
Google is apparently taking down all/most Fediverse apps from the Play Store - mynameismonkey
https://qoto.org/@freemo/104765288863293481
======
humanistbot
The rationale they gave is that hate speech appears on these apps, because
some of the microblogging sites that can be accessed via Fediverse have this
kind of content. Based on this rationale, I look forward to Google Play
removing Chrome, Firefox, and all other web browsers from the store as well.

~~~
avivo
This sort of decision by Google does make me rather uncomfortable (the entire
situation is uncomfortable...
[https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691957/mastodon-
decentr...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691957/mastodon-
decentralized-social-network-gab-migration-fediverse-app-blocking)). But it's
worth understanding why the situation may be a bit more complicated than is
described above. What seems to be happening is _not an absolute ban on
Fediverse apps_ , but a _ban on specific implementations_ that make it easy to
join _specific communities_ which encourage _hatred and real-world violence_.
Other implementations block these instances, and I believe are not banned.

Whether or not this is a good thing is a complex question. If you happen to be
the target of this hatred and violence, and feel it is an existential threat
to your livelihood, you might believe that it _is_ a good thing to make it
more difficult for those who are engaging in this behavior to enlarge their
communities. On the other hand, if you believe eliminating communities by
platform fiat is an existential threat to your livelihood, this may seem like
a very bad thing.

(You might also think it's hypocritical, since you can access most of these
communities via a browser. Google also controls the browser, and does make it
difficult already to access some sites [https://developers.google.com/safe-
browsing/v4](https://developers.google.com/safe-browsing/v4) . However, it
does seem to have a higher bar for browsers than for social apps (e.g.
malware, csam, iirc); some have suggested that there are legal reasons for
this, I'm curious to learn more on this, but I have not seen any
substantiation yet.)

~~~
rektide
This justification still implies Chrome & Firefox also ought be content aware
& be censorship machines.

This is grossly unacceptable. Apps need some safe harbor too. Apps can not be
responsible for every possible use of the app.

~~~
bubblicious
It's a lose-lose scenario for content providers. Lose if you censor
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19274406](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19274406)),
lose if you don't
([https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/artkmz/youtube_is_f...](https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/artkmz/youtube_is_facilitating_the_sexual_exploitation/egpmh9o/))

~~~
eptcyka
I think it's not apples to apples, one is censoring applications, the other is
not censoring videos.

------
mc32
It always starts like that. People agree to very sensible things. Like hate
speech is bad and it’s not censorship if it’s not mandated by the government.
Eventually the definition of hate or whatever it is that’s offensive is very
removed from the original meaning, and now we all bear the brunt of the
sensible people who with best intentions wanted to make things better.

~~~
valvar
I really don't get that logic. Of course, everyone agrees that hate speech is
bad (and so are a lot of things, but I digress). But how is it not censorship
when one of the world's most powerful companies does it? Do they get a free
pass because they are governed by shareholders and make a lot of money? I can
see how it's not censorship if Bob does not want people to post things he
disagrees with on his cat picture forum with 200 users. When a few massive
companies effectively control the possibility of reaching 95ish% of the
audience on the Internet, it's censorship in the very worst sense of the word,
and I don't see how it's possible to support it without being an unequivocal
opponent of free speech.

~~~
orclev
It's a question of what is meant by the term censorship. In the strictest
sense, moderation and censorship are very often the same thing. If for
instance, I post something terrible in a comment on here, and the
administration of HN deletes that comment, then that's censorship.

However, when most people talk about censorship they're using it not in the
strict sense, but rather as a shorthand for someone violating their first
amendment right. In this case this is really only a crime when it's a
government entity doing it, although people don't typically differentiate
between the government and any large organization, which technically are
legally allowed to censor you on their platform or property.

There's a larger discussion that needs to happen with regards to censorship.
There are two extremes at play here, on the one hand there's the absolute
freedom stance of literally nothing censored (only example I can think of for
this is maybe the dark web, but really everyone censors if only a little),
even shouting fire in a crowded theater or posting child pornography. On the
other extreme is the absolute censorship of someplace like China, where only
permitted thoughts and expressions can be posted. The US and most of the rest
of the world tends to fall somewhere in the middle.

The big struggle right now is that everyone has recognized that there's
clearly some kind of problem. We're seeing unprecedented levels of
misinformation, and a frankly weaponization of social media both for profit,
and for international politics. I don't know that anyone has a good solution
for how to address that problem, but the pendulum seems to be swinging towards
a more censorship focused response.

~~~
knolax
> other extreme is the absolute censorship of someplace like China, where only
> permitted thoughts and expressions can be posted. The US and most of the
> rest of the world tends to fall somewhere in the middle.

It's like other countries only exist as rhetorical devices for most of HN. If
you actually used the fediverse you'll see that there are plenty of Chinese
users on it criticizing the state. It's the Western fediverse users being
censored for wrongthink this time. Even the creator of Mastodon straight up
doesn't believe in free speech wrt. to certain far right beliefs.

------
daniel-s
A reminder that F-Droid [1] is a free software app store that can be used to
download free/open source software, including Mastodon clients.

[1] [https://f-droid.org/](https://f-droid.org/)

~~~
grahoho
A reminder that F-Droid banned Gab from their store.

[https://reclaimthenet.org/f-droid-bans-gab-
app/](https://reclaimthenet.org/f-droid-bans-gab-app/)

~~~
gilrain
A reminder that Gab is not a gray area edgecase, but a purpose-built platform
for conspiracies and hate speech.

~~~
oehpr
I'm not deeply versed in Gab's history... But lets hypothetically say that Gab
was not created for that purpose, but for precisely the purpose it claims it
was created for:

To be an open platform for free speech, no censorship.

Wouldn't it have ended up in the exact same state it is now? Any service that
guarantees no censorship is going to have the majority of its userbase be the
runoff from other major websites. When voat was created, I 100% believed that
they were not attempting to create extremist havens, but their userbase was
all the people expelled from reddit for targeted harassment campaigns.

I hate this dynamic. We need a way to break this cycle, because right now it's
actively killing competitors to existing social networks.

~~~
KirinDave
Gab bans people openly and credulously discussing marxism. I have experimented
with and experienced this directly. So, it fails my litmus test for "an
uncensored platform."

And it's a bit comical, because Gab as a community experience is much smaller
(in my perspective) from even weird sites like minds or funky social
blockchain plays. Why they felt the need to ban discusions of marxism or a
general strike is beyond me.

~~~
oehpr
Fair. By my own admission, I don't know much about gab.

I think the first time I ever heard about it was when Firefox banned Dissenter
from their addons. Dissenter to me was a genius idea that has an ugly
userbase. I'd love to have a version of Dissenter that isn't populated
entirely by bigots.

I think the idea of Dissenter really has some value, you walk along the web
for all sorts of reasons, and then up in the corner in your toolbar you see
"oh, someone from my community has said something about this". Rather than the
social network taking you to a site, the site takes you to the network.

~~~
input_sh
That by itself implies that every URL you visit has to be looked up to see if
there's a related discussion.

No way I'd trust any add-on/startup/mega corp to do that. I barely trust
Mozilla to keep my history on their servers, and that's only because they only
keep the last few months and purge older data.

~~~
oehpr
nope, you'd simply distribute a bloom filter to everyone, and then you could
transmit hashed urls.

you could easily make this privacy safe.

~~~
KirinDave
This wouldn't address a lot of metadata-related privacy concerns.

