I didn't know much about Dissenter until I Googled it just now, and it looks like its audience is primarily folk on the far/alt-right. Hell, it was created by Gab[1].
Given the rhetoric that is often found in comments from those groups, it's not too hard to imagine that the complaints Mozilla cited as the reasons for removal are legitimate.
This is censorship, pure and simple. Gab, and Dissenter itself for that matter, are apolitical entitles whose stated goal is to allow any speech so long as it doesn't violate law. Say whatever you want, regardless of your political leanings. Admirable.
Mozilla has made their stance on such a goal clear. I don't believe for a hot second that this wasn't a politically-motivated decision, and it really puts the lie to their claims of protecting "a free and open web".
"Free and open" is diametrically opposed to blocking an addon whose sole purpose is to allow access to a third party web service.
What's the status of third party, unauthorized firefox extensions these days, didn't they ban them or make them a pain in the arse to use several years ago?
They might not have to host it, but if they make it hard/impossible for others to host and use it then they're certainly violating the first of the four freedoms of free software: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
Dissenters is a commercial platform, Mozilla are simply under no obligation to promote it or give it a spotlight under addons.mozilla.org. Unless you can point to a similar addon from some alt-left site that they have approved, there's no reason to suspect that this was a political decision.
Because Mozilla (unlike most other web browser publishers) publishes free software -- software users are allowed to run, inspect, modify, and share at any time for any reason. This is known as respecting a user's software freedom. Programs that don't respect a user's software freedom are called non-free or proprietary.
That's the saving grace of Firefox. That's what makes Firefox better than any of the other currently widely-used browsers. A program's technical problems can be fixed, a program's speed can be improved (Mozilla recently proved this in the most recent versions of Firefox), but software freedom cannot be added to a proprietary program.
Therefore if you don't like how Mozilla treats add-on programmers or Firefox users, you have the software freedom needed to make a free derivative of Firefox which behaves in a better way (where "better" is up to you to define, it's purposefully vague). Perhaps you want your Firefox derivative to let its users easily install whatever add-on they like that will persist across restarts, or get add-on updates without hassles by checking multiple sources for updates, or installing add-ons signed with unfamiliar keys after getting a user's approval. I'm sure there are plenty of other ideas you could come up with to implement.
But with software freedom the limits of what you can implement are limits you impose on yourself.
This doesn't make Mozilla or Firefox evil and distributing free software is respectful of the users. Don't confuse unrewarded labor (complaining that Mozilla doesn't make Firefox do what you want) with respect for the users.
The Dissent add-on, similarly, is really just another single point of censorship forum. We can't evaluate whether it is better at respecting user's free speech until they are challenged in a serious way (such as the implicit threats to big social media firms when they are given vague inactionable requests to 'do better' when their CEOs are brought before Congressional hearings and told to respond favorably to Russiagate lies). Already on this forum we see some posters confusing freedom of speech with reading something that echoes their views. One post, for instance, claimed "[Dissent's] audience is primarily folk on the far/alt-right". As George Orwell said, "Freedom is the right to tell people what they don't want to hear". Or as Noam Chomsky reminds us, "Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're really in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech.".
So both Firefox's add-on repo and Dissent's forum are singletons that don't liberate users so much as they establish their respective admins as censors. Perhaps you could come up with a way to let users more easily distribute comments from their own comment database so that all comment threads on a website come from multiple servers, and no censor power exists because no single user has admin control over all of the comment servers. Dissent is also free software (licensed under Apache License 2.0) so even if you believe Gab or Dissent aren't to be trusted, you could choose to improve Dissent to make it decentralized.
Because Dissenter was created by Gab, a far/alt-right online platform. Such groups are known for fostering hostile environments online towards people of various religions, races, cultural/political views, etc.. It is by no means a stretch of the imagination for Mozilla to claim that users of the app were using it for such purposes. As such, it would be apropos for Mozilla to remove an app that provides a platform for individuals to disrespect others.
Were Mozilla to keep it up, they would not be "respect[ing] their users".
- Systemically ban and censor conservative speech. Never-mind that 50% of the country and about 70% of the world adheres to the EXACT same, fairly reasonable opinions.
