5 ms·

It's important to have content-neutral browsers. Several days ago Mozilla indicated their support of the Internet censorship regime: https://blog.mozilla.org/bl

by beefee 6y ago

It's important to have content-neutral browsers. Several days ago Mozilla indicated their support of the Internet censorship regime: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-d...

meremortals 6y ago
+ 1 ProtonMail indicated potentially entering the browser space: https://twitter.com/ProtonMail/status/1347930110553419777 https://twitter.com/ProtonMail/status/1347930110553419777
ignoramous 6y ago
I re-read it twice, but I don't see anything in the blog post advocating censorship: > 1. Reveal who is paying for advertisements, how much they are paying and who is being targeted. > 2. Commit to meaningful transparency of platform algorithms so we know how and what content is being amplified, to whom, and the associated impact. > 3. Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation. > 4. Work with independent researchers to facilitate in-depth studies of the platforms’ impact on people and our societies, and what we can do to improve things. > These are actions the platforms can and should commit to today. The answer is not to do away with the internet, but to build a better one that can withstand and gird against these types of challenges. This is how we can begin to do that. I read the blog post as claiming that deplatforming / silencing isn't the answer. A lot more (outlined above) is required.
- brobdingnagians 6y ago
  Starting with the title "We need more than deplatforming". First claim is that deplatforming / silencing is great, but we need even more of the same. "more than just the temporary silencing or permanent removal of bad actors from social media platforms" And of course, they want to be part of determining who, exactly, is a bad actor.
  - cryptopia 6y ago
    They also claim that The New York Times and news outlets the NYT recommends represent "factual voices" that need to be amplified. I'm looking for alternatives after 24 years with Mozilla. I used to worry about their sinking market share. Now I celebrate it (2.66% if mobile browsers are included). Unfortunately most alternatives are based on Chromium, and Google is of course also not a neutral player. Still, there are some interesting browsers to be discovered. Opera has some really nice features now (like workspaces and a free VPN), but it's closed source and partially owned by a Chinese company. But it shows that innovation is still possible in the browser space.
    - rdmreader3319 6y ago
      I just ended 17 years of FF fidelity. I was already using Brave on mobile and sometimes on desktop. With the bookmark import tool and my password stored on Bitwarden, it takes a couple of minutes to have a comfy browsing environment. The only issue I see with Brave is Qwant is the default search engine. Qwant is heavily backed up from the French government and answer to censor request very easily, I have more trust in DDG for privacy & censorship.
      - valvar 6y ago
        I just installed Brave for Android, and for me Google was the default. It's very straightforward to change to Startpage or DDG, but much more worrying than the default engine is that it does not seem to be possible to add a custom search engine such as one using Searx! That's an absolute necessity in my opinion.
        rdmreader3319 6y ago
        You can set DDG in the settings, I'm using DDG on the Android version. It's also easy to choose it on the desktop version.
        valvar 6y ago
- rdmreader3319 6y ago
  Their only job is to display HTML as fast and optimized as possible, not to guide people how to browse the Internet and what to read.
  - cryptopia 6y ago
    They chose differently.
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    That ship sailed about 15 years ago when browsers started blocking popup ads by default.
- BenFeldman1930 6y ago
  Imagine Mozilla were actually producing TV sets. Then reread and reevaluate.
  - BHSPitMonkey 6y ago
    The post reads (to me) like calls for web sites and advertisers to implement these practices (like transparency in advertisers), not like features/changes that will ship in Firefox. I'll gladly change my tune, of course, when I see a patch land that blocks users from viewing certain content.
- skrowl 6y ago
