Due to the recent discussions about Tusky merging their Gab ban, I'm reposting my series "Imagine if _all_ applications were developed the same way as Fedi apps" with slightly improved screenshots and a new one.
Also, I'd like to clarify my stance on this matter since people thought I'd support Gab or that I'd make inaccurate comparisons.
My motivation for posting these screenshots is that I think blocks like this don't belong in software that is completely detached from the stuff it displays.
Kinds of software that belong in this category are web browsers, email clients, music players, text editors, and also Fedi apps such as Tusky or Fedilab. They are merely tools that allow people to use certain contents or services, but they don't host them and therefore aren't responsible for them.
To me, this isn't a matter of free speech or some free software principles. As a user, I simply don't want developers to force their personal/political opinions onto me in that way. And here is why:
Imagine if more software implemented various kinds of blocks against things the developer doesn't want to support. I'm sure many of you now may think "Cool, so they block things for bad people. How is this a problem?"
The problem is that your view of what "bad people" are or how they should be handled by the software doesn't necessarily have to agree with the developers' views.
A good example for this is the file browser screenshot: Among other files, the message lists a Torrent for an Arch Linux image as blocked. Most likely, the imaginary developer thinks that Torrents are used too often to distribute illegal things, so making them harder to use is more beneficial than not doing it. Would you agree with this?
In the long run, this problem may become worse. What if the political climate in our society shifted and over time, some of the opinions you or people you like/follow/... hold were considered harmful by many software developers? What if you were confronted with messages like the ones in the screenshots all the time because of that?
Many people don't expect that measures taken against "bad people" could ever affect them negatively. After all, they are good people.
This is actually very similar to discussions about privacy invasions, where there are people who "have nothing to hide" and therefore don't care about such problems.
That's the situation I was trying to convey with these screenshots in the same way Black Mirror shows how current technological trends could lead to negative impacts on our society.
Bildschirmfoto vom 2019-06-19 1â¦
Bildschirmfoto vom 2019-06-01 2â¦
Bildschirmfoto vom 2019-06-02 1â¦
Bildschirmfoto vom 2019-06-02 1â¦
Bildschirmfoto vom 2019-06-17 2â¦
Bildschirmfoto vom 2019-06-19 1â¦
Also, I'd like to clarify my stance on this matter since people thought I'd support Gab or that I'd make inaccurate comparisons.
My motivation for posting these screenshots is that I think blocks like this don't belong in software that is completely detached from the stuff it displays.
Kinds of software that belong in this category are web browsers, email clients, music players, text editors, and also Fedi apps such as Tusky or Fedilab. They are merely tools that allow people to use certain contents or services, but they don't host them and therefore aren't responsible for them.
To me, this isn't a matter of free speech or some free software principles. As a user, I simply don't want developers to force their personal/political opinions onto me in that way. And here is why:
Imagine if more software implemented various kinds of blocks against things the developer doesn't want to support. I'm sure many of you now may think "Cool, so they block things for bad people. How is this a problem?"
The problem is that your view of what "bad people" are or how they should be handled by the software doesn't necessarily have to agree with the developers' views.
A good example for this is the file browser screenshot: Among other files, the message lists a Torrent for an Arch Linux image as blocked. Most likely, the imaginary developer thinks that Torrents are used too often to distribute illegal things, so making them harder to use is more beneficial than not doing it. Would you agree with this?
In the long run, this problem may become worse. What if the political climate in our society shifted and over time, some of the opinions you or people you like/follow/... hold were considered harmful by many software developers? What if you were confronted with messages like the ones in the screenshots all the time because of that?
Many people don't expect that measures taken against "bad people" could ever affect them negatively. After all, they are good people.
This is actually very similar to discussions about privacy invasions, where there are people who "have nothing to hide" and therefore don't care about such problems.
That's the situation I was trying to convey with these screenshots in the same way Black Mirror shows how current technological trends could lead to negative impacts on our society.
Bildschirmfoto vom 2019-06-19 1â¦
Bildschirmfoto vom 2019-06-01 2â¦
Bildschirmfoto vom 2019-06-02 1â¦
Bildschirmfoto vom 2019-06-02 1â¦
Bildschirmfoto vom 2019-06-17 2â¦
Bildschirmfoto vom 2019-06-19 1â¦
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@Feuerfuchs I agree with you wholeheartedly. Services like Mastodon--which I'm very new to, but really enjoying so far--have more options for users to free associate with whatever moderation rules they want, yet still people want to control what other people see. This, to me, speaks not of a desire to protect people, but to just exercise authoritarian control for its own sake.
