Why was I banned from GrapheneOS? That’s a good question.
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| Why I was banned from GrapheneOS by Daniel Micay) |
this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
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seeing how the GrapheneOS team bans people without any given reason, goes out of their way to point out how they're the only good OS choice and literally anything else one might consider is insecure garbage (it really feels like mentioning Graphene and any other custom ROM on Mastodon in one post summons them with a 10-post thread pointing out why the two aren't in the same league and shouldn't be compared to each other, ever), and then paints themselves as the victim who is constantly harrassed by the competition without ever showing much evidence, I probably wouldn't be very comfortable running their product, even if it was available for my device.
This is a huge mischaracterization of what the project account does across socials. They are on the receiving end of misinformation like that being spread in this blog post, designed to stir up drama and provoke harassment towards the project. Anyone who has looked at the actual evidence (not the blog post), has found the claims in the blog post to be baseless.
People ask genuine questions about the differences between Android forks and the project account is available to provide factual information on those differences...and you're mad about it?
I honestly don't think it's false. I've seen people be on the receiving end of graphene developers propensity to claim their solution is the best and most secure ROM out there. GrapheneOS users are just as inclined to make those claims unsolicited, and that in threads that just mention custom ROMs and aren't talking about security or anything close to it.
The devs and community need to take a chill pill or go into therapy, because it seems like they all went through some traumatic event(s) and GrapheneOS or ROMs in general are their trigger.
I'd be much more willing to use the ROM and donate if the community weren't as intense and it also ran on devices other than Google's. Right now, both points drove me away from GrapheneOS and I actively discourage those around me to use or install it. If the devs and community were less intense and open to civil, friendly discussion + compromise, things would be different. Not everybody out there is a threat and has to be treated as such.
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The blog post is false. You can verify it by looking at the repos. This person was being childish in their attempts to get GrapheneOS and other projects to accept the feature request. They were told "No". Now whether they or anyone else feels the reason behind that decision is valid or not is separate from the fact that this person then went out of their way to make noise and trouble for the project (by opening the repo, pinging the developers, etc.). We'll call it "entitlement". When they were blocked, instead of moving on and accepting that the feature wouldn't be implemented, they wrote up this blog post and spread it around the internet so that it would stir up drama, and direct more attacks towards the project. I'd call that a vendetta.
Other companies and projects have a tendency to take criticisms coming from the project as directed attacks. I take less issue with the project making objective criticisms. To respond to that criticism by pointing a finger back calling the founder "delusional", "insane", