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

@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.

@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.