Fedilab, Librem Social supports the pushing out of marginalized groups

[Yowlen]

I’d like to suggest the addition of a new antifeature: “Promotes bigotry”

And I’d like it to be applied to Fedilab & Librem Social, for starters, since they’ve made it pretty clear that they support marginalized groups being doxxed through their instance. There’s a reason the vast majority of the Fediverse preemptively blocked Gab, and this is it. Despite this fact being pointed out to the Fedilab & Librem developers, they insist that their users (and others like them) should be allowed their voice regardless of the cost, at least short of the law knocking on their door. This is a deliberate conflation of the issue at this point on their part, and as such, it’s clear that they support bigotry and marginalization of non-white, non-cis, non-straight, non-Christian people.

We need a way to combat the bigotry and harassment that goes on in online spaces, and the first step needs to be holding the developers themselves accountable for enabling said bigotry in the first place. If your stance is clearly pro-Nazism, people need to have that warning that your software may not be safe for them.

[craigevil]

Freedom of Speech.
Feel free to block any of the gab instances.
But an app should not block any of them.
See the Tusky thread for more info.
I use Fedilab simply because the dev believes in freedom and doesn’t block anything by default.
The Librem.one app doesn’t let you sign in to
Gab but does let you see and interact with people on the gab instances.

[jmfcodes]

I support this feature. Users have a right to know when they’re supporting developers who condone freedom of bigotry.

[BenLubar]

In my experience, everyone who has argued against blocking Gab has used several extremely disingenuous arguments, ranging from intentionally misunderstanding what the GPL means to blaming transgender people and people of color for oppressing literal Nazis.

In discussions like this one, it is important not only to read the words that are written, but also to think about the reasons someone might be arguing the way they are.

Trying to compare voluntary blocking of Nazis to potential blocking of QUILTBAG-friendly instances should show you what someone thinks about Nazis and the people Nazis oppress.

Freedom of speech is not a guarantee of an audience. Denying someone an audience is also speech. Writing a computer program that blocks things is speech.

[Yowlen]

This isn’t about freedom of speech. It’s about the enabling of hatred towards specific groups. I’m not asking for apps to block, only to know which apps aren’t actively fighting against intolerance of others.

I’m well aware of the Tusky thread, which is why I made my own for the flip side. I want to know what app developers are more concerned with protecting white people from the consequences of their actions than they are with my safety and this is how we can do it.

Adding more info is literally the exact opposite of censorship. And adding an antifeature is literally just adding more info. The apps aren’t getting removed. It’s only using our own speech to point out that X developer believes white people’s speech is more important than the speech and safety of LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized groups. Such people have continually proven themselves to actively ignore or even attack us (both with words and with physical violence) if we dare speak anything that opposes their overtly limited and ignorant worldview, so this information is useful for anyone who wants to ensure a safe environment for users.

[Bubu]

As long as Fedilab doesn’t actively promote the gab instance or, it being compatible with it, I see no reason how the app promotes any bigotry.

Neither does a web-browser because it doesn’t include a blocklist for alt-right websites.

[Yowlen]

Librem Social’s devs originally removed reporting from their instance, then put it back in under public outcry while effectively saying they’re not actually gonna do anything unless their users are breaking the law, which is literally what every “free speech” bigoted instance, including Gab, have stated as their reporting policy too.

Legality is not the same as just, and in many cases, even legality doesn’t matter since, at least in the USA, the police themselves are defending illegal activities performed by white people and they’re committing illegal actions against non-white people for the crime of looking at them. Same for LGBTQ+ people.

I’ve personally been assaulted by police for being trans, so I can say without a doubt that “illegal activity” is not where the line should be drawn. We need community enforcement techniques, or at least stuff like this which gives us the ability to know who is on the side of the police and fascists in power and who is on the side of the people at large.

This might have a political aspect to it, but when people’s lives are on the line, keeping politics out of this is a luxury we can’t afford and everyone needs to do their part to help.

Edit: I forgot to add that you brought up the browser argument faster than I expected. We should absolutely attempt to get them to block these sites too, since like I said, people’s lives are on the line. I only avoided including them in the original post for now simply because I’m not aware we’ve tried to get them to do so yet.

Edit 2: You’re also conflating support with promotion and the app itself with the developers. The intent is to call out the developers that support bigotry, either implicitly or explicitly, not just a direct promotion of it in the app. The latter is never gonna happen because they know it’s begging to be blocked. That’s why they have to hide it a few layers in under “free speech” and other nonsense as if it’s supposed to protect them from the consequences of espousing white supremacist & eugenicist views. So we need to go after the coded language too to show them we mean business. By adding this, you’re showing you see through their bullshit and are offering a way for the many marginalized people on the Fediverse (and as other developers get confronted on their opinion on the matter, the open source community at large) to be informed about which apps are more likely to be safe and allow us to interact with to report bugs and stuff instead of having every individual repeat the same mistakes of trying to interact with the developer themselves to get a useful feature added or a bug fixed and encounter the same vitriol others have already encountered a hundred times over.

It’s an accessibility thing. It’s a safety thing. It’s an educational thing so that others don’t have to repeat the mistakes of trying to work with fascists who have made it clear they have no intention of working with marginalized people on any meaningful level.

[Yowlen]

Bigotry is the intolerance of another group based on reasons other than “their actions are causing harm.” And by following the Paradox of Tolerance, we can ensure that marginalized groups aren’t unjustly affected since they’re marginalized because they’re already being censored in many places for bigoted reasons.

That’s not to say that people within marginalized groups won’t get hit with such a label, but they will be hit for starting trouble, not fighting back against it. For example, punishing trans people who abuse others is okay. Punishing trans people for fighting back against an abuser is not, regardless of whether the abuser is trans or not.

