@ducheng
It's particularly insideous because I can no longer trust Fediverse applications to provide a neutral social media network. The application authors feel entitled to "speak for me" through their software, whilst using my platform's voice. Completely dishonest.
If the banner said "don't kill kittens", it would still be dishonest, because it would imply to users that the server admin actively holds that believe. Forwarding a statement from WHO implies I read it enough to know, understand, and believe it is good advice.
I will review what WHO has to say, when I want, and I'll post an announcement if I deem it necessary on *my* platform. I trust you to write code, not editorial stances.
And banners are bloody annoying.
> using my platform's voice
the beauty of free software is that developers have no such power. they might put that in, but you're free to change it to your liking on your instance. users are free to install and run their own instances and do so
software freedom doesn't mean the software does your computing as you wish. it means (among other things) that you can change it so that it does it as you wish. whether you wish to spread factual or fake news, or to stay silent on the matter, it's not for the developers to decide, it's up to you, your conscience, your ethics, and the applicable laws to figure out
the beauty of free software is that developers have no such power. they might put that in, but you're free to change it to your liking on your instance. users are free to install and run their own instances and do so
software freedom doesn't mean the software does your computing as you wish. it means (among other things) that you can change it so that it does it as you wish. whether you wish to spread factual or fake news, or to stay silent on the matter, it's not for the developers to decide, it's up to you, your conscience, your ethics, and the applicable laws to figure out
*nod*, but just as you wish your voice, opinions and beliefs to be published and heeded, so do the upstream developers. they're entitled to choose their defaults and messages, and so are you to remove them or change them in your own deployments and, assuming neither are breaking laws in doing so, IMHO that's how it should be. well-meaning influence and recommendations are IMHO ok, imposing values and exercising power over others, not so much
