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1. emsenn of Teraum (emsenn@tenforward.social)'s status on Saturday, 22-Jun-2019 10:55:56 EDT emsenn of Teraum

   Subtoot, why are you "building a better Internet" before looking at how marginalized populations in authoritarian oppressive regions have been using the Internet for the past decade?

   If you wanted to understand the real threats that online communications face, you'd look to any of the millions who've challenged those threats, rather than wanting unthreatened people to gather around to hypothesize as to what those threats might be.

   1. :abunhdhappyhop: :abunhdhappy: :abunhdhop: :abunhd: :abunhdhappyhop: :abunhdhappy: (kaniini@pleroma.site)'s status on Sunday, 23-Jun-2019 17:20:47 EDT :abunhdhappyhop: :abunhdhappy: :abunhdhop: :abunhd: :abunhdhappyhop: :abunhdhappy:

      in reply to
      @emsenn
      
      as someone who has been building tech for dissidents for most of my life, a lot of takes i read on here make me shake my head
      1. :abunhdhappyhop: :abunhdhappy: :abunhdhop: :abunhd: :abunhdhappyhop: :abunhdhappy: (kaniini@pleroma.site)'s status on Sunday, 23-Jun-2019 17:27:08 EDT :abunhdhappyhop: :abunhdhappy: :abunhdhop: :abunhd: :abunhdhappyhop: :abunhdhappy:

         in reply to
         @emsenn
         
         like, a key thing to understand is, a lot of authoritarian regimes are quite incompetent. they are blissfully unaware of what is technically possible or not technically possible. when you build systems that demonstrate something is possible, it can have unintended consequences.
         
         authoritarian regimes tend to use inconsequential metadata to make their case. intelligent people know those kinds of arguments are ultimately worthless. but authoritarian regimes make it a point to ensure that the common folks are as technically illiterate as they themselves are. that's what keeps them in power.
         
         and so, certain situations lead to other situations that may seem unobvious to those of us living in the (mostly) free world, because these situations don't make sense in a (mostly) free world.
         1. :abunhdhappyhop: :abunhdhappy: :abunhdhop: :abunhd: :abunhdhappyhop: :abunhdhappy: (kaniini@pleroma.site)'s status on Sunday, 23-Jun-2019 17:34:03 EDT :abunhdhappyhop: :abunhdhappy: :abunhdhop: :abunhd: :abunhdhappyhop: :abunhdhappy:

            in reply to
            @emsenn
            
            and so, i believe that freedom 0 is quite important.
            
            but freedom 0 doesn't necessarily mean what the purists think it means.
            
            if a software developer with a third-party publisher (in Tusky's case, Google) wants to make their software say "fuck gab" when people log into gab, that's mostly fine. but expressing this speech does come at a cost: your app is now more vulnerable to influence from Google in terms of it's behaviour.
            
            and, of course, this behaviour gets cited as an example when GAFAM shows up to the authoritarian regime to offer their services.
            
            and so, there is a time and place for bending freedom 0. for Tusky, blocking Gab was that time and place. but there is a non-zero chance that they get burned for it later, through Google requiring them to add other domains to the blocklist.
            
            and Fedilab waffling was pointless, they published a version with the functionality. once you bend freedom 0, it's bent forever. publishers will use the prior existence of the functionality to force it's reintroduction if they are motivated to do so.