~~~
musingsole
How would it not?

~~~
KirinDave
Because you'd still know everyone who went to a specific site because they'd
be sending you unique hash. Even if you ignore that, you'd know what clusters
of people all use the same sites, how often and when.

~~~
oehpr
That was the intent of the bloom filter. Configured properly it would actively
filter out the need to endlessly send the server requests like "Hey, have
anything for this hash?"

However I suppose that if the site _does_ have comments, then you do have to
make requests to the server to get them...

Still, I believe you're being overly pessimistic here. I think there may be
some solutions to this. Maybe not perfect, but better. Lets say our social
network "Ascenter" has become corrupt and is looking blackmail its
participants. What about this?:

The design currently requires you to send a sha(URL+salt) to the server to
look up comments. This prevents Ascenter from directly knowing what site the
comments refer to, but the comments themselves will be a big clue. What if to
look at the comments you have to decrypt them using sha(URL+salt2)? Ascenter
will have no means to derive this key, it will only be able to determine how
many comments have being placed and how large they are. That improves things a
bit...

But Ascenter might be able to crawl the web to discover conversations.
Particularly for salacious sites if it's looking for blackmail. So... What if
the salts are the answer to that? If you had your own set of salts you could
use them to create your own private groups, Ascenter would have no way to
access that conversation. Or even figure out that they have occurred.

With the presence of public and private salts, what if the browser plugin
itself could be configured with a blacklist of sites not to send requests for?
You could still have private channel comments, but not public. I could see the
community per-generating a black list...

One last note I'd end on here is that the level of trust we are expecting
right now is a huge bar lower than the level of trust we give general social
networks

Consider what HackerNews could do if it went rogue like like Ascenter? To
blackmail you all they would need to do is go to one of your old comments,
rewrite it as something salacious, then blackmail you with it. Comments on
HackerNews arn't signed, and arn't encrypted. We're quite vulnerable to them.

edit: sorry for the long post. This was a bit of a stream of consciousness.

TL;DR: The bloom filter limits the risk, and I think there are cryptographic
solutions that reduce the level of user exposure to below that of current
social networks.

~~~
KirinDave
The bloom filter wouldn't stop you from confirming folks gathered around any
specific page that has content, and would have a fixed probability of leaking
data even if there was no data there.

And that ignores the problem that you're not going to be able to sync the
bloom filter in real time, so now you're going to need to have a very merge-
friendly design for these annotations.

No, I'm not being pessimistic. This is just a candid analysis of the
difficulties of doing this competently. If you'd like to do it _in_
competently, feel free.

------
0xUser
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse)
" The Fediverse (a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe") is the ensemble
of federated (i.e. interconnected) servers that are used for web publishing
(i.e. social networking, microblogging, blogging, or websites) and file
hosting, but which, while independently hosted, can communicate with each
other. On different servers (instances), users can create so-called
identities. These identities are able to communicate over the boundaries of
the instances because the software running on the servers supports one or more
communication protocols which follow an open standard. As an identity on the
fediverse, users are able to post text and other media, or to follow posts by
other identities. In some cases, users can even show or share data (video,
audio, text, and other files) publicly or to a selected group of identities
and allow other identities to edit other users' data (such as a calendar or an
address book)." (wiki)

~~~
nottorp
Well said. It's always funny when some acronym no one's heard of shows up
unexplained on HN.

~~~
bovermyer
Two things:

First, don't assume that just because you've never heard a word, that means
_no one_ has heard of it. There are quite a lot of us who know what the
fediverse is.

Second, and this is a little pedantic, fediverse is a portmanteau, not an
acronym.

~~~
system2
Well, I've been here for over 3 years and never even seen fidiverse once in
the news feed. Nor did use or needed.

~~~
bovermyer
And that's totally fine and a legitimate experience. Just be open to the idea
that that is _your_ experience, and not also the world's.

------
humanistbot
The rationale they gave is that hate speech appears on these apps, because
some of the microblogging sites that can be accessed via Fediverse have this
kind of content. Based on this rationale, I look forward to Google Play
removing Chrome, Firefox, and all other web browsers from the store as well.

~~~
ng12
Well, we asked for this. We demanded Twitter and FB censor their content, we
applauded Cloudflare* for deplatforming websites. Now those monopolies can use
the precedent to control more of the web.

~~~
bccdee
Asking a platform to moderate the content on its website isn't the same as
asking an app distributor to ban apps which could conceivably be used to
communicate objectionable ideas. Those are completely different.

------
amadeuspagel
There was a thread on twitter recently about how app stores would have
rejected the first web browser, asking what future innovations might not
happen due to them. Guess federated social media is a part of the answer.

~~~
jariel
The problem is the 'App Stores'.

Think of them as retail outlets, in a mall. Do you see shady stuff going on
there?

Would 'The Gap' sell porn to increase profits by 15%? Of course not. And for
obvious reasons.

We shouldn't think of 'App Stores' as some kind of truly open marketplaces,
any more than a shopping mall is.

What we need is just more independent means of distribution.

~~~
Sargos
These threads make it obvious that most people would be okay with malls being
the only place where shopping is allowed to happen.

"Our local mall is great, I don't see a need for any other malls or standalone
stores. Malls provide an air conditioned space, on-site site security, and
even refreshments while you shop."

I think it stems from a lack of empathy for others. I don't buy dildos so I
see no reason to allow dildo stores to exist.

~~~
jariel
I don't read it that way at all.

I think most people understand there are many places to buy stuff.

Shopping malls are 'one kind of place' and they have special rules.

I haven't set foot in a Mall in a few years literally, they can't be that
important.

------
john_moscow
For anyone else concerned with the recent Big Tech censorship, people are
actively building alternative social medial platforms and they are taking off.
The RedditAlternatives subreddit [0] provides a fairly good overview of them.
Some are rather extreme, others are more reasonable, but there are
alternatives, and it's up to us, the reasonable people, to choose where we
want to spend our time and money.

[0]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/hi97fz/...](https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/hi97fz/list_of_active_reddit_alternatives_v5/)

~~~
viro
When your content is too cancerous for Reddit ...maybe the issue isn't Reddit.

~~~
john_moscow
Well, I can tell you what's bugging me personally about this. There's a
growing divide in our society between the "equal opportunity" and "equal
outcome" camps. And while the "equal opportunity" people mostly have the "just
let me grill" attitude, "equal outcomers" are pushing increasingly harder,
while doing their best to silence any opposing voices. It's now getting to a
point where raising one's kids to be proud of their achievements, seek self-
improvement, and pick friends based on shared values, is considered sinful and
is being pushed back against.

As a person who was born in a country that tried implementing equal outcomes
for 70 years, and ended up with extreme corruption, poverty and social
distrust, I don't want to see another round of this happen here. So I am
hoping that if enough reasonable people acknowledge the problem, the society
will reach some sort of a compromise before the lives of several generations
are completely wasted, like they were in the USSR. And having platforms where
this sort of discussion is not considered "cancerous" is a very important step
IMHO.

~~~
failuser
Soviet Union was never about equal outcome. It was proclaimed, but worked
around in every way possible. Jews were limited in access to education, ex-
nobility was limited in rights, the party members were given all kinds of
preferential treatment and nomenklatura living in relative luxury while the
peasants were starving. Hey, even the city dwellers were privileged compared
to peasants who were tied to the land and required visas for inner travel. And
access to Moscow and its opportunities was tightly controlled.