- Launch a massive PR campaign (opening salvo of which is accusations of Nazi adherence) against those crying foul, or pointing out the clear ultra-left bias in censorship and actions
- Claim that private companies hold no MORAL responsibility to uphold constitutionally guaranteed free speech laws
- Claim that the internet be treated as a utility, with free access to everyone, but ignore the fact that massive monopolies controlling the REAL utilitarian aspects of the internet (search, email, payments, hosting, cloud, etc. ) are all in cahoots to kill conservative speech, with cognitive dissonance of how they've combined to de-platform entire philosophies from the internet that they control
- Behave with absolute impunity with political agendas, and claim to be neutral
If you have to create a special message board that is the only place where you can say what you want to, perhaps you should think about what you are saying.
This is so obviously not an issue of "free speech." Free speech means the government cannot prosecute you for what you say. Any company can tell you to fuck off for any reason though, and that's the free market all the "free speech" advocates love so much.
> If you have to create a special message board that is the only place where you can say what you want to, perhaps you should think about what you are saying.
> Free speech means the government cannot prosecute you for what you say.
No, that's the 1st amendment of the US constitution. Free speech is a broader concept, and the 1st amendment defends it only from government interference.
> If you have to create a special message board that is the only place where you can say what you want to, perhaps you should think about what you are saying.
That only shows that reception to what is being said is overwhelmingly negative. Society has an unfortunate long history of doing that for arbitrary and stupid things. There are legitimate reasons for using something like this.
Granted with the "alt-right" it is a clear case of "They laughed at Einstein but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown".
I can't help but think it is a shame that an overlay messageboard concept like that wound up being used in a double rot13 cryptofascist dumpster fire. Although it would probably always tend toward toxicity given its usefulness for hatedoms of any sort.
I'm imagining a useful fact checker one slapped over news websites and even maintaining "score" of accuracy per author, site, and topic.
>>" Free speech means the government cannot prosecute you for what you say.
Incorrect, very very very incorrect
I am alarmed by the fact that people believe the only censorship by government is a problem or what "free speech" means.
A society can be completely devoid of free speech while not having any government censorship at all. We are seeing the manifestation of such a society today.
Government censorship is only one kind, and only 1 threat to free speech, but it is far far far from the only threat.
> Any company can tell you to fuck off for any reason though,
Yes, yes they can. But if they do they should not be able to advertise, collect money, and promote being "for everyone" or "adovating for the free and open web" or other such statements. That is and should be considered fraud if they do such things.
If Mozilla wants to be a censorship platform, they need to own it in their marketing, mission statement, and public advocacy
> the free market all the "free speech" advocates love so much.
It is always amusing with Authoritarian and socialist promote the "free market" when it comes to censorship when in reality they have not idea what they are talking about
[+] [-] jjulius|7 years ago|reply
Given the rhetoric that is often found in comments from those groups, it's not too hard to imagine that the complaints Mozilla cited as the reasons for removal are legitimate.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network)#Dissenter
[+] [-] phasnox|7 years ago|reply
Gab is not a far/alt right specific platform. It's just a place where you can say whatever you want.
Problem is the left calls far right or offensive to anything they disagree with.
[+] [-] identity_zero|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Karunamon|7 years ago|reply
Mozilla has made their stance on such a goal clear. I don't believe for a hot second that this wasn't a politically-motivated decision, and it really puts the lie to their claims of protecting "a free and open web".
"Free and open" is diametrically opposed to blocking an addon whose sole purpose is to allow access to a third party web service.
[+] [-] flukus|7 years ago|reply
They might not have to host it, but if they make it hard/impossible for others to host and use it then they're certainly violating the first of the four freedoms of free software: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
[+] [-] peterhadlaw|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0815test|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] luhego|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Digital-Citizen|7 years ago|reply
That's the saving grace of Firefox. That's what makes Firefox better than any of the other currently widely-used browsers. A program's technical problems can be fixed, a program's speed can be improved (Mozilla recently proved this in the most recent versions of Firefox), but software freedom cannot be added to a proprietary program.
Therefore if you don't like how Mozilla treats add-on programmers or Firefox users, you have the software freedom needed to make a free derivative of Firefox which behaves in a better way (where "better" is up to you to define, it's purposefully vague). Perhaps you want your Firefox derivative to let its users easily install whatever add-on they like that will persist across restarts, or get add-on updates without hassles by checking multiple sources for updates, or installing add-ons signed with unfamiliar keys after getting a user's approval. I'm sure there are plenty of other ideas you could come up with to implement.
