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.

toot.fedilab.app/@fedilab/1047

mastodon.social/@Gargron/10476

@fedilab @tateisu

@freemo this happened to Clover, an imageboard client, because it supported access to 4chan - a site that Google considered unpalatable.

At the time, it was mostly cheered by a lot of the same people as use mastodon. It's unfortunate the precedent has come full circle.

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@kline funny how they dont apply that same logic to their own apps. If they were to truly be fair they would have to take down Chrome from play store on the grounds that it can be used to access 4chan.

@freemo to be fair, I suspect this could be a time of reckoning for the fediverse. The willingness of people to draw instant parallels between software ("FOR ANY PURPOSE") and the beliefs and moral values of the users.

In the past, large swathes of the fediverse have written off pleroma and pleroma users as undesirable, regardless of whether that was true or not, because of a small element who were.

Google has now decided that fediverse apps, it seems, are likewise undesirable because of a small number of non-representative users. First we have sown, now we reap.

@kline Yea, what goes around comes around.. for many this will be a taste of their own medicine...

@kline @freemo Or, Google has sown and now they will reap. The Fediverse and its future incarnations, are the future of social networking which has become a huge part of the internet and how people get their news. With this kind of pressure solutions will be produced. War time always brings with it great innovations.

@freemo ... or Fediverse. Considering all of the "kill white people" posts that can be readily found on Twitter, maybe it's time to start reporting that app as well.

@master honestly if this rule were universally applied then any app with a social element would pretty much have to get axed at that point.

@freemo Which is why no open forum should be banned.

At the same time, Twitter actively censors one type of hate speech, but allows another. It's interesting because this means Twitter actively supports, and therefore publishes hate speech.

@freemo @kline Literally all of that "offensive" content--fedi instances--can be viewed by #Chrome anyways. Unless you're going to ban the #Fediverse from the browser, there isn't any consistent logic here.

@realcaseyrollins

Yea its absurd logic.. the only difference between chrome and a mastodon client is that chrome gives you access to hate speech servers through http protocol and mastodon client gives you access to hate speech servers through the ActivityPub protocol

@kline

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