~~~
john_moscow
>It was proclaimed, but worked around in every way possible.

It always does. Each time someone proclaims equity, they carve out some sort
of exception for themselves and their family. Like the mayor of Chicago that
mysteriously had heavy police presence around her home, while ordering them to
stand down everywhere else.

[0] [https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-
hall/2020/8/20/21377608/li...](https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-
hall/2020/8/20/21377608/lightfoot-police-home-security-protests-george-floyd-
pandemic-logan-square)

------
jakelazaroff
_> Holy crap, google is apparently taking down all/most fediverse apps from
google play on the grounds that that some servers in the fediverse engage in
hate speech._

Good thing you can't find any hate speech on Play Store–promoted corporate
behemoths Twitter and Facebook!

~~~
thelean12
This is a bad faith argument. Twitter and Facebook do a lot to take down hate
speech from their platforms (with exceptions made for "public interest" cases
like high level politicians).

Some servers on the fediverse specifically allow unfettered hate speech.

~~~
jakelazaroff
No, it's bad faith to pretend that some random Fediverse server that allows
unfettered hate speech has the same societal impact as the mountains of
misinformation and bigotry that flourish on Twitter and Facebook, despite
their half-hearted efforts to look like they're fighting it.

Just look at the scale at which Facebook enables the distribution of right-
wing propaganda: [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/technology/what-if-
facebo...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/technology/what-if-facebook-is-
the-real-silent-majority.html)

~~~
thelean12
Have any of the Fediverse apps that were banned from the app store done
_anything_ to prevent the issues that you say Facebook and Twitter have? I'll
take the simple banning of a harmful server on their app as a way to change my
mind on this issue.

~~~
djeiasbsbo
They have done exactly that multiple times. For example, the app Tusky has a
hardcoded list of hate-speech instances for which the login is blocked, to
just give you one example.

Other than that, the instances themselves simply choose not to federate with
questionable instances. This happens in an almost organic way where if an
instance refuses to block federation with another questionable instance, other
instances will then also refuse to federate with that instance.

The result is a network where hate-speech and undesirable content has been
almost organically filtered out.

But keep in mind that the (client) apps themselves are more like web browsers.
Anyone can host their own website and access its content through one of these
apps. This also means that instances which are blocked by an app can very
easily circumvent that as well.

(Sorry for my bad english and repeatedly using the word "instances")

~~~
thelean12
I asked about the apps that were banned from the play store. Tusky is still
available on play store. Maybe their hardcoded list of hate-speech instances
were enough for Google to keep them on the play store?

~~~
djeiasbsbo
Fedilab and Husky are still available in the play store too.

------
thomascgalvin
> Like hate speech is bad and it’s not censorship if it’s not mandated by the
> government.

To be fully accurate, this is absolutely _censorship_ , but it's not a
violation of anyone's First Amendment rights. People often conflate the two.

We can argue about whether or not Google should ban certain opinions on their
platform, or where the line should be drawn, but it is arguable that hey have
the legal right to do so. And the Federal Government, just as inarguably, does
_not_ have this right.

~~~
croes
That's a clever trick. Make the medium you want to censor a private property
than it's legal.

~~~
IntelMiner
And yet. There's a certain "side" that wants to have that both ways

Private companies can't censor "bad opinions"

But private companies can also arbitrarily refuse service for say, making a
"gay wedding cake"

How is this disconnect rationalized?

~~~
kbenson
It's worth noting that there's also a side that wants the opposite of that, to
censor bad opinions, but not be able to refuse making a gay wedding cake.

Hypocrites are not limited to specific groups, they're universal.

~~~
jwalgenbach
Yeah, not so much.

The difference is in the legal definition of protected class. It is illegal to
discriminate against someone based on their membership of a protected class --
ethnicity or disability for instance.

Removing an opinion or banning a user based on violation of an agreed upon
term of service is not the same thing. Having an opinion does not make you a
member of a protected class, and a private corporation is free to allow you or
disallow you from use of their services to broadcast that opinion. Newspapers
have been doing this since the dawn of print. Google could not, for example,
ban someone for being Jewish.

You can argue about whether sexual orientation deserves status as a protected
class, but it is disingenuous to claim that the two are the same thing under
the law. It is a false equivalency.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I feel that the goalposts here have been shot out into space and are orbiting
the barycenter where the point is.

Let's maybe spell out separately whether or not these two situations are
equivalent or not a) legally, b) ethically, c) in principle.

~~~
jwalgenbach
Fair enough.

a) As I stated in the argument about the difference between discrimination
against protected classes versus hosting content on a private server, I'd say
that legally, these are not equivalent.

b) Ethically is an interesting question. Since the ethics of denying someone
service based on their sexual orientation is largely viewed as reprehensible,
maybe a better question would be whether or not (freed from questions of
protected class) the baker would decorate a Nazi themed cake versus allowing
federated apps that are largely used for the dissemination of white
supremacist ideology to be hosted?

c) In principle, I'd say they are not equivalent for the following reason:
selling and decorating a cake is a business transaction between two entities.
The cake (decorated or not) ownership moves from producer to consumer. The
consumer is purchasing a physical cake. If the cake is ever made public, it is
at the behest of the purchasers of the cake, and any consequences of that
public display will be suffered by the purchaser. Essentially, the baker's
name is not on the cake, and no one needs to know.

Hosting apps or other contents affects the reputation of the hosting company,
and damages to their business reputation fall on it. Think about Facebook
being recognized as a conduit for foreign interference in U.S. elections, or
whether or not the New York Times will accept ad content from an adult video
company. The name on the masthead is the entity that suffers the damage first.

------
Lambdanaut
Not only are these apps web browsers of a subset of sites, other web browsers
on the Play Store already allow access to these sites in exactly the same
manner as the app, using the SAME PROTOCOL.

In respect to this move by Google, there are no differences between web
browsers and Mastodon browsers. The only difference is that if Google applies
their ban equally and fairly, they lose tremendous amounts of money by banning
all web browsers.

We shall see if Google follows it's own policy on this manner or if they are
descriminating based on what lines their pockets.

~~~
GoblinSlayer
Do Mastodon apps report your browsing preferences to google? If you browse
with chrome, google knows what you browse.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
There are plenty of web browsers on the Play Store that are not Chrome.

------
jhardy54
Shouldn't this policy apply to all communication apps? Web, IRC, SMS, and even
phone calls can connect you with a hate speech provider if you know the right
address to dial.

This sets a dangerous precedent and highlights why we should continue removing
Google/etc as dependencies in our lives.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Don't make the mistake of believing that systems run by human beings are
required to be logically consistent.

~~~
mindslight
Don't make the mistake of thinking we shouldn't demand that bureaucratic
systems follow logical rules just because they're run by human beings.

~~~
drummer
"Don't make the mistake of thinking" is where we are heading.

------
zelly
Richard Stallman was right. The computer (smartphone) for millions of people
has become a prison. The smartphone has been a tragedy for the human species.

