[chipotle_coyote]

The problem here is that "Freedom" in "FreedomPhone" does not seem to be "freedom" the way free software advocates define it, or privacy advocates define it; it seems to be "freedom" the way far-right activists use it as a dogwhistle. If people are a bit focused on the company's politics, it's because they put those politics front and center.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if there was some company doing the inverse of this -- marketing to the segment of the far left that believes tech companies are, if not explicitly conservative, explicitly uber-capitalist and willing to pander to conservatives at every turn to prove how "centrist" they are[1] -- and was doing the same thing that the FreedomPhone is, then the discussion on HN would be pretty similar: we'd be going, "Hey, this looks like it's basically a rebranded phone with dubious software that's being marketed to people with a political chip on their shoulder." The flavor of the chip isn't irrelevant, but it's not what's specifically curious and scammy about it.[2]

[1]: I am sure there are conservatives who are reading this and scoffing at the idea that leftists think social media companies are biased against them. All I can say is that I probably follow more leftists than you do, then, and you're gonna have to trust me on this one.

[2]: There is an interesting and weird history of marketing scams that specifically target conservatives, and evidence that there's more of that on the right than the left (although by no means is it exclusively right-leaning).

[andai]

Re: [1] I was wondering what a phone targeting left-leaning people would look like, but I think that's pretty much just Twitter, Tumblr etc? You seem to disagree on this point, so I'd be curious to hear more.

[fabianhjr]

Probably a Fairphone since it values sustainability and worker rights in their supply chain even if the value for buck of their devices is lower than the main corporate brands like Apple/Alphabet/Samsung. (Plus support for unlocking the bootloader, flashing a custom ROM and relocking the bootloader which means it recently got CalyxOS support)

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Fairphone_4

[shakna]

A left-targeting phone would be something like purism's offerings [0] or pine [1], would it not? Though, those aren't exactly rebranded junk as a scam, so they might not count for the purpose of this discussion.

[0] https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/

[1] https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/

[filmgirlcw]

Bingo.

[filmgirlcw]

I think an Antifa/socialist/anti-capitalist phone would look very different from Twitter or Tumblr. It would in some ways, maybe look similar to a very pro-privacy/anti-Big Tech phone the way the FSF and some other groups see things (which isn’t to say that everyone who follows the FSF is a leftist or that everyone who identifies as more left of whatever center you want to choose supports the FSF, because that obviously isn’t true), against anything with a proprietary or closed bent.

Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, etc., for better or worse really don’t represent a left or right ideology. They represent the mainstream. Now, you or I may find that mainstream too conservative or too progressive, but I do not believe that any of those platforms are ideologically driven one way or another (even Tumblr, where the userbase is historically younger and thus more leftist, banned porn (a distinctly anti-leftist move) and has historically had a much more laissez faire attitude towards banning users than many left-leaning people would like…). It’s important not to confuse the userbase that is most visible on a platform for the platform itself).

The Freedom Phone isn’t targeting run of the mill conservatives. Those users are just fine using their iPhone or Samsung. It’s targeting people who are zealots and convinced the world is against them. It’s targeting Q Anon believers (tho not exclusively) and people who think Fox News is too left of center. That’s why it’s a grift. It is targeting people who would rather adopt something that is a scam, just because it agrees with their idea that the system is rigged and everyone is against them.

As chipotle_coyote says, there are, for whatever reason, less scams aimed at leftists. I don’t think it’s b/c the group on the right is any less intelligent, but because the nature of this sort of culture tends to be that the left eats its own, so selling a specific grift to them is a lot harder.

[chipotle_coyote]

I don't honestly know how you'd make a phone targeting left-leaning folks, but I wouldn't have actually thought how to make one targeting right-leaning folks, either, because to me both of those use cases are covered by, well, phones. :) If I was trying to follow the scam playbook, I guess I'd probably install Mastodon, Signal (or its weird broken fork that started this conversation, I dunno), and maybe a few leftist news apps, but even that's actually a bit tough -- there's multiple surveys over the last few years suggesting that conservatives get news from markedly fewer news sources than liberals do. As much as MSNBC may desperately wish otherwise, there is no liberal equivalent to Fox in terms of audience loyalty. (Although, the FreedomPhone specifically calls out NewsMax and OANN, which suggests they're going for people who think Fox may be a little too liberal!)

As for whether Twitter, Tumblr and friends are canted to the left, here's why I'm doubtful of that. (Also doubtful of the inverse, to be clear.) It's fairly trivial to create a Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc., follow list which is curated to your favored sociopolitical bubbles -- that's basically going to happen if you use the sites as designed. The more you interact with those bubbles (e.g., what you like and what you retweet/reblog), the more focused they become.

Okay, so, that's all probably pretty obvious, but here's the thing. Once you're in your favorite bubbles, the problems you see on, say, Twitter are going to be the problems that bubble experiences. If most of the people you follow are deeply invested, either directly or indirectly, with far right activism, you're going to see and hear about far right activists that Twitter has flagged or suspended or banned. If most of the people you follow are deeply invested, either directly or indirectly, with LGBTQ activism, you're going to see and hear about LGBTQ activists that Twitter has flagged or suspended or banned. But those two streams are very, very rarely going to cross. And that makes it very easy to think it's your particular in-group that's bearing the brunt of Twitter's evil machinations.

[tacocataco]

The corporation that makes/develops the phone would be a co-op with equal ownership/profit sharing between all workers.

No capitalist would steal the surplus labor value of the workers involved in making the phone.

It would be hard to get the entire supply chain to fit this model without first creating an organization like Mondragon. [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation