go on Gab. I was never there but I am following it "from the outside" for a while and all the SJW stuff on Joe Rogan and elsewhere. To the point where I am actually not only annoyed by the fact that its going on but by the fact that these internet personalities I follow talking about how bad it is for like 3 years now and its only getting worse and worse.
The key word here is promote. Rightly or wrongly, F-Droid maintainers feel that the Gab application is not politically neutral, but rather explicitly promotes these broadly-undesirable things. Given the views that Gab developers have expressed in the past, they might have a point.
A lot of Gabfolk seem to want the freedom of speech while directly denying others' freedom to not listen to what they say. That's... a literal lack of consequence in their train of thought, to put it lightly.
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.
Yeah, from what I can see this is some controversy drummed up by Gab-supporters because F-Droid refuses to protect their feelings. At least nothing I can find online refutes that.
There's nothing about allowing Gab apps on F-Droid that denies anybody "the right not to hear something". Just don't install the app, and you won't see what people post on Gab.
The removal of Gab app from F-Droid is precisely exercising of the freedom of the right not to hear something.
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.
> Just don't install the app, and you won't see what people post on Gab.
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.
Gab, via their free speech and unwillingness to take down content in general, promotes content that is racist, misogynyst, antifeminist, islamophobic, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, classist, ableist, authoritariant, supremacist, and pretty much anti-intellectual. This is why I oppose that platform.
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.
> You cannot have both free speech and a code of conduct at the same time.
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.
Europe has a different free speech, the definitions and laws differ. Saying "Europe has no free speech" is only correct from a very US-centric PoV. In Europe, we have learned the danger that true free speech poses.
Free speech is a pretty easy and clear concept. Europe definitely does not fulfill that. Also "we" (I'm German) do not (all) like the extremely limited range of things we can say.
Free speech in Germany is not based on the same definition as free speech in the US. The constitution and the BGB/StGB outline fairly clearly what is and isn't illegal hate speech and what is free speech. You have a right to free speech but no right to hate speech, simple as that. Here Gab is in clear violation of NetzDG and Hatespeech Laws with no Provider Privilege. (I'm also German and I recently visited a law course for a semester at my Uni, so I'm familiar with the basics)
The only people that seem to really have an issue with our current hatespeech laws are the AfD fraction in the Bundestag.
I think free speech is usually seen in a non-national context in a sense of "you can say whatever you want. No exceptions". So Germany does not have that at all.
"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.
If "you can say whatever you want. No exceptions" is your definition of free speech it doesn't exist. ANYWHERE. Not even in the US. All speech in all countries has restrictions.
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.
I didn't say that ideal exists anywhere. The US certainly gets much closer than any European countries I know.
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.
I know plenty of people who critized the government for decisions around and after 2015, publicly even, and none of them were raided, sued, fined or jailed for it.
Maybe these people are actually in the groups and just employ the standard tactic of claiming to be a lone wolf when asked.
> I know plenty of people who critized the government for decisions around and after 2015, publicly even, and none of them were raided, sued, fined or jailed for it.
That doesn't mean that these things don't happen. Just one recent example:
Your first link goes to a blog that's operated by a known right-wing extremist who is part of the Neuen Rechten and the AfD. The second link is some youtuber doing something that is either extremely dumb or very right-wing and rightfully earned him a visit at the nearest courthouse.
You are free to find other sources, the facts remain the same. I can't talk about (these) political parties without being banned.
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.
I'm not afraid of right wing people, I just despite right wing extremists. I don't have to look for any sources, you have to convinve me if anything. People rightfully get just sentences for following a party focused on the very same politics that plunged Europe into a second world war.
So you do want to punish people for simply being the (democratically elected) political opposition, hence proving my point. I think I'll run the other way now.
The political opposition was not democratically elected. They were elected by the rules--well, modulo foreign interference by their handlers--but that doesn't make it democratic and doesn't make it right and only serves to underline the stranglehold a vocally threatening minority holds on the system.
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.
Everyone who claims the EU has free speech does not get it. Free speech does not exist in Europe! And for those fools who claim its the same as in the US and argue with hate Speech let me quote Wikipedia for you:
"The United States does not have hate speech laws, since American courts have repeatedly ruled that laws criminalizing hate speech violate the guarantee to freedom of speech contained in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution."
And this is why the US has the best laws for freedom of expression because hate speech is just a pathetic excuse to ban speech the people in power do not like. Its way to bread and gets abused all the time. That is why the EU has not free speech. You can not claim there is free speech when you at the same time ban everything that is deemed "hate speech" punishable by law!
Free speech with complex government-dictated rules is not a free speech, it's government-approved speech. The government can be very tolerant or very strict, but the very fact of control and the very possibility that the government can, if it wanted to, ban the speech it doesn't like, merely based on its content, is the absence of free speech. If I can tell you what to do anytime I want, and prevent you from doing something anytime I want, you are not free - even if I'm not ordering you around right now.