  > 3. Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation. > 4. Work with independent researchers to facilitate in-depth studies of the platforms’ impact on people and our societies, and what we can do to improve things. I'll help you. These two are the overt censorship. When (often hyper-partisan like Snopes) fact checkers are the ones determining what you can see based on THEIR OWN interpretation of "hate speech" or "inciting violence" then that's censorship. Alternatively, if you don't want to see something on Twitter / Parler / Gab / etc, just don't follow that person instead of calling for them to be censored.
  - BHSPitMonkey 6y ago
    > When (often hyper-partisan like Snopes) fact checkers are the ones determining what you can see based on THEIR OWN interpretation of "hate speech" or "inciting violence" then that's censorship. This viewpoint is the culmination of years of hacking the Overton window. In any two-party environment where only _one_ party regularly _does_ proliferate bigotry and violent attitudes, any reasonable/neutral observer will appear to be a partisan for the opposition by default. To assume this wouldn't be the case wrongly assumes that ideas should naturally fall along a Normal distribution, with the most morally-correct views centered precisely at x=0 (bipartisan) along the left/right axis.
    - war1025 6y ago
      > In any two-party environment where only _one_ party regularly _does_ proliferate bigotry and violent attitudes Anyone who believes this is a true depiction of politics in the USA is willfully blind.
      - BHSPitMonkey 6y ago
        The probability of both factions promoting bigoted/violent attitudes at precisely the same rate is, well, impossible. Inevitably there will be a higher penetration of these ideas in one side or the other. I'm not making the claim that the balance is immutable (it's always changing), but at this moment (and for the past decade, at least) there is one side where those ideas are _far_ more widely seen as acceptable or encouraged.
- LanternLight83 6y ago
  I'm with you- I read Mozilla's statement in a well-intentioned light, and believe that they are still as much of a leader of internet freedoms as they've ever been. It's true that there's a complicated situation around censorship and moderation, and the national conversation turning to this area doesn't make the lines any clearer, but Mozilla certainly doesn't deserve the level of criticism I've observed in some forums for this statement. If you feel as sure as I do, and would like to support their cause, it's more effective to donate what you can to the Mozilla Foundation than to further engage with the narratives these threads imply.
  - war1025 6y ago
    I could agree with this view if the article was titled something like "Deplatforming is not the answer" When you are in a politically charged moment like we were when that post went live, a headline of "We need more than Deplatforming" is implicitly stating that the actions taken were correct and justified. That is obviously something a large portion of the country is going to disagree with. Ever since the ousting of Brendan Eich over his Prop 8 donations, right-leaning people have been a bit wary of Mozilla. Many of us still backed them because the ideas they claim to stand for seem noble. Blog posts like the one in question make it very hard not to feel like Mozilla's position is "we disagree with you and we don't want you around." If they don't want us as users, then maybe it's better we go elsewhere. Brave is a logical place for such people to look since it is run by Eich, which was where everything started.
- skynet-9000 6y ago
  > I read the blog post as claiming that deplatforming / silencing isn't the answer. A lot more (outlined above) is required. Those other things are also called for in the post, but the actual post title was "We need more than deplatforming" (emphasis added). In other words, mere deplatforming / silencing isn't enough, according to the post.
teddyh 6y ago
“Not supporting side A” is not “Supporting side B”.
sergiotapia 6y ago
Totally agree, I've told everyone I know to drop Firefox because of this.
guidovranken 6y ago
This was the final straw for me. I'm migrating to alternatives after a very long time with Firefox. I just can't trust the product of a wildly ideological organization which clearly has hangups about free speech and how users spend their time on the internet. (For some reason you never hear these people about Tor which undoubtedly has been conducive in many human rights violations). I've tried Brave and it looks and feels good. And the ability to donate to random Twitter users directly from the browser interface is a brilliant and innovative feature that I intend to start using.