"Oh it doesn't matter they went after people I disagree with"

Okay wise guy, what happens if the other side takes power? Think that's never
happened historically? Then they'll come after you and I. How about we just
not give this kind of power to anyone and let people make their own choices.

~~~
ehsankia
It has been shown time and time again that giving unrestricted uncensored
access to billions will lead to the worst ideas proliferating. Look at QAnon
and conspiracy theories running wild. Look anti-vaxxers and how America, one
of the most advanced countries in the world, is now having Measles outbreaks
after decades of having nearly 0 cases. Look at how simple things such as
wearing a mask has become a controversial topic.

Yes, everyone would obviously prefer a fully open and uncensored platform, but
the reality is that those are very easy for bad actors to take advantage of.
So many things on the web is disappearing thanks to these bad actors. Public
APIs are getting locked down, Catpchas everywhere, passwords and 2fa are
getting increasingly more complicated, and so on.

If you really think every platform should be 100% open, you live in an
idealistic universe that is not this one. The whole idea of "the solution to
bad speech is more speech" simply does not work. It just doesn't.

~~~
zelly
It's easy to blame all the flaws of human character on its most highly
available and proximate expression which is speech. There is violence, anger,
hatred, envy, all kinds of evils in the world, the world isn't perfect, man
isn't perfect, and trying to control others' thoughts isn't going to change
that. That would actually be regressing several hundreds years back to the
Dark Ages. If your assumption is that banning free speech would improve
things, I would say that is the idealistic fantasy. There's no proof that it
would work or wouldn't have the same unintended consequences as before. The
more these platforms push back against their users, the more they turn the
public against them, the more opportunities they create to be disrupted. In a
recent poll 3 out of 4 Americans said they were willing to die for free
speech.

~~~
ehsankia
> trying to control others' thoughts isn't going to change that

Controlling the spread of misinformation is not "controlling others thoughts".

> your assumption is that banning free speech would improve things

Banning specific content such as anti-vaxx is not "banning free speech". If
anything, let it go rampant on your platform is actually helping promote it.
Private platforms have no such obligation. It's like if I came to your house
and forced lies about you to your family, and when you threw me out, I claimed
that you were trying to ban my free speech.

------
crazygringo
The is the first I (as well as others here, apparently) had ever heard of the
"fediverse". Wikipedia [1] helps me out with what it is technically... but can
anyone _who knows_ describe what its content is actually like?

In terms of hate speech or illegal content... does that make up the vast
majority of fediverse content, in the way that pirated media makes up the vast
majority of torrents? (Even though torrents can also still be used for 100%
legitimate and legal purposes.)

Or is it like the dark web, which from what I understand is _mostly_ legal
content, but still hosts a _sizeable_ proportion of content for illegal
services and content?

Or is it more like what Reddit used to be, where it's 99% all for good and
fun, but with a tiny minority of super-hateful communities? (These days all
those super-hateful communities have been banned for a while, which is why I
mean the "old Reddit".)

Just trying to get a basic context here. Not looking for speculation, but the
impressions from people who actually use it...

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse)

~~~
weknowbetter
I use Mastodon to get away from the negativity and hate speech on Twitter and
Reddit.

In my experience, there has been a very minimal amount of hate speech on my
timeline.

The nature of the decentralized, federated system does allow hate groups to
easily gain a platform. However it's just as easy, if not easier to prevent
their instance from communicating with yours.

It's very much NOT like the torrent analogy you made and a lot more in line
with your Reddit analogy.

I would encourage you to go to
[https://mastodon.online](https://mastodon.online) and check it out!

------
throwaway189262
There's racist stuff all over Google's biggest properties. Racist results on
Google, videos on youtube, sites hosted on GCP. Give me a break with your fake
trashy virtue signalling Google.

This is nothing more than a monopoly stomping out a platform it doesn't like.
Probably because federation is a threat to Google's position as the central
hub of the internet.

~~~
linuxftw
Indeed. The real story is federated applications undermine their search
monopoly.

~~~
dageshi
I really doubt google cares about federated applications at all. I suspect
they're just trying to avoid a potential future shitstorm where they're
accused of facilitating something nasty because they "approved" apps to be on
the play store.

~~~
linuxftw
No, as others have said, you'd have to apply the same reasoning to a web
browser. Google dominates the web search, so there's no need to prevent other
browsers because it all drives Google's revenue anyway. Any app that allows
you to break out of the garden is banned.

~~~
dageshi
Viewed through the lens of "what will cause the most bad publicity" a browser
is understood by 90% of the population. The "fediverse" isn't. It can be spun
to cause damage in the way a browser cannot.

Google don't care about the federated stuff because it's not big enough to
bother them, in fact it probably siphons all the crap they'd rather not index
off to a place they no longer have to worry about.

They care about bad publicity and being seen to implicitly support "bad"
things via their app store.

~~~
linuxftw
> Google don't care about the federated stuff because it's not big enough to
> bother them,

It seems their using their position to ensure this remains true.

------
tinyhouse
On a related topic. I was trying to search videos from the Wisconsin shooting
of the 17 year old who shot and killed two people and injured one. Every video
I clicked on was already taken down due to offensive content. I found it
strange given that Youtube is full of videos of shooting incidents.

Now, I do understand the families of the victims may want the videos taking
down. But it seems to me the mob of people flagging these videos have a
different motive. This shows that trusting the community to flag offensive
content has its flaws. (although at Youtube's scale there's no alternative
really)

~~~
djsumdog
That's actually very disturbing considering the amount of misinformation over
this incident, and that they're charging that kid for murder!

Were you able to find the videos? They tell a pretty different story than the
media narrative. Every person he shoots attacked him or had a gun. He doesn't
shoot the kid behind them who had his hands up, or any other bystanders. He
then walks with his hands up and turns himself in to police.

It's still up on several alternative sites (BitChute and PeerTube instances)
along with some I can't mention here. I always use youtube-dl to download
YouTube videos, Tweets and Reddit videos for anything that's going on right
now; especially shootings. They get taken down pretty fast and it has a
chilling effect because people are only seeing the CNN/MSNBC/FOX versions that
are HEAVILY edited.

~~~
gerbal
It sounds a lot like you are deliberately seeking bias-confirming right wing
propaganda!

~~~
djsumdog
I want the truth. That's something all US media is failing to give us right
now.

~~~
gerbal
> I want the truth. That's something all US media is failing to give us right
> now.

What truth is this you are so deprived of? I presume you have some "real"
source of truth that's more reliable than media that fact-checks itself and
issues corrections?

~~~
djsumdog
> that's more reliable than media that fact-checks itself and issues
> corrections

oh boy. I'm not even going to start in on this one. If you actually believe
any of the "fact checks" done by your favourite news outlet, instead of going
out and doing a lot of research from a bunch of different sources and viewing
the full actual video of events in context, you're not getting the right
picture; not even remotely the right picture.

We've never had a media that's more blatantly bias and unreliable than the one
we have right now.

~~~
gerbal
So what is reliable media? What can be trusted? Who do you trust?

> We've never had a media that's more blatantly bias and unreliable than the
> one we have right now.

Can you provide a citation or evidence of this claim?

~~~
djsumdog
I would highly recommend you watch the 2019 documentary Hoaxed. You're
immediately going to dismiss it when you look it up because of the people in
it; which goes to show how bad current media bias is.