I feel you are missing the same point that the commenter I replied to.
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.
> You are applying a US-centric definition of "free"
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".
> The removal of Gab app from F-Droid is precisely exercising of the freedom of the right not to hear something.
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!!
> 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?
This! I am horrified by this kind of babysitting because it sure as hell backfires.
> If they were not okay with what Gab does, they would not stay there.
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.
It is more of a denial of service for Gab because they allow anything on their site instead of policing it like Hacker News here and having a code of conduct.
Gab went to Mastodon to be part of the federated universe but federated apps block their URL now.
The fediverse is not a platform but a set of protocols. Nobody can force you to federate with an instance any more than they should be coerced to listen to anyone's speech.
F-Droid isn't a platform either, you can run your own repository where free speech is priority if you want and offer your own version of F-Droid that comes with your repository compiled in as default.
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.
I have no problem calling it a ban, I just disagree that this is a restriction on your rights or anything since you can just go elsewhere where the ban isn't in effect to do what you want.
>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.
Banning Gab will only make it more "exciting" and increase its exclusive allure to those who seek something like this. I'm not sure I buy their reasoning (or Mastodon's for that matter). I think all of this is either just a way to avoid controversy (which is silly, but people would be more receptive to it, if they just came out and said that, without the virtue signaling); or it's just that they feel like they cannot argue against those faulty/evil ideologies (which is concerning). I feel like I'm stating the obvious here but racisim and racisit propaganda won't just go away if you ban it, quite the opposite, it'll fester and gain new grounds and people. Banning (especially from supposedly free software groups) is indirectly doing a service to their propaganda.
I think there's two sides to this, by leaving it in the store you cut out a feed of organic growth, at the cost of some publicity, I feel like the loss of growth from people getting it from the store is greater than the gain from publicity.
Yes, some people are unable to deal with the faulty/evil ideologies, simply because they run out of spoons. This is exactly why bans like this come into place.
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.
Gab users already have the audience/megaphone, aka "the means" to practice their free speech. I'm not saying that fdroid is not allowed to remove gab if they want to, but it's still going to indirectly benefit gab. Same as Alex Jones fiasco. Bans don't work. And if we've all collectively ran out of spoons like you say to argue against their weak propaganda, then we have a more severe problem on our hands than having gab on this store or that one. Just out of curiosity, have you seen what's on Gab? Faulty ideologies need to be discussed in the open.
I always admired fdroid for its rightfully so very strict requirements and warning about "features that promote nonfree" stuff ...
This is so horrible I can not believe this! They should actually be THE place where things like Gab should be thrive when other big political correct mega corps ban what they to not like for political reasons.
I am am following this Political correct BS for years and its getting worse every single day. Now the all so tolerant left has already infested the software world with their ideology that was once fighting for free speech but nowadays its he exact opposite. They fight for the censoring of everything that they deep offensive and that essentially is everything and everyone who is not political left leaning. They literally call everyone a Nazi nowadays who is not aligning their views with them.
And it get much worse. They call gay people, Jews ... Nazis. They Dox and harass people who dare to disagree with pumping up children with hormones for gender change or those who do not want to have late term abortions legalized ... . Yes there are always people who are bigots and who hate people for who they are but from what I see this is not the general consensus on the right. Also hate is legal! Mocking people and making fun of them is effective and also legal. And the US has the best laws in the world to prefect those freedoms to have a open discussion and free thought. But they are loosing the arguments of reason that is why they want everything censored. They cant stand it when people actually listen and think for themselves and form opinions based on that. F-droid should simply follow US law and not go beyond that, again places like that should the the perfect place to provide a counterpart to the mainstream spy and ad infested PC capital controlled censored hellholes of app-stores. Its all done under the disguise of protecting people, all they want is "protect" people form different opinions. Nobody forces anyone to go on Gab read what they say.
Sad day, really sad day. I am not really a smartphone person, believe it or not but I guess this concludes them getting a donation from me as long as this is in place.
I do not knew they where UK based. Why US law: Because like I said the US has the best laws in the world when it comes to freedom of speech, press ... in fact there is not other country that I know of that has "Freedom of Speech" defined like that in its constitution. They should move the HQ to the US then ;) For that reason that would be ideal. I love the concept of making everything legal to say because its leads to a more free society. But the US Government is working to destroy the constitution with all its power ever since. Brett Kavanaugh wrote a opinion on why he thinks the NSA spying on the world is within the constitution to name just one thing.