But with software freedom the limits of what you can implement are limits you impose on yourself.
This doesn't make Mozilla or Firefox evil and distributing free software is respectful of the users. Don't confuse unrewarded labor (complaining that Mozilla doesn't make Firefox do what you want) with respect for the users.
The Dissent add-on, similarly, is really just another single point of censorship forum. We can't evaluate whether it is better at respecting user's free speech until they are challenged in a serious way (such as the implicit threats to big social media firms when they are given vague inactionable requests to 'do better' when their CEOs are brought before Congressional hearings and told to respond favorably to Russiagate lies). Already on this forum we see some posters confusing freedom of speech with reading something that echoes their views. One post, for instance, claimed "[Dissent's] audience is primarily folk on the far/alt-right". As George Orwell said, "Freedom is the right to tell people what they don't want to hear". Or as Noam Chomsky reminds us, "Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're really in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech.".
So both Firefox's add-on repo and Dissent's forum are singletons that don't liberate users so much as they establish their respective admins as censors. Perhaps you could come up with a way to let users more easily distribute comments from their own comment database so that all comment threads on a website come from multiple servers, and no censor power exists because no single user has admin control over all of the comment servers. Dissent is also free software (licensed under Apache License 2.0) so even if you believe Gab or Dissent aren't to be trusted, you could choose to improve Dissent to make it decentralized.
[+] [-] jjulius|7 years ago|reply
Were Mozilla to keep it up, they would not be "respect[ing] their users".
[+] [-] writepub|7 years ago|reply
- Systemically ban and censor conservative speech. Never-mind that 50% of the country and about 70% of the world adheres to the EXACT same, fairly reasonable opinions.
- Launch a massive PR campaign (opening salvo of which is accusations of Nazi adherence) against those crying foul, or pointing out the clear ultra-left bias in censorship and actions
- Claim that private companies hold no MORAL responsibility to uphold constitutionally guaranteed free speech laws
- Claim that the internet be treated as a utility, with free access to everyone, but ignore the fact that massive monopolies controlling the REAL utilitarian aspects of the internet (search, email, payments, hosting, cloud, etc. ) are all in cahoots to kill conservative speech, with cognitive dissonance of how they've combined to de-platform entire philosophies from the internet that they control
- Behave with absolute impunity with political agendas, and claim to be neutral
[+] [-] diminoten|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Not_a_pizza|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jakeogh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jressey|7 years ago|reply
This is so obviously not an issue of "free speech." Free speech means the government cannot prosecute you for what you say. Any company can tell you to fuck off for any reason though, and that's the free market all the "free speech" advocates love so much.
[+] [-] kayfox|7 years ago|reply
Such was discussing LGBT issues before the 2000s.
[+] [-] deogeo|7 years ago|reply
No, that's the 1st amendment of the US constitution. Free speech is a broader concept, and the 1st amendment defends it only from government interference.
[+] [-] Nasrudith|7 years ago|reply
That only shows that reception to what is being said is overwhelmingly negative. Society has an unfortunate long history of doing that for arbitrary and stupid things. There are legitimate reasons for using something like this.
Granted with the "alt-right" it is a clear case of "They laughed at Einstein but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown".
I can't help but think it is a shame that an overlay messageboard concept like that wound up being used in a double rot13 cryptofascist dumpster fire. Although it would probably always tend toward toxicity given its usefulness for hatedoms of any sort.
I'm imagining a useful fact checker one slapped over news websites and even maintaining "score" of accuracy per author, site, and topic.
[+] [-] syshum|7 years ago|reply
Incorrect, very very very incorrect
I am alarmed by the fact that people believe the only censorship by government is a problem or what "free speech" means.
A society can be completely devoid of free speech while not having any government censorship at all. We are seeing the manifestation of such a society today.
Government censorship is only one kind, and only 1 threat to free speech, but it is far far far from the only threat.
> Any company can tell you to fuck off for any reason though,
Yes, yes they can. But if they do they should not be able to advertise, collect money, and promote being "for everyone" or "adovating for the free and open web" or other such statements. That is and should be considered fraud if they do such things.
If Mozilla wants to be a censorship platform, they need to own it in their marketing, mission statement, and public advocacy
> the free market all the "free speech" advocates love so much.
It is always amusing with Authoritarian and socialist promote the "free market" when it comes to censorship when in reality they have not idea what they are talking about
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]