I don't think everything from the documentary should be taken at face value,
but it's still incredibly valuable in learning how the narrative has been so
insanely skewed today.

~~~
gerbal
I took a watch. Honestly, it's lazy and dumb. The siloing of modern social-
media justifies the behavior of Cernovic and his ilk? There is genuine
propaganda being actively promoted by malign actors in our media ecosystem,
but Cernovic tries to use this as an excuse for his malign promotion of
propaganda and misinformation.

That movie is by and for Mike Cernovic's existing audience. It was crowd
funded by his audience, produced by his production company, and promoted on
far-right websites where he contributes. The producers and directors appear to
be mostly info-wars style far-right propagandists. Event the glowing IMDB
reviews describe it as "preaching to the choir".

The project of Hoaxed is to create false equivalency between the misdeeds of
the larger media industry, and the specific business model of promoting far-
right misinformation that people like Cernovic engage in.

edit: I broadly agree with this guys take on the movie [1], which he expresses
at greater length and clarity than I am presently able.

[1] [https://lawrenceserewicz.wordpress.com/2020/04/16/initial-
re...](https://lawrenceserewicz.wordpress.com/2020/04/16/initial-review-or-
thoughts-on-the-documentary-hoaxed/)

------
zeta0134
Can't the same offending toots be viewed in Google Chrome? Just screenshot
their own browser with the same content they are reporting and ask when they
will turn the lens inward. Or, find similar content in Twitter, or Facebook,
etc. This sets a dangerous precedent.

------
CodeArtisan
There is probably more than what is being said here otherwise clients for
reddit or 4chan would have been removed a long time ago.

~~~
robrtsql
I don't think there is.

This happens all the time--recently, a podcast app was removed from the Play
Store because it could be used to listen to content which didn't meet Play
Store guidelines. The only way to fix it is to post about it and generate
enough outrage that Google hears about it and can undo the ban.

~~~
vorpalhex
When you say that's the only way to fix it, you are literally correct. There
is no real ticket or support mechanism, no appeals process, nothing. The
fastest way to raise an issue with Google is to email a journalist or hitup
your twitter followers.

~~~
benologist
Apps being rejected was a talking point for the anti-trust investigations for
Apple. I don't think Google is quite so famous for its rejections but they
were part of that investigation for other abuse, hopefully any changes that
come about will apply to them too.

[https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/26/antitrust-
investigation...](https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/26/antitrust-
investigation-apple-disturbing-behavior/)

------
oropolo
Using this rationale the Facebook and Twitter apps should be removed from the
Play Store as well: an abundance of hate speech can be found in/with those
apps.

------
mangatmodi
I would say Google should ban Google search, because it allows links to the
hate speech blogs.

Sarcasm aside, I think its one of the big tech moves to control free web.

------
the_other
As if their assault on the open web wasn't already painfully obvious.

------
arendtio
I think the problem is, that two things are getting mixed up.

First, there are content providers like Facebook or Youtube. Those platforms
store the content of their users and if the content can be publicized the
content providers have to apply their rules.

Second, there are software providers like the Play Store in its original
function, Apples App Store or Amazons App Store. Those platforms should not
care about content but just about software. If the software is malicious, ban
it. But they should not ban software because if the content you can reach with
it. That is the job if the distributing content providers.

That said, I am not a particular friend of censoring content at all. I just
accept, that some content providers have their own rules about which content
they accept and which content they don't want to support.

~~~
remram
"Content provider" usually refers to people making that content (e.g.
individual users of YouTube or Facebook). Maybe "platform" or "service
provider" is more appropriate?

------
obenn
This does highlight how important the relative freedom of Android is. This is
unfortunate but it does not stop the ability for people to load the APKs or
get them off of F-Droid.

That being said, imagine if this happened on the Apple App Store...

~~~
Sargos
It didn't happen on the App Store because Apple wouldn't have allowed it on in
the first place

~~~
obenn
There are currently several mastodon clients available on the App Store, like
Tootle and Amaroq. Hopeful that they stay up, we'll see.

------
dman
How long before platforms start blocking websites using this logic? Or get rid
of the web browser which suffers from this exact flaw?

Disclaimer: Views expressed are my own and do not reflect my Employers
position

~~~
raxxorrax
When I was young I always asked myself for whom such a disclaimer is a
necessity until I was confronted with a very real case of infinity.

~~~
dman
:)

------
cft
This is a hint that the next step maybe blocking certain websites in Chrome.

~~~
IncRnd
Chrome already blocks websites.

~~~
cft
For hate speech? I thought only for malware so far.

~~~
IncRnd
For the most part, yes I believe the blocking is for malware sites. The
current list I am aware: malware sites, deceptive sites, suspicious sites,
sites with possible harmful programs, sites that load scripts from
unauthenticated sources, sites that chrome believes were typed incorrectly.

I didn't intend to imply that chrome currently, intentionally blocks sites on
other criteria. However, the framework is already there.

History shows that the ego of people always takes over if left unchecked. When
it is possible to restrict something, that will eventually get restricted.
This is especially true when discussing large companies, such as Google.

I was agreeing with you and not correcting you :-)

------
swiley
“Curation is necessary and won’t result in censorship.”

Only free (free as in freedom and open source) software is ever acceptable.
Everything else eventually leads to Hell.

------
WesolyKubeczek
They should ban Gmail too, what if some asshole sends me a death threat via
email?

Wait, Gmail is made „by us” and not „by pesky them”. Gmail is sure ok.

~~~
sp332
Gmail does ban users for content though.

------
angio
My favorite app is Tusky and is still available from F-Droid [0]. I think
Tusky will be fine since they block Gab and so they won't be affected by this
ban.

[0]
[https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.keylesspalace.tusky/](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.keylesspalace.tusky/)

~~~
crocodiletears
Been looking for a good client. Can you disable the block on Gab? I know the
place is a cesspool, but I don't like the idea of missing content because an
app developer doesn't like an instance.

~~~
angio
There's Husky, a fork of Tusky that allows users connect to Gab.

~~~
crocodiletears
Thanks, that's good to know.

------
ggggtez
I've never used this service, but let's play along for a moment.

Let's say that 100% of the servers were bastions of hatespeech. It seems like
the folks in this thread would be _against_ banning it in that case. But I
think that's wrong. If the app was 100% just hatespeech sites, then it should
probably be banned.

Now, then we get to reality: What is the real mixture? 80%? 50%? 20%? I don't
have any background knowledge to make a guess. But I think it would not be
difficult to show that whatever percentage it is, it would be far greater than
say, what you can find on the average internet site.

Why do I say that? Because instead of going on Facebook, which is so easy that
over a billion people use it... you have to pick up an obscure piece of
software and run a server, or something. So the only people who are going to
pick this up are likely technophiles, and people who have been banned from
mainstream sites.

------
rootsudo
I had no idea of Fediverse, and now I do. Thanks, Google censorship!

------
ipnon
This was the first time in the history of Mastodon that a toot reached the
front page of Hacker News.
[https://mastodon.social/web/statuses/104768703650147309](https://mastodon.social/web/statuses/104768703650147309)

------
cft
This is a hint that the next step maybe blocking certain websites in Chrome.

~~~
tzfld
That will be the moment when Chrome drifts into it's slow death spiral.

------
Spivak
I think this is a good example of "you can't solve human problems with cute
tech workarounds" because I think Google is actually in the right here (given
you think their ban on hate speech is general is legitimate). It shouldn't
matter at all the technical details of how an app works or the fact that it's
federated or distributed. All that really matters to the policy is what a user
sees when they download and open the app.

And on that front I completely understand where Google is coming from. Because
the fediverse has a laissez faire attitude towards moderation (i.e. instance
owners don't really block much) much of what you see on the fediverse is stuff
that would get you banned on mainstream social networks [1]. And that content
is the default experience unlike a web browser/chat programs/communities where
you have to seek out that kind of content.

I expect that an app tied to a specific instance that put effort into
moderating their content and put up some safeguards against seeing content on
other instances by default with some popup like "content on other servers is
not vetted, are you sure?" would be allowed to stay.

[1] Which makes sense since these are some of the only havens for people who
can't make it on Twitter/FB/Reddit.

