Here's their statement[0], and this is the meat of it:
> F-Droid as a project soon celebrates its 9th birthday. In these 9 years, F-Droid’s mission was and is to create a place where people could download software they can trust – meaning only free, libre and open source software is available on its flagship repository. As a project, it tried to stay neutral all the time. But sometimes, staying neutral isn’t an option but instead will lead to the uprise of previously mentioned oppression and harassment against marginalized groups. We don’t want and won’t support that. F-Droid is taking a political stance here.
> F-Droid won’t tolerate oppression or harassment against marginalized groups. Because of this, it won’t package nor distribute apps that promote any of these things. This includes that it won’t distribute an app that promotes the usage of previously mentioned website, by either its branding, its pre-filled instance domain or any other direct promotion. This also means F-Droid won’t allow oppression or harassment to happen at its communication channels, including its forum. In the past week, we failed to fulfill this goal on the forum, and we want to apologize for that.
Basically - it became a go to for the Alt-Right, these guys ruin everything.
Sad thing about free speech on the internet is that while i'm largely in favour of it mostly it does create breeding grounds for openly hostile and harmful opinions/people.
Given the lack of education in most of the world this is sadly utterly terrifying and i have no idea what to do about it.
> this is sadly utterly terrifying and i have no idea what to do about it.
IMHO, accounts need to have non-trivial value, to all users. Social pressure will do much of the rest.
The problem with Gab, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, even HN and such is that accounts are free and do not meaningfully increase in value with time and activity. This allows bad actors to thwart social pressure by simply switching accounts at their leisure.
It also doesn't help that there _usually_ exists few barriers to access to online communities; people tend to have a romantic view of being open and welcoming, and social networks have an incentive to keep access generally open as it increases user retention.
Their stated rationale is that Gab serves disproportionately as a place to organize activities that reduce people's freedom, such as harassment campaigns against minority groups and anti-democratic activity like voter intimidation, and so they felt that hosting it was less in the spirit of freedom than banning it.
Ultimately, it's a problem that all pro-freedom platforms have to deal with: How much freedom should you give people to take away other people's freedom? When one group of people wants another to be less free, any action you take will result in a loss of freedom for someone.
> How much freedom should you give people to take away other people's freedom?
This is the very purpose of law according to John Locke who heavily influenced America's founders. To John Locke, the way to maximize freedom for everyone was by establishing laws which restrict people's ability to remove others' freedoms.
Having platforms like F-Droid self-govern and establish rules to try and maximize freedoms in the world is a pretty interesting experiment and a great showcase of small government, and thus should be widely supported by conservatives :)
> Having platforms like F-Droid self-govern and establish rules to try and maximize freedoms in the world is a pretty interesting experiment and a great showcase of small government, and thus should be widely supported by conservatives :)
Most modern day "conservatives" are not in fact conservatives. They dont seek a return to or a preservation of any traditional value at this point and instead seek radical change into a new and uncertain future. They have largely abandoned conservatism and replaced it with something entirely more terrifying.
F-Droid banned Gab for being a “free speech zone” that will “tolerate all opinions”.[0] Now Gab has been banned from Google Play Store, Apple App Store as well as from F-droid due to negative media pressure.
Speech control (Censorship) is used to remove 'independent thinking' as a state of mind.
The current view in US, Russia, UK, China, Canada, etc and most of other countries -- is that 'leadership', 'business leaders', and 'the scientists' -- know better.
Independent thinkers usually, not simultaneously fluent in economics, biology, geopolitics, financial services, etc. So when they question not just 'status quo' promoted by the 'leadership', but also the motives behind that -- they are labeled various bad names (eg. uneducated, backwards, etc..)
Gab exists for independents to share, develop, often change the position that one builds up questioning the authorities.
The authorities, of course, consider that a threat.
And so does F-Droid.
F-Droid, therefore is not for freedom. It is for complacency.
I am Jewish, was an atheist just a year ago, now studying Torah, Talmud, etc.
My background is mathematics (abstract algebra) and CS.
Not observant (yet) – as I writing this on Shabbat.
My family escaped dictatorship before, and now I am seeing it is being built up here -- different words, of course, but same action as was done by Mao, Stalin, Hitler (label, suppress, exterminate (or suffocate economically as in case in UK/US/Canada) )
I visit gab quite often (well ... a couple of times a week, for me that's often).
Most of the posts, just like on HN -- I do not find intellectually stimulating. A lot of repetition, etc -- but for me, they key is to know that people have freedom of communication and expression.
It is more important than if I agree with what they express.
I am also glad that Gab now have some politicians, and people who are running (in US politics) on there as well.
Doctors (with anti mRNA-mandate stance), like Robert Malone is there as well.
I also think that this un-reasonable boom in bitcoin valuation made a number of people rich enough -- to not go through the typical ladder of VC/financial services, high-paying jobs route.
Which means that we now have a number of millionaires who want to project their influence, their position on free speech -- who did not grow up in the 'status-quo' world.
This is also a positive outcome of BTC (even though I missed the boat on crypto!)
> F-Droid as a project soon celebrates its 9th birthday. In these 9 years, F-Droid’s mission was and is to create a place where people could download software they can trust – meaning only free, libre and open source software is available on its flagship repository. As a project, it tried to stay neutral all the time. But sometimes, staying neutral isn’t an option but instead will lead to the uprise of previously mentioned oppression and harassment against marginalized groups. We don’t want and won’t support that. F-Droid is taking a political stance here.
> F-Droid won’t tolerate oppression or harassment against marginalized groups. Because of this, it won’t package nor distribute apps that promote any of these things. This includes that it won’t distribute an app that promotes the usage of previously mentioned website, by either its branding, its pre-filled instance domain or any other direct promotion. This also means F-Droid won’t allow oppression or harassment to happen at its communication channels, including its forum. In the past week, we failed to fulfill this goal on the forum, and we want to apologize for that.
0: https://f-droid.org/en/2019/07/16/statement.html