And yes I am not native English speaker. What gave it away? In Germany for example you not only go to jail here if you do not believe the holocaust (I for sure do) happened exactly like its in the history books, you go to jail if you question any single detail about it! In fact you are not allowed to try to make a case that includes "evidence" about it to make your case in court. A women went to jail for exactly that! I find that disgusting to jail people to believe in whatever BS or not they want to believe in. It starts WAY before "denial". Just maybe (I for sure to not believe it) there were some things that were not 100% correctly recorded. And we know the the winner always writes the history. So I do think its way healthier to have a open discussion about it instead of overreactions like that. They are ousted and punished in the court of public opinion anyway, jailing people for having the wrong opinions about things is exactly where the SJW PC crowd wants the world to move to and the perfect counter to that is US law!
And it may sound silly but I can see a resemblance with modern leftist ideology that you are not allowed to question parents who gender switch their kinds b4 they even know what sexuality is and extreme things like that that creep into the mainstream more and more. Or that a Steven Crowder is not allowed to earn money anymore on YT even though he did not brake any guidelines as they have admitted. He is not allowed to make fun of a gay and call him queer when he called himself that on twitter or whatever that was. While saying people should be milkshaked he campaigns of getting "Nazis" removed from the internet. These kind of people are now moving their bullshit into the software world. Or that you are not allowed to simply do not like gay people. Like I said I think hate is legal and modern life happens in social media so why crate new laws for it instead of making social media the public square that is already is and giving it the same law that the US has for a public square. If you have somebody expressing opinions you deem offensive on the streets you can not lawfully remove them, what the cops actually do is a different story and may lead to payouts later if the cops to unlawful arrests.
"the US has the best laws in the world when it comes to freedom of speech, press"
Some people do like to say stuff like that, don't they? There's actually precious little which can be written/published/broadcast in the USA which is prohibited is most other countries; certainly not western ones. I don't remember the last time a writer had to claim asylum in the USA from France or Portugal or the UK to get their ideas published. Sure, there are restrictions on denying the holocaust; libel laws differ from country to country.
"They should move the HQ to the US then ;) For that reason that would be ideal."
You think if f-droid moved to the US they'd suddenly want to be hate-speech enablers? How have you managed to read the linked-to page and do all that typing without comprehending that f-droid didn't pull access to that app because they live in an oppressive dictatorship where you have no freedom of speech, but because they decided it was the right thing to do?
"I don't remember the last time a writer had to claim asylum in the USA from France or Portugal or the UK to get their ideas published."
That's a rally bad argument because you would never happen to know any writer with opinions that are that controversial because someone wound never even get to be known. And also why does it has to be a writer?
"Sure, there are restrictions on denying the holocaust" You say that as ifs not a big deal because you do not get it. That is the entire point. In the US you can say and publish petty much everything that is opinion based as long as you not call for violence against someone. And if they are public persons you can even say pretty despicable things about them. Its actually pretty simple and nowhere else it is that way and clearly and simply definded straight to the point like that. That is why people like to say it because its true.
But social media is writing its own laws now and they hate freedom even fdroid now. Twitter based on some stupid UN SJW bullshit for example.
There is no Free Speech in Germany and elsewhere in supposedly "free" countries. And the UK is actually very horrible, total surveillance state prosecuting people for doing journalism ... it quite fits the Gap is from there but if pretty much could be anywhere. Tech is infested with SJW types. WordPress got already censored by them. Linux has some stupid code of conduct now when you have to cuddle everyone ... its clear that happens. We well see countries writing stuff into laws soon and then these laws will be used again the people who wanted them in when the next administration has its go with them. Would be fun to watch if not so fucking annoying to say "told you so" all the time.
I'm politically left leaning, and despite all of the following quotes from your rant, I don't think you're a Nazi.
They literally call everyone a Nazi nowadays who is not aligning their views with them
They call gay people, Jews ... Nazis
They Dox and harass people who dare to disagree with pumping up children with hormones for gender change or those who do not want to have late term abortions legalized
A lot of what you say strikes me as the stream-of-semi-consciousness rantings of someone only familiar with one side of an argument. There's disgusting behavior on both sides of the fence, and what you describe as the behavior of the entirety of "left leaning groups" is, in reality, only a very small percentage of people, and the same is true for "right leaning groups". And that's part of the problem of "open platforms" combined with "freedom of speech": a very small number of hateful bigoted types, or trolls wanting to portray that, end up being used as exemplary mascots for "the other side". It's a tactic the media have been using for years, to a less extreme degree, but "we, the people" need to be smarter about not falling for it.
"semi-consciousness" yeah I must be in some soft of fucking up metal state because I happen to have different options then you. What a good argument - NOT.
But you are right there is disgusting behavior on both sides, and it should be public ally viewable and arguable by everyone. But once side has their censorship and platforming machine and the other is helpless because tech is 99% left! If a extremely unfair fight.