~~~
bccdee
The technical details do matter quite a bit though, because the same logic
could be used to ban (for instance) web browsers. Because the web is an open
protocol that can be used to communicate with any website, even objectionable
ones, every browser is an app that gives access to hatespeech content. Google
may ban the 8chan app, but they don't ban browsers despite browsers being able
to access the 8chan website.

Of course, Google won't ban the web, but only because it doesn't suit them to.
What we wind up with is Google having arbitrary control over which types of
communication protocols are allowed on Android with no need to justify their
decisions, because any protocol _could_ carry hatespeech, and that's pretty
concerning.

------
raydev
There’s not much to say on this subject anymore.

We desperately need a mobile general purpose computing platform that doesn’t
make side loading so onerous. Apple and Google are going to continue
pretending they aren’t selling general purpose computers and they may well
convince the regulators.

Consumers need to be able to choose an operating system that gives users full
control. I don’t want to be confined to a desktop or a laptop.

------
brownbat
I feel like there's a whole series of articles that could be filed under "Tech
industry decides aol really had the right model after all."

------
rchaud
Taking it outside of the walled garden should always be Step 1 for apps like
this. PWAs exist, and most users these days have seen the "Add to Home Screen"
prompt on websites. There is no reason for this to be a native app.

> This is particularly worrisome because for most people Google Play is the
> only way they understand to install apps at all.

I disagree. Users dependent on installing apps are the least likely to use
fediverse apps to begin with. I use F-Droid or download APKs from XDA, but I
have no idea how I would even get started with Mastodon or these other
decentralized apps. I frequently hear the term "start an instance of ___".

What does that mean? Can't I just create an account? When I hear "start an
instance", I think of launching a Linux droplet on Digital Ocean and setting
up an app there. I can't imagine what an average user that wants a Twitter
alternative would think.

~~~
seaish
You can of course run your own instance, but yes, you can also just make an
account. You need to decide which instance you're going to make it on, but
after that it's 100% the same as any other website.

------
justicezyx
I frequently visits 1 Chinese dota2 esports site. That's a small & independent
site with 10+ years history. A vibrant community with mostly young gamers on
dota2.

Naturally, a lot of these visitors often engage in dynamic discussions on
international relationships and domestic issues. Nothing too sensitive from my
perspective. And most of the time, people contribute personal experiences that
are quite valuable.

The site is frequently shutdown for a few weeks, probably once every 2-3
months. And sometimes it can be a long one, as long as a few months.

The reason is of cuz the site is engaged in "appropriate discussion".

I want this to be a cautionary tale that, despite different motivation, the
end results of these powerful entity, exert influence that is almost identify
in behaviors.

The good thing is that there is a process in US to correct the behaviors.
While as there is none in China. And we have to stand up to protect the
freedom.

------
eska
I'm sure all the people who were for taking down certain Fediverse apps for
hate speech from the F-droid app store won't have a problem with being taken
down from the Play Store on the same grounds, right? After all, one can still
download their apps somewhere else..

Serves you right.

------
de6u99er
It needs to be regulated first by law makers to prevent companies applying
arbitrary rules and discriminate clients based on subjective/someone's
personal preferences.

Countries like Austria and Germany have a law called Wiederbetätigungsgesetz
which prevents public display of neonationalistic symbolism or speech. I think
such a law would be a great starting point for a new law preventing hate
speech and discrimination based on ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual
orientation.

We can see a shift to the alt-right in the USA at the moment, where reasonable
people and certain ideas like universal healthcare are being labeled as
extreme left.

~~~
moduspol
We've survived 244 years as a country without government bureaucrats
regulating what is and isn't "hate speech." I don't think we need it now.

------
djsumdog
Some Fediverse apps have ban lists within them for certain instances. This has
been hugely controversial in Fediverse community, to the point where some apps
that fork apps with ban lists and republish them without those ban lists,
sometimes get removed from F-Droid!

You can't just keep banning Fediverse instances. It's like banning websites.
So what is this going to mean?

Approved instances. Here's a list of 200 instances ... get on our approved
list to be a part of the app. That list might grow to 3000, but if you're not
on it, your instance is not accessible.

That is where we're heading.

~~~
est31
> to the point where some apps that fork apps with ban lists and republish
> them without those ban lists, sometimes get removed from F-Droid!

Do you have links? The only example I could think of was Freetusky, which was
unmaintained while upstream Tusky itself got regular updates. That's what I'd
guess as reason for its quite recent archival:
[https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/commit/f9b7a9540f368f...](https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/commit/f9b7a9540f368f7cd4a85c574b1c1435beed299a)

Latest version is 8.0.7 while upstream Tusky's latest version is 12.1.

Back when it was new, the F-Droid devs actually defended Freetusky and didn't
follow demands for its removal.
[https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/issues/1736](https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/issues/1736)

I don't think that F-Droid should pander to people who don't care about FOSS
or maintaining software, no matter their views.

Disclaimer: F-Droid maintainer/contributor (but gotten inactive for unrelated
reasons).

Edit to add: note that another Tusky fork had been uploaded to F-Droid (Husky)
before Freetusky got removed.

------
neiman
I'm surprised they take it down. Why would they do that? Is the fediverse a
threat to Google? It's a super niche thing for the a small minority of people
who are not Google target users anyway.

~~~
thu2111
Because they don't consider people who disagree with their political views
legitimate, and wish to wipe them out via any means possible. The fact that
the fediverse is small is neither here nor there: indeed, starting by picking
off smaller players is a good way to establish a precedent and desensitise
employees, so the next round of shutting down bigger players doesn't seem so
bad. Boiling the frog, right in front of us.

As for why they do it, this essay may prove enlightening:

[https://quillette.com/2020/08/16/the-challenge-of-
marxism/](https://quillette.com/2020/08/16/the-challenge-of-marxism/)

------
ed25519FUUU
If we're going to play 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon with "hate speech" (a term
that's loosely defined, of course) then there simply isn't going to be any
internet left.

------
qzx_pierri
I really wish people would just ignore hate speech online like we've been
doing for forever. I'm so tired of Google & Twitter trying to be the "internet
police". It's so infuriating. The internet feels too "safe" now.

