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. At least three apps I know of anyway and I'd imagine the others will follow soon under the exact same reasoning.} Seems to be the case with Husky, Fedilab, and "subway" tooter.

this is a scary precedent if google play is going to ban any apps that can in any way be used to access content with hate speech. So what about a forum client, do they take that down just because there is a forum somewhere on the internet posting hate speech?

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

Picture attached of one of the notices received by fedilab.

https://toot.fedilab.app/@fedilab/104761140268193772

https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/104763960269049818

@fedilab @tateisu #fediverse #mastoadmin #freespeech #censorship

This post has now hit the #1 spot on hacker news with over 500 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24304275

@freemo I will share this as much as possible.

@zleap Please do, this is a big deal IMO

@freemo I struggle to write about stuff like this to be honest, I have put a draft up at

https://personaljournal.ca/kpnko2obtj

and linked to your post here and the discussion forum on ycombinator.

any help would be welcome. Unless I can copy part of your post in to my post and then link to the rest,

@zleap You are welcome to copy any of my post you'd like.

@freemo Thanks, have done part of that, so copied the text then linked to your full post, which has the links to the screenshots, also added my comment at the bottom (made it clear it is my comment) to say the fediverse works in a different way.

The problem is ,lst year Mastodon hit the main news, as lots of people in India moved to the fediverse,

If this story hits the media it will be twisted, journalists will go out and search for this hate content, and say it is easy to find.

To day is that big march in Washington DC. so this could be a convienient time for Google to 'look' like they are doing something.

Interestingly Protonmail are on both Gab and mastodon, which does show that the two are separate networks otherwise there would be less need or they would have to be on ALL the different instance types I guess.

Lets see what happens, we need to remind the world that 18 months ago facebook allowed live streaming of a mass murder terror attack in New Zealand, and also it is still accused of not dealing with child abuse properly.

More ammo Britain first is still trending in the UK, (has been all day) they are a racist hate group.

I wonder if the twitter app will be removed !!!?