I found the app in question through the TWIF thread.
I checked its app page on F-Droid, and its icon has a phrase (in a non-English language) which expresses a political belief or position.
Under the “Notes” section in app description, there are also some sentences (in English) which express their political beliefs or positions.
It looks like such expressions were not added to F-Droid directly - the icon and description appear to come from the app’s GitHub repository.
For apps which are added to F-Droid, is it allowed to contain political beliefs or positions in the app metadata?
I am concerned that such content may lead to conflicts / arguments between users who have different political views, and also the legality of political expressions can vary by jurisdiction.
Unfortunately, I have been unable to sign up on gitlab.com. I have tried registering from scratch as well as creating an account via OAuth/GitHub, but I am consistently prompted for my phone number and payment method. Providing such information, or disabling my VPN, are not options for me, since GitLab does not offer services to users in certain regions.
I would greatly appreciate any hints or advice on how to create a GitLab account without having to provide a phone number or payment method.
There are also cases where the name/nickname of a programmer does express some religious or political agenda.
Such names may be common in some areas and it may be difficult to impossible for F-Droid to distinguish what is a genuine given name and what is religious agenda.
As of myself I would be happy if the Authors of an App disclose their agenda, if any openly. If there is an App published by “spread the blah-blah” it may be just a given name but may perhaps falsely raise red flags for some users.
Soon after I created the topic, I shared the detailed information with one of the board members in a private message.
I prefer not to name the app publicly at this time due to certain concerns, but the app is a recently added app to F-Droid’s repo, and it is mentioned in one of the TWIF threads in this month.
Should F-droid stop provising VPN apps for user with russia, china IP?
I am concerned that such content may lead to conflicts / arguments between users who have different political views, and also the legality of political expressions can vary by jurisdiction.( The two country above banned VPN legally. )
Don’t forget f-droid.org has been blocked in China…
If the metadata should not contain contents not associated with the software. I will adapt it into why censorship occurs, and censorship is associated with the software. (it is for anti-censor)
And the freedom of developers selecting their own icon should be preserved from my perspective.
p.s. with TlsFragment, you can connect to cloudflare.f-droid.org very fast with max speed about 10MB s-1, and mirror from China mainland is not necessary…
I selected a VPN app from a well-known, free service available on F-Droid, and then chose two F-Droid mirrors located in mainland China.
I find it interesting that the two mirrors I tested do make the APK available, despite the claim that (mainland) China has banned VPNs. While these mirrors do censor the app that express developers’ political beliefs, it appears that the VPN app itself remains uncensored.
Legal concerns aside, I believe that expressing political beliefs or positions in app metadata is not a good idea because it can alienate potential users with differing views. The metadata should focus on the functionality and benefits of the apps rather than personal ideologies.