Obviously a "KKK Members" app in the app store is absolutely unacceptable, or
something overt like that, but to dig into the content of an otherwise
harmless app? Cmon, man. We're adults. Let us see what we want to see.

~~~
krapp
>Obviously a "KKK Members" app in the app store is absolutely unacceptable, or
something overt like that

Why? if you want the internet to feel less "safe" and for people to simply
ignore hate speech, why would this be unacceptable? It would certainly make
the internet feel less safe for a lot of people, but maybe you're not one of
those people, and those people can just ignore it as you said.

------
smonff
Wait? Isn't the Fediverse full of nazis, freeze-peachers and non-moderated
unsafe instances? Oh, yes!

There we are. When framapiaf.org, mamot.fr and other "free speech" and "anti-
censorship floss activists" will start to apply a proper moderation and clear
blocks of fascists instances and users, maybe Google would reconsider to
publish the Android clients on Google Play.

Those spaces are totally out of control and this is a part of the problem.

------
aftergibson
I use an Apple device and it’s decisions like this that make me glad of that,
however, it’s just the lesser of two evils right now. Both mobile platforms
are making scary decisions lately and my faith in them decreases daily.

I’m going to start supporting pine and any other open alternatives more. Pine
is the only mobile platform I’m even vaguely optimistic about.

~~~
ryukafalz
>I use an Apple device and it’s decisions like this that make me glad of that,
however, it’s just the lesser of two evils right now.

Be aware that while it's possible for Android users to download Fediverse apps
from an alternative app store like F-Droid instead, the same would not be
possible on an Apple device if Apple were to do the same.

------
devenblake
Meanwhile multiple 4chan clients are still up:
[https://play.google.com/store/search?q=4chan](https://play.google.com/store/search?q=4chan)

Maybe it's too soon to say but given the reputation of 4chan vs the small
user-group of fediverse I'd say these rules are being enforced selectively.

------
JeffreyFreeman
OP here, let me know if anyone has any questions I can help with, I'm the one
who made the post this is linking to.

------
mynameismonkey
Original post combined with this one, so just for completeness' sake here's
the original toot from the lead Mastodon dev @Gargron:
[https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/104763960269049818](https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/104763960269049818)

------
smonff
Middle size Mastodon instance moderator here.

When I see the amount of people registering with Gmail accounts on the
Fediverse when it is supposed to be a tech giants escape (Twitter here but
still) and then complaining and crying about a "Google Play ban", I am
laughing very very strong.

------
scarface74
Without getting into the details of this - yeah I disagree with it - but,
Android allows side loading. Isn’t that what everyone wanted from Apple?

On a higher level, what’s the problem and what should be changed? Google has a
policy that people don’t like, Android can side load, isn’t that exactly what
people want?

~~~
superkuh
Sorry to go off-topic, but the entire existence of the word 'side-loading' is
some 1984-level language manipulation. As if installing applications without
getting the permission of some abstract corporate owner is the _weird_ thing.
No, having to get permission is the weird way to install things.

~~~
chii
as a computer moves ever more towards a white-label appliance with a single
purpose, the act of "installing" becomes more and more alien. It sucks, but a
majority of the computer-using population cares not for it, and only want it
to work. Think washing machine - have you ever seen people want to install
apps into their washing machine?

~~~
1_person
If the singular fucking purpose of the washing machine was to run apps, I sure
as fuck would expect to see people wanting to install apps on their washing
machine.

~~~
scarface74
And Android doesn’t stop you from doing that - from anywhere you wish. So
what’s the problem?

------
chiefalchemist
I don't like this type of content. At all. But having Google or similar decide
for me is freightening. More so are the people who buy into the idea of Google
& Co being benevolent dictators.

Marginalizing ideas that breed on marginalization is to me a fool's errand.
Light the ultimate sanitizer.

------
DenisM
So did anyone build a twitter-over-bitcoin microblogging platform yet? That
would be pretty hard to censor.

~~~
BitwiseFool
I could see that backfiring pretty badly. Just think of all the politicians
who want to regulate (or even try to ban citizens from using Bitcoin) being
able to say it's chock full of 'Hate Speech'.

~~~
DenisM
It's hard to ban at this point - they could limit cashing out options, but the
blockchain itself will live on as long as there are _some_ places in the world
where you can cash out.

~~~
BitwiseFool
I take the stance that the government can't actually ban or regulate Bitcoin -
In the sense of changing the protocol or shutting it down. However the
government can absolutely regulate my use of it as a citizen.

------
IronWolve
Wouldnt this be the same as banning web browsers because you can goto hate
sites? Ban irc clients because you can connect to evil irc servers? Ban email
clients because you can email to hate domains? Its up to the user to configure
and connect to a server in a open client.

------
HumblyTossed
I don't like hate speech. But the only thing that worries me more than the
fact that there are so many people filled with so much hate is not allowing
that to be out in the open where society can address it.

------
sriram_sun
Pretty soon Google is going to yank YouTube out of their App Store as well.

------
sriku
Is it hard for Google to blacklist these questionable domains and block them
at the Android level instead? .. if the claimed issue is really a concern.
That way browsers will also benefit from it.

------
transfire
Please outlaw paper. People have written many terrible things on it.

------
holidayacct
This doesn't seem like a complete story or any kind of rationale for taking
down apps, if you have a problem with hate speech you should probably get off
the internet.

~~~
lucb1e
> if you have a problem with hate speech you should probably get off the
> internet.

The internet, yes, as one cohesive whole. There aren't safe places, adult
content can't be hidden from kids so let's not let kids use google until
they're _at least_ 18, maybe 21, and hate speech is something we see
continuously everywhere...

I think you're overreacting.

------
monoideism
I'm not sure what the end-game here is for Google, or for Apple, both of whom
have recently been pretty openly flexing their monopoly power. There seem to
be too many of these changes to be a coincidence, although that's obviously a
possibility.

They seem rushed to establish some kind of precedent. Is there someone on
Biden's team who is known to be a strong anti-monopolist, and this is in
preparation for a administration change? I don't think Biden himself has ever
had strong feelings here.

Or maybe someone at the Trump admin has pretty much given them a green light?

Rank speculation, all of what I wrote, but there seems to be a behavior
pattern emerging recently among some of the most powerful tech companies.

~~~
logicchains
>I'm not sure what the end-game here is for Google, or for Apple, both of whom
have recently been pretty openly flexing their monopoly power. There seem to
be too many of these changes to be a coincidence, although that's obviously a
possibility.

For Google, seems like it's because there's an election in a few months and
Google's doing whatever it can to stop Trump winning again.

------
spamizbad
Okay, so take down twitter, reddit, and facebook too?

------
jasonv
Justification for "all/most" in submission?

Any confirmation of the broad speculation in this thread and the the linked
thread..?

~~~
mynameismonkey
For the record, two submissions were combined, the title is not mine.

------
werber
I hope I’m being reactionary, but this feels like the possibility of leaving
the walled garden is basically null

------
spiznnx
I think censorship of hate speech is good, but doing so through the play store
is a terrible idea. This will just promote more side loading which is not good
for the security of android as a platform.

The play store needs to be fairly permissive in terms of content, so that
people keep their phones secure. The primary purpose of app review needs to be
security and quality, not censorship and rent-seeking.

------
pkilgore
Just the free markets at work nothing to see here!

Its not like we have a MONOPOLY problem in tech!

The markets will just sort it out.

------
notananthem
Top comments in that article are one of the most well known hate speech sites
is hosted therein.

------
zeveb
When I opened up YT Music today, almost the entire scree was taken up by a
link to a political playlist. I don't want to participate in politics — I just
want to listen to some background music while I work. Why is Googling
silencing one bunch of creators and promoting another bunch? How is this good
for Google, the country or the world?

~~~
djsumdog
Big tech is directly influencing people today in the way so many screamed "The
Russians" were influencing us in 2016 (and back during McCarthy).

I have a 500GB microSD card on my phone with all my music. I've been
collecting it for decades, many from artists I meet in bars and pubs. I buy
off Bandcamp when I have to, which only charges 15%, compared to
Google/Amazon/Apple which charge 30%+, or streaming services that pay artists
pennies.

Take control of your music. Download it, buy it DRM free, save it, back it up.

Take control of your video feed. Subscribe to YouTube channels using an RSS
reader. Use 3rd party frontends like Invidious.

If you're and tech and know how to do this, than do it, and help write posts
to show how others can too.

~~~
zelly
Unfortunately phones with SD cards are hard to come by these days. I think
that was intentional to help prop up streaming because both each of the
duopoly has heavy investments in streaming media.

------
MeatBro
In case you want to know the alternative way, install F-droid from f-droid.org

------
MivLives
Tusky appears to still be up.

Wonder if this has to do with the recent Husky/Tusky drama.

------
Longlius
Continue digging that antitrust grave, Google.

------
KirinDave
I guess Tusky's decision to ban a blocklist a bunch of instances citing that
policy is looking pretty prescient, now.

------
aiyodev
Remember when Google tried their own federated communication app and failed?
Maybe they’re just jealous.

------
franga2000
Time to start mass-reporting Google Chrome on the store because I can use it
allows access to child porn and Nazi forums I guess?

And also maybe revise all those antitrust laws into something actually useful
- they're using their (kinda, mostly) monopoly to hinder competition by
selectively applying their rules to whever they want and never themselves.

------
shadowgovt
Can they be side-loaded?

~~~
lucb1e
Of course, this is Android and open source apps. There are almost always apks
to be found outside of Google's kingdom for open source projects.

------
supergirl
subjugated by corporations, what a life.

------
vmception
does that mean Blind is next?

------
monadic2
"Don't be evil" my ass.

------
mindfulhack
Disgusting censorship in such a position of power. Corporations like Facebook
and Google and Apple shape society. There is no getting around it. It should
no longer be acceptable to use the concepts of 'capitalism' and 'privateness'
as an excuse for censorship on platforms that have become as good as public
utilities.

The open web has never been more important. What next, will Google's Chrome
browser start blocking fediverse web domains? That's their 'platform', too.

------
Andrew_nenakhov
Obligatory callout to Apple zealots who say that having a single AppStore and
no sideloading capability is a good thing.

------
twirlock
I'm glad I degoogled. This kind of thing is why. It wasn't even hard after I
got email switched over. If they didn't have a video monopoly, I would never
have to use their stuff.

~~~
Forbo
Not sure why this comment was dead, but I vouched for it. I've been slowly
separating from Google for a while now for slightly different reasons, namely
that I've grown increasingly distrustful of surveillance capitalism on the
whole.

------
jokit
They're letting us know what we should have already known for a long time.

It's not the abuse of power that is the problem but the power to abuse.

Decentralize all the things!

------
rvz
Here's a simple riddle:

    
    
      First they came for Alex. Then they came for the frog...
      then they came for the corona and now they come for all the elephants in the room.
    

This isn't 'doing the right thing' and Google is not your friend.

~~~
djsumdog
I hate how terribly locked down all modern operating systems are. I recently
started using a PinePhone. It's up to people in tech to show that
regular/ordinary people can get away from these mega corps that seek to
control everything about the tech we use.

Most people won't put in the effort though.

------
motohagiography
This will suffer from a backfire effect where the result is you just get more
technically savvy radicals. Google's decision here exacerbates polarization.
However, I actually welcome it because I would totally join a fediverse with a
higher bar to entry, and where ideas had a longer period and participants were
committed to building alternatives. It's the real punk. Everyone else can
entertain and outrage themselves to death on public platforms where they
compete for the reflected approval of a hive mind.

I realize the sort of people who make decisions like this think they are doing
this to "win," as the only thing on anyone's mind right now is influencing
November, and making sure it "never happens again," but Googlers and tech
people like this are creating a self-isolating minority of themselves.

Exiting what has become the Karen-net is probably one of the most interesting
problems to solve right now.

------
lawwantsin17
I guess they'll have to remove Youtube and Facebook apps next. F the App
Stores anyway.

------
throwawaysea
Censorship, deplatforming, and cancel culture are some of the most dangerous
developments that have been normalized by progressives. I am not surprised to
see Google do this given their internal culture has been weaponized by the
progressive left.

------
codingkoi
Does anyone know the US case law on the 1st amendment being applied to
corporate actors?

I see the argument often that things like this are a free speech violation but
the 1st amendment says “Congress shall pass no law...”. It doesn’t apply to
actors other than the state.

I’m not defending Google’s actions here but I also don’t think it’s
technically a free speech violation at least as the amendment is written, so
I’m wondering if there are any cases addressing this sort of censorship w.r.t.
the 1sr amendment.

~~~
ng12
There's the first amendment and there's the concept of free speech. This
absolutely violates free speech but does not violate the first amendment.

The only current framework to protect freedom of speech from private companies
is to designate them as common carriers, e.g. phone companies legally cannot
police what is said over their wires.

~~~
bccdee
I don't think it's necessarily anti-free-speech. The idea of free speech is
that everyone should be able to express their opinions without being
prosecuted for it, not that everyone is entitled to a platform for those
opinions. You should be able to write an article about absolutely anything,
but you're not entitled to put it in my newspaper.

I of course agree that the mastodon ban is a bad move because it sets a double
standard where browsers can access arbitrary web content but other apps can't,
and because it grossly limits the things that the average user can do with
their device. However, these are consumer rights issues, not free speech
issues.

~~~
sfkdjf9j3j
I think what a lot commenters are saying is that within their conception of
the bigger idea of free speech they _do_ consider themselves entitled to have
their thoughts distributed by established platforms. Or put more mildly,
platforms like Google ought not ban people for their content because it's the
right thing to do. But I don't see many people advocating for government
intervention, not with specifics anyway.

~~~
bccdee
I think that's kind of a strange take. Like, if you are entitled to put an
article in my newspaper no matter what the article says, doesn't that unduly
restrict my speech by forcing me to endorse your ideas by using my platform to
distribute them?

If Google doesn't want to distribute your ideas, I think it's odd to say that
that's wrong of them. I do think that it's a problem that they get to act as a
gatekeeper like that in the first place. I think the solution is to break up
larger platforms and create a diverse ecosystem of smaller options, not to
forbid platforms from ever moderating their content.

------
kgwxd
Seems likely anyone using Mastodon would know about alternative "stores" and
manual installs.

~~~
doiwin
I know about them. But I would have to root my phone to install them. And that
means trusting some binary blob from someone on the internet. So I would not
do it.

~~~
daniel-s
Not true on Android, you just need to download and install F-Droid; a free
software app store.

~~~
djsumdog
True, but it's still a terrible user experience for the average person.

------
sascha_sl
Whether or not you agree with the action taken here, Gab has provoked this
behavior for years, by calling itself uncensorable and asking its users to
fork and resubmit fediverse apps with minimal changes to explicitly circumvent
the Play Store Guidelines (even apps that did not implement a block of Gab to
begin with), so it is hard for me to feel bad for Gab.

That a few app developers have now been put in a position where they must
implement the block is unfortunate. I always thought it was a good indicator
of the developer's morals, but not much more.

