
Mozilla sending political ads via Firefox push notification - paulcarroty
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/hx8737/why_did_i_just_receive_an_ad_for_mozillas_blog/
======
sputr
Had to click through a few links to get to the campaign page that explains
what this is about.

Noticed the '... American values...' in the campaign page title and
facepalmed. I got the ad and am European.

They did not think this through to catch that... I doubt they thought about
consiquances of politicising the browser.

~~~
paulcarroty
Here's the #StopHateForProfit campaign:
[https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/zuck/?utm_source=leanplum-p...](https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/zuck/?utm_source=leanplum-
push-notification&utm_medium=android)

------
allendoerfer
Mozilla, please get your shit together. We like you. We want you to succeed. I
don‘t get how you don’t get us. I thought you are basically us.

I half-seriously suggest fireing everyone, who was not a developer at some
point. If people who‘s background suggests they truly get your importance
actually come up with stuff like this, I have no hope. Everyone grab your kids
and run! We were doomed all along!

~~~
Macha
Yeah, Cliqz, Mr Robot, Pocket, Fenix having no extensions in the original
roadmap, this, there's just a continuous trend of poor judgement from Mozilla.
I wish there wasn't.

------
kemonocode
I don't really care about their political stance or what they support (as many
people claiming themselves to be slightly right of center seem to be so
offended by) but using push notifications to shove that to my face is one step
too far. They should just have stuck to their blog and social media.

Reminder this is the same company who have partnered with proprietary service
companies to put on first-party functionality on their browsers (hi Pocket)
and also used undocumented functionality to push ads on people before (the
Black Mirror promo fiasco).

~~~
m-p-3
> Reminder this is the same company who have partnered with proprietary
> service companies to put on first-party functionality on their browsers (hi
> Pocket)

They didn't partner with Pocket, they own Pocket.

~~~
kemonocode
This came later [0] as originally Mozilla had partened with Pocket while they
were still an independent entity as early as 2015 [1]

[0] [https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/27/14752590/mozilla-
acquires...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/27/14752590/mozilla-acquires-
pocket-read-it-later)

[1]
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1172126](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1172126)

------
rjeli
...how does this kind of crap get approved? i use Firefox to avoid advertising
and harassment from big companies.

~~~
iTOlduSO
Moz://a has joined the moral authority camp for a long time now, consequently
"this kind of crap" are considered by Moz://a as a moral obligation hence
perfectly normal.

[0]: [https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-digitized-
cul...](https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-digitized-culture-wars)

~~~
jerome-jh
Considering how IT is increasingly used to make people's life miserable (part
accidentally, part intentionally) I actually find this is a good thing they
take a moral stance.

~~~
alpaca128
Everyone is free to take a moral stance. Just don't push it in my face. I'll
look at it myself if I'm interested.

~~~
jerome-jh
Although a user of Firefox on PC and mobile, I have not received that
notification. So maybe there was an opt-in/out somewhere to which we answered
differently.

As just about every editor of a free (as in beer) product, maybe the Mozilla
foundation is also expecting something from you? That would not be your data,
but you spreading awareness in your circle.

~~~
Macha
Apparently it's tied to the product tips opt out from the reddit thread.

------
bachmeier
The actual title is "Why did I just receive an ad for Mozilla's blog via push
notification?"

Edit: The blog post in question is actually about Facebook.

------
as1mov
It's a bit ironic, considering a vanilla installation of Firefox has Facebook
as one of the default "Top Sites"

~~~
pixxel
They tweeted out in May a list of video call apps that they had curated, when
everyone was stuck indoors. Usual suspects at the top (Facebook), with trusted
apps (Signal) near the bottom. It made me rethink my browser choice.

------
slap
Today I learned that Mozilla was pro-censorship, and using their install base
to promote this message.

We're living in an intesting time.

~~~
dencodev
Asking platforms to not host and promote violent and racist content is hardly
censorship.

~~~
lostmsu
What's wrong with violence? Do you propose to remove accounts of violent
protests from Facebook now?

~~~
dencodev
People promoting violence usually means targeted violence. Proposing violence
against a specific person or group of people. A protest that happens to have
people in that become violent and then those some people posting online is a
completely different situation than a bunch of Nazis saying we need to
exterminate the Jewish people.

~~~
lostmsu
Aka let's ban promoting bad violence. Who decides bad or good?

~~~
dencodev
Maybe I'm making my point poorly.

Allowing violent people to post online is fine. Allowing them to post
_violent_ content is bad. I don't care who the person is. I care what they
post. As long as they're not advocating harm to a specific person or group of
people it's fine.

I'm okay with people saying racist things from a free speech perspective (it's
still despicable). I'm not okay with them saying people should go burn down
the synagogue in downtown Seattle.

~~~
lostmsu
TBH, this point is poor. Violence and therefore promotion of violence are
simply necessary in some situations. The former is even ingrained in the U.S.
constitution.

------
luckylion
When they remotely installed add-ons for an ad deal and it blew up in their
face, they promised "we've changed". I don't think they have.

I did not receive the notification despite using Firefox on mobile, but a
friend did. Maybe because he uses Facebook, and I don't. But that's
unthinkable, a Browser claiming to be pro-privacy sniffing around in your web-
history to target you for political ads. But then again, you'd also not expect
a Browser to send you push notifications for their latest blog post.

------
Arnavion
Previous submission:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23946568](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23946568)

------
darthrupert
Is being anti-violence/hate a political stance now? Fuck.

~~~
alpaca128
For me the political part isn't the issue - the push notification itself is. I
can't stand browser desktop notifications and similar useless distractions and
have blocked every kind of ad and popup in Firefox. Now the browser itself
circumventing this to push some stupid blog article to me that I never asked
for is unacceptable to me. Would you be fine with your image viewer, video
player or file browser to push messages and suggest blog articles to you
without asking? Then why should a website viewer do it?

I just want web browsers to display content I requested, block ads and
otherwise just don't try to do anything clever. Which worked pretty nicely in
Firefox so far.

------
pornel
It's not a random ad, it's Mozilla's own campaign:
[https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/zuck/](https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/zuck/)

> Facebook is still a place where it’s too easy to find hate, bigotry, racism,
> antisemitism and calls to violence.

What a fucked-up politics we have this is not a neutral stance, but a
polarizing "political view".

~~~
bauerd
What you quote is not a stance, merely an observation. One can agree there's
lots of socially undesirable speech (call it whatever you want) on Facebook,
yet at the same time disagree Facebook ought to take their desired actions
[0].

Besides, why my browser should send me a push notification for this particular
campaign is beyond me. Even if I agree with the political contents this time,
should I expect more push notifications of this kind in the future?

[0]
[https://www.stophateforprofit.org/productrecommendations](https://www.stophateforprofit.org/productrecommendations)

------
thiht
They've _got_ to stop pulling this kind of crap again and again. They should
not use their position to promote their political agenda.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Mozilla is using their Firefox browser to support their political censorship
message.

What's next? Are we sure in the future that Firefox won't decide that certain
sites espouse dangerous opinions and block these sites.

Mozilla's actions go against all their rhetoric about supporting the open web.
They have no commitment to free speech nor any qualms about using Firefox to
advance their political goals.

------
zanmat0
This pushed me to give Edge a try and I was very pleasantly surprised so I'm
going to be sticking with that.

------
donatj
Using their privileged position of being able to push any message they want to
millions of people to promote a pro-censorship message. Classy.

~~~
gmb2k1
I've lost all respect for Mozilla by now. They're still vital for the web
ecosystem as a whole. But they turned into a polititcal party and I don't
like.

------
rbecker
> Facebook is still a place where it’s too easy to find hate, bigotry, racism,
> antisemitism and calls to violence.

What an odd claim, coming from Mozilla - it's ultimately Firefox that displays
all that hate and racism. If they think it should be censored, they can add a
filter to the browser itself. Why leave censorship to Facebook, when clearly
Mozilla is the more moral corporation, and knows better which content their
users should be allowed to see?

~~~
mrkeen
It's the platform-vs-publisher distinction.

Firefox the browser doesn't push you towards or away from any particular
content, with maybe a few caveats (default search engine, etc.)

Facebook (employees & algorithms) decide what you will see on their site.

------
Markoff
brought to you by company not willing to implement even optional pull down to
refresh for 5+ years

one of the reasons why U don't use their buggy slow browser on Android (use
outdated Kiwi Browser, since it's only non shady browser with extensions
support)

------
xacky
Why hasn't Firefox been forked yet? Not a spin off like Pale Moon or Waterfox
but an actual fork of the entire codebase. With only two real browser engines
remaining the potential for an independent policitally neutral browser is
high. I don't know why people haven't done it yet.

~~~
solarkraft
People are forking. The project with currently the most traction seems to be
LibreWolf: [https://librewolf-community.gitlab.io/](https://librewolf-
community.gitlab.io/)

However the development of such a program takes a massive amount of work (and
money), which is something Mozilla still offers and any fork probably doesn't
have.

It generally doesn't make sense to do so even with the resources, because
you'd be duplicating a lot of work, so the "spin-off"s prefer to keep merging
the original code, just excluding changes they don't like.

------
127
Free means free. It doesn't mean free only to a certain groups of people.

------
andor
I can see that people feel bothered by push messages they didn't ask for,
but... "political ads"?

Anyone who feels offended by "stop hate, bigotry, racism, antisemitism and
calls to violence" needs to urgently figure out where their emotions come
from.

~~~
s9w
I preferred when Mozilla made browsers

~~~
ta17711771
Secure ones, too.

