8 ms·

F-Droids statement on their ban of Gab

42 points by s9w 7y ago

s9w 7y ago
Gabs response: https://twitter.com/getongab/status/1151559127681916928 https://twitter.com/getongab/status/1151559127681916928
- majkinetor 7y ago
  > Fork you ! Thats hilarious :)
rvz 7y ago
> F-Droid is taking a political stance here. 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.
- a254613e 7y ago
  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.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    So you'd welcome restrictions on freedom of expression (a human right)?
- redder2 7y ago
  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.
- 0815test 7y ago
  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.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
phoe-krk 7y ago
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.
- Semaphor 7y ago
  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.
- SuperNinKenDo 7y ago
  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.
  - phoe-krk 7y ago
    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.
isakkeyten 7y ago
But they already have 4chan viewers and that's fine? lol
- zaarn 7y ago
  4chan isn't as bad as Gab and gets grandfather treatment in a lot of places.
- inawarminister 7y ago
  Four of them too from what I've seen, none of them banning /pol/.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Semaphor 7y ago
Can we get the title changed mods? Nothing seems to indicate F-Droid banned Gab. At least not in the linked article.
- SuperNinKenDo 7y ago
  >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. Pretty clearly a ban, whatever you think of it.
  - Semaphor 7y ago
    You are right, I missed that part. Seems it was a proactive ban for a not yet existing app?
    - BubuIIC 7y ago
      The app exists and is going to be banned from google play in the next few days. It wasn't yet submitted to F-Droid when this piece was published.
beshrkayali 7y ago
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.
- foota 7y ago
  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.
- phoe-krk 7y ago
  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.
  - beshrkayali 7y ago
    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.
redder2 7y ago
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.
- iamnotacrook 7y ago
  "F-droid should simply follow US law" Why would they want to do that? They're a uk-based company. Judging by your typing you're not a native English speaker either. So why pick the US?
  - rmtech 7y ago
jokowueu 7y ago
I don't know what to say I'm quite shocked that this happened .
mhd 7y ago
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.
- panpanna 7y ago
  Because this sort of stuff really triggers certain people.
  - mhd 7y ago
    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.
    - ScottFree 7y ago
      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.
      - panpanna 7y ago
        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" From https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/26/how-to-speak-silicon-valley-decoding-tech-bros-from-microdosing-to-privacy https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/26/how-to-speak...
jasonvorhe 7y ago
Their work, their infrastructure, their call. And a good one as well. Don't provide nazis with anything.
- inawarminister 7y ago
  Would you support the same thing done by, say, Christian bakers not providing a customer for religious-ideological reason?
  - lvturner 7y ago
    I'll bite - but first some caveats. 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.
    - kthejoker2 7y ago
      Even if that business receives public benefits (directly or otherwise)? 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.
      - beatgammit 7y ago
        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.
aaron695 7y ago
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" .....
Smithalicious 7y ago
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".
- majewsky 7y ago
  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.)
  - repolfx 7y ago
    That's a self-contradiction. 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.
    - majewsky 7y ago
      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.
gdhbcc 7y ago
What's a free f-droid alternative?
- majewsky 7y ago
  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.
- BubuIIC 7y ago
  The alternative is of course to host your own repo. These can be added to the f-droid client.
- beatgammit 7y ago
  I'm hoping the librem 5 goes well. I'm tired of Google and Fdroid, I just want to be able to pull up a shell and install whatever I want.
lwhalen 7y ago
I look forward to F-Droid banning Firefox as well as any and all web-browsers that don't implement a blocklist that perfectly matches their ideology.
- kuschku 7y ago
  F-Droid never bans apps like that – F-Droid also allows Fedilab and the FreeTusky clients which let you connect to gab. But just like F-Droid would never allow a Stormfront app, it won’t allow a Gab app.
eighthave 7y ago
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-nearby-without-internet.html 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.

42 points by s9w 7y ago

s9w 7y ago

Gabs response: https://twitter.com/getongab/status/1151559127681916928 https://twitter.com/getongab/status/1151559127681916928

majkinetor 7y ago
> Fork you ! Thats hilarious :)

rvz 7y ago

> F-Droid is taking a political stance here. 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.

a254613e 7y ago
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.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  So you'd welcome restrictions on freedom of expression (a human right)?
redder2 7y ago
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.
0815test 7y ago
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.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

phoe-krk 7y ago

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.

Semaphor 7y ago
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.
SuperNinKenDo 7y ago
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.
- phoe-krk 7y ago
  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.

isakkeyten 7y ago

But they already have 4chan viewers and that's fine? lol

zaarn 7y ago
4chan isn't as bad as Gab and gets grandfather treatment in a lot of places.
inawarminister 7y ago
Four of them too from what I've seen, none of them banning /pol/.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Semaphor 7y ago

Can we get the title changed mods? Nothing seems to indicate F-Droid banned Gab. At least not in the linked article.

SuperNinKenDo 7y ago
>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. Pretty clearly a ban, whatever you think of it.
- Semaphor 7y ago
  You are right, I missed that part. Seems it was a proactive ban for a not yet existing app?
  - BubuIIC 7y ago
    The app exists and is going to be banned from google play in the next few days. It wasn't yet submitted to F-Droid when this piece was published.

beshrkayali 7y ago

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.

foota 7y ago
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.
phoe-krk 7y ago
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.
- beshrkayali 7y ago
  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.

redder2 7y ago

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.

iamnotacrook 7y ago
"F-droid should simply follow US law" Why would they want to do that? They're a uk-based company. Judging by your typing you're not a native English speaker either. So why pick the US?
- rmtech 7y ago

jokowueu 7y ago

I don't know what to say I'm quite shocked that this happened .

mhd 7y ago

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.

panpanna 7y ago
Because this sort of stuff really triggers certain people.
- mhd 7y ago
  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.
  - ScottFree 7y ago
    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.
    - panpanna 7y ago
      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" From https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/26/how-to-speak-silicon-valley-decoding-tech-bros-from-microdosing-to-privacy https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/26/how-to-speak...

jasonvorhe 7y ago

Their work, their infrastructure, their call. And a good one as well. Don't provide nazis with anything.

inawarminister 7y ago
Would you support the same thing done by, say, Christian bakers not providing a customer for religious-ideological reason?
- lvturner 7y ago
  I'll bite - but first some caveats. 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.
  - kthejoker2 7y ago
    Even if that business receives public benefits (directly or otherwise)? 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.
    - beatgammit 7y ago
      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.

aaron695 7y ago

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" .....

Smithalicious 7y ago

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".

majewsky 7y ago
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.)
- repolfx 7y ago
  That's a self-contradiction. 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.
  - majewsky 7y ago
    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.

gdhbcc 7y ago

What's a free f-droid alternative?

majewsky 7y ago
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.
BubuIIC 7y ago
The alternative is of course to host your own repo. These can be added to the f-droid client.
beatgammit 7y ago
I'm hoping the librem 5 goes well. I'm tired of Google and Fdroid, I just want to be able to pull up a shell and install whatever I want.

lwhalen 7y ago

I look forward to F-Droid banning Firefox as well as any and all web-browsers that don't implement a blocklist that perfectly matches their ideology.

kuschku 7y ago
F-Droid never bans apps like that – F-Droid also allows Fedilab and the FreeTusky clients which let you connect to gab. But just like F-Droid would never allow a Stormfront app, it won’t allow a Gab app.

eighthave 7y ago

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-nearby-without-internet.html 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.