It’s a “who started it?” conundrum, basically, and pretty easy to follow if you actually take time to investigate and listen.

[craigevil]

Apps should not block anything. It shouldbe left up to the instance admins to block .
I am on the librem.one instance because I was on masto.social and was block for posting a news article from infowars. Yes I know Alex Jones is an ass, but it was a legitimate article not one of his insane rants.

If you don’t like what someone toots/tweets/posts etc you can easily block them, or search for a Mastodon instance that blocks gab and other “offensive” instances.

If an app blocks something by default I will not use it. No matter how offensive something is people have the right to say it. Just like crap on television, if you don’t like it switch the channel.

[Yowlen]

Blocks aren’t as effective as one might hope, though. Plemora literally has a toggle in the admin panel over whether or not to respect blocks. There’s a reason Nazis use Plemora more than Mastodon and it’s because of tools like this that make it easier to stalk & harass someone.

We need to tackle this problem from all angles, including from the development angle, and calling out devs who enable such hatred to spread, either due to ignorance or actively engaging in it is a basic first step.

I’m really not asking for much, ya know. Just the ability to trust the devs who make the apps I use. Is that too much to ask?

And to @DroidOne, the answer is all of us together. Majority rule kind of thing. And the Fediverse has already gone through this majority rule process and decided that bigotry – and its enablers such as Librem’s devs – are not welcome on the larger Fediverse.

And when I say “all of us” I mean all. Not just devs, but the users too. We need to step up efforts to encourage active engagement from everyone, both tech creators and tech users, to help rid the tech industry of the bigotry and hatred that has come to dominate its culture.

P.S. @craigevil you were probably blocked because even if Alex Jones was right in that article, he likely included a bunch of gaslighting and other conspiracy crap too. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, but you should still find a working one for actual use. Using Alex Jones as a source is equivalent to using that broken clock. You’re better off finding more reliable sources such as Alternet or something. Using him as a source would require wading through the bullshit to find the kernel of truth, which frankly, is not something many have the energy to do.

[Yowlen]

Gab is easily verified as their timeline is chock full of it. Just take a few minutes and check for yourself. I doubt I need to provide a link for that. But if you wanted more specific info, you could’ve asked. I gladly would’ve provided it. I admit I’m not good at providing sources a lot of times, but if I’m ever asked, I always put in the effort. If you still have specific questions about my original proposal, feel free to ask.

But I’m also asking here. What evidence does anyone have that I’m a known harasser? Because from the way it sounds, I seem to have quite the disproportionate reputation for an account with 500 followers. If I’m legitimately overstepping someone’s boundaries, I want to know so that I can formally apologize to them. But if it’s just Nazis using abusive gaslighting tactics, then I want the appropriate apology from them or otherwise punishment for not giving one.

I never said I speak for you. Just that in the dozen or so larger instances I’ve browsed, including the main .social, the general consensus is that we need to protect ourselves from these very real threats whose behavior matches that of the harassment campaigns that drove many of us off Twitter. Obviously there’s those who disagree like yourself, but they seem to be a comparative minority and unfortunately, in democracy, the majority opinion wins out.

Besides, no one’s been able to point out how adding information is actually censorship. Answer that. Prove that your case is correct, that somehow adding a bigotry antifeature, adding information actually removes information from the larger picture and I’ll close this topic without a second thought.

[BenLubar]

Fedilab doesn’t block Gab, but the point is that this is intentional rather than the result of not doing anything at all.

Fedilab blocked Gab at one point, and made the decision to unblock a site for neo-Nazis.

Calling QUILTBAG people “harassers” is a tactic neo-Nazis like to use to shift the discussion. They don’t care that their claims have no merit. They just want to muddy the waters so they can continue doing whatever they were already planning to do.

There’s no sense debating neo-Nazis. They don’t care about the truth, they only want to slow down any attempt to make a space safer.

[naoh]

According to the fediverse.network site, the largest instances are currently gab, which is ironic, and pawoo. You wouldn’t be able to provide your poll data for those, would you? While you’re at it, diaspora and switter, some of those other japanese instances…

[BenLubar]

@naoh

diaspora

That’s a piece of software. If you’re saying Gab is the biggest and comparing it to diaspora*, then Mastodon is massively larger than Gab.

@naoh

switter

I’m pretty sure sex workers don’t like Nazis any more than non-sex-workers.

Stop trying to change the subject. The subject is Nazis. Your attempts to change the subject are showing your intent here.

[BenLubar]

Stop.

It’s clear who you are affiliated with. You don’t need to make it any clearer.

[morganmay]

I would support the addition of this anti-feature. This matters vastly more to me as a user than, say, the promotion of non-free network services. I care about software freedom, but I care more about human freedom from harassment and threats. If you’re more willing to stand up for the former than the latter, perhaps you should re-evaluate your priorities.

[BenLubar]

@naoh You can go away if you’re only here to use Nazi tactics in order to derail this discussion.

The facts are that Fedilab and Librem Social were both asked to curtail the harassment of marginalized groups and they both refused.

https://framagit.org/tom79/fedilab/issues/208

https://glitterkitten.co.uk/@sophia/102057200554713022
cryptids.online
https://social.libre.fi/notice/9iZw5AqQ5qKjgFWm5Q (images are missing, but some remote replies have cached versions)

[stom]

I don’t think that antifeature makes sense. It should be applied to every Mastodon apps and browsers.
Also, I don’t get in what the app promotes bigotry? The app can be used for different social networks with different instances. The app has an instance hard-coded which is peertube.social, in that case, I agree that the app promotes this instance but only this one.