by beefee 6y ago

meremortals 6y ago

+ 1 ProtonMail indicated potentially entering the browser space: https://twitter.com/ProtonMail/status/1347930110553419777 https://twitter.com/ProtonMail/status/1347930110553419777

ignoramous 6y ago

I re-read it twice, but I don't see anything in the blog post advocating censorship: > 1. Reveal who is paying for advertisements, how much they are paying and who is being targeted. > 2. Commit to meaningful transparency of platform algorithms so we know how and what content is being amplified, to whom, and the associated impact. > 3. Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation. > 4. Work with independent researchers to facilitate in-depth studies of the platforms’ impact on people and our societies, and what we can do to improve things. > These are actions the platforms can and should commit to today. The answer is not to do away with the internet, but to build a better one that can withstand and gird against these types of challenges. This is how we can begin to do that. I read the blog post as claiming that deplatforming / silencing isn't the answer. A lot more (outlined above) is required.

brobdingnagians 6y ago
Starting with the title "We need more than deplatforming". First claim is that deplatforming / silencing is great, but we need even more of the same. "more than just the temporary silencing or permanent removal of bad actors from social media platforms" And of course, they want to be part of determining who, exactly, is a bad actor.
- cryptopia 6y ago
  They also claim that The New York Times and news outlets the NYT recommends represent "factual voices" that need to be amplified. I'm looking for alternatives after 24 years with Mozilla. I used to worry about their sinking market share. Now I celebrate it (2.66% if mobile browsers are included). Unfortunately most alternatives are based on Chromium, and Google is of course also not a neutral player. Still, there are some interesting browsers to be discovered. Opera has some really nice features now (like workspaces and a free VPN), but it's closed source and partially owned by a Chinese company. But it shows that innovation is still possible in the browser space.
  - rdmreader3319 6y ago
    I just ended 17 years of FF fidelity. I was already using Brave on mobile and sometimes on desktop. With the bookmark import tool and my password stored on Bitwarden, it takes a couple of minutes to have a comfy browsing environment. The only issue I see with Brave is Qwant is the default search engine. Qwant is heavily backed up from the French government and answer to censor request very easily, I have more trust in DDG for privacy & censorship.
    - valvar 6y ago
      I just installed Brave for Android, and for me Google was the default. It's very straightforward to change to Startpage or DDG, but much more worrying than the default engine is that it does not seem to be possible to add a custom search engine such as one using Searx! That's an absolute necessity in my opinion.
      - rdmreader3319 6y ago
        You can set DDG in the settings, I'm using DDG on the Android version. It's also easy to choose it on the desktop version.
        valvar 6y ago
rdmreader3319 6y ago
Their only job is to display HTML as fast and optimized as possible, not to guide people how to browse the Internet and what to read.
- cryptopia 6y ago
  They chose differently.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  That ship sailed about 15 years ago when browsers started blocking popup ads by default.
BenFeldman1930 6y ago
Imagine Mozilla were actually producing TV sets. Then reread and reevaluate.
- BHSPitMonkey 6y ago
  The post reads (to me) like calls for web sites and advertisers to implement these practices (like transparency in advertisers), not like features/changes that will ship in Firefox. I'll gladly change my tune, of course, when I see a patch land that blocks users from viewing certain content.
skrowl 6y ago
> 3. Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation. > 4. Work with independent researchers to facilitate in-depth studies of the platforms’ impact on people and our societies, and what we can do to improve things. I'll help you. These two are the overt censorship. When (often hyper-partisan like Snopes) fact checkers are the ones determining what you can see based on THEIR OWN interpretation of "hate speech" or "inciting violence" then that's censorship. Alternatively, if you don't want to see something on Twitter / Parler / Gab / etc, just don't follow that person instead of calling for them to be censored.
- BHSPitMonkey 6y ago
  > When (often hyper-partisan like Snopes) fact checkers are the ones determining what you can see based on THEIR OWN interpretation of "hate speech" or "inciting violence" then that's censorship. This viewpoint is the culmination of years of hacking the Overton window. In any two-party environment where only _one_ party regularly _does_ proliferate bigotry and violent attitudes, any reasonable/neutral observer will appear to be a partisan for the opposition by default. To assume this wouldn't be the case wrongly assumes that ideas should naturally fall along a Normal distribution, with the most morally-correct views centered precisely at x=0 (bipartisan) along the left/right axis.
  - war1025 6y ago
    > In any two-party environment where only _one_ party regularly _does_ proliferate bigotry and violent attitudes Anyone who believes this is a true depiction of politics in the USA is willfully blind.
    - BHSPitMonkey 6y ago
      The probability of both factions promoting bigoted/violent attitudes at precisely the same rate is, well, impossible. Inevitably there will be a higher penetration of these ideas in one side or the other. I'm not making the claim that the balance is immutable (it's always changing), but at this moment (and for the past decade, at least) there is one side where those ideas are _far_ more widely seen as acceptable or encouraged.
LanternLight83 6y ago
I'm with you- I read Mozilla's statement in a well-intentioned light, and believe that they are still as much of a leader of internet freedoms as they've ever been. It's true that there's a complicated situation around censorship and moderation, and the national conversation turning to this area doesn't make the lines any clearer, but Mozilla certainly doesn't deserve the level of criticism I've observed in some forums for this statement. If you feel as sure as I do, and would like to support their cause, it's more effective to donate what you can to the Mozilla Foundation than to further engage with the narratives these threads imply.
- war1025 6y ago
  I could agree with this view if the article was titled something like "Deplatforming is not the answer" When you are in a politically charged moment like we were when that post went live, a headline of "We need more than Deplatforming" is implicitly stating that the actions taken were correct and justified. That is obviously something a large portion of the country is going to disagree with. Ever since the ousting of Brendan Eich over his Prop 8 donations, right-leaning people have been a bit wary of Mozilla. Many of us still backed them because the ideas they claim to stand for seem noble. Blog posts like the one in question make it very hard not to feel like Mozilla's position is "we disagree with you and we don't want you around." If they don't want us as users, then maybe it's better we go elsewhere. Brave is a logical place for such people to look since it is run by Eich, which was where everything started.
skynet-9000 6y ago
> I read the blog post as claiming that deplatforming / silencing isn't the answer. A lot more (outlined above) is required. Those other things are also called for in the post, but the actual post title was "We need more than deplatforming" (emphasis added). In other words, mere deplatforming / silencing isn't enough, according to the post.

teddyh 6y ago

“Not supporting side A” is not “Supporting side B”.

sergiotapia 6y ago

Totally agree, I've told everyone I know to drop Firefox because of this.

guidovranken 6y ago

This was the final straw for me. I'm migrating to alternatives after a very long time with Firefox. I just can't trust the product of a wildly ideological organization which clearly has hangups about free speech and how users spend their time on the internet. (For some reason you never hear these people about Tor which undoubtedly has been conducive in many human rights violations). I've tried Brave and it looks and feels good. And the ability to donate to random Twitter users directly from the browser interface is a brilliant and innovative feature that I intend to start using.