After my entire life listing to leftists I became older and wiser and started listening to more right wing perspectives and I am very familiar with both sides of the arguments. I refuse to put a label on myself now because I guess I am of mixed opinions and might have to switch my label tomorrow.
What if boils down to me as the absolute most important issue no matter what "side" you are on is free speech. And its a absolute pathetic display that this is a right wing issue nowadays. They where the conservatives who are afraid of sex on TV and wanted to censor everything back in the day. The left rightfully so was progressive and of course for free speech. Its such a disgrace that so few people get it on the left. Jimmy Dore is one of those who actually gets it.
So will always be for free speech and if that makes me a Nazi nowadays then I guess I am one. One of my favorite quotes is: "I Disapprove of What You Say, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It"
They are free to join Gap and argue that Milkshaking people who they disagree with is cool, they can argue that violence against Nazis is cool there, they can post pictures of their transgender kinds there. Nobody is trying to censor them and I for sure know that these radical lefties are doing is highly offensive to me and other "Nazis".
And if you are cool with censoring people you are part if the RADICAL destructive and evil left, simple as that. You may disagree with other radical stuff they do but if you do not get free speech that you are lost and you make society worse. People always says Trump divides with things he twitters (not a fan at all, really) but what the left is doing with their censorship machine is in fact what decides. The right will for sure get more radicalized with this as well if they are pushed into some obscure corners of the internet and then you can not even access it from a "free software" appstore, what a pathetic display but they do not even see what they are doing. They are worse then any Trump like twitter account ever can be. And we all know if Trump would not be the president he would have been banned there years ago, probably right after the election if Hillary would have won.
I'm quite surprised by the rhetoric surrounding this, coming from a few posters. Much less Stallman-esque (or even ESR-ish) and closer to Gamergaters, /pols and other alt-right-adjacent folks.
Not surprised that certain people are outraged about this, more that there's a significant part of those people in the "free software" community. I thought that ESR is pretty much the end of the spectrum there and that the younger AnCaps don't care that much about GNU.
Most of the FSF are free speech advocates and always have been. Those who are defending gab now are merely showing that they have the integrity to stand by what they believe even though they find gab itself reprehensible.
Well, I don't support your version of free speech.
"free speech (ph): A constitutionally protected right in the US that is primarily invoked by tech bros and internet trolls when they are asked to stop being assholes. Syn: hate speech. See ideological diversity"
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.
Only if it's directly receiving government funds or dealing on behalf of the government should there be any restriction on whom they serve. Most businesses don't directly receive government funds.
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.
The baker can shun the gay couple, the Nazis can spend their time and angst declaring under a cover of "Free speech is a human right" that all other ethno-religious groups are sub-human and unworthy of rights, and a reasonable human can decide to shun them both as utterly ridiculous.
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.
Perhaps someday your own beliefs will be considered extreme, and you'll have no platform to voice your opinion. Freedom of speech comes without preconditions, whether you agree with it or not is irrelevant. Stifling any speech is far more dangerous than allowing all of it.
Old school web users must be gob smacked with these new rounds of supposed web activist sites that oppose free speech that they fought so hard for. People easily forget the attacks on the web during the 90's.
Points to F-Droid for not lying and being truthful, it makes them marginally better than most of the organisations.
"F-Droid is taking a political stance here."
"a website joined the fediverse only half a month ago that is well known to be a “free speech zone”, meaning it claims to tolerate all opinions. While in theory this might seem to be a good concept" .....
The message here seems clear: F-Droid is not a free platform. The software on it might be free software, but it is curated by F-Droid. If you wish to exercise your free speech, you should use another platform, since F-Droid can and will censor it.
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".
Exactly. Most people don't agree with the principle of "free speech without any asterisks". Die-hard free speech advocates are a fringe group (which is why they need to use a fringe service like Gab).
(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.
I've been called a lot of things, but totalitarian? That's a new one.
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.
Yes, asking more precise questions will give more nuanced answers. But that doesn't invalidate the vaguer statement - most people do support speech being much more free than restricted, especially in America. That matters: you can't say "ah ha, but sometimes when given extreme examples people have doubt, so banning speech is totally OK". That's not what they said when they were asked.
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.
Well, F-Droid already is the free alternative (to the Play Store). Maybe we'll see another FOSS app store pop up because of this, but I won't count on it. People may start their own app store projects, then quickly cave once they realize what a large undertaking they signed up for.
Any claims that F-Droid will ban, censor, etc. are wrong and based on misunderstandings. F-Droid will never block the ability to subscribe to any repo that the user wants to, or to install any app from all the included repos. So the user will always be able to get secure access to any software they want to use via any network or even thumb drives:
https://f-droid.org/2019/06/20/two-new-ways-to-get-apps-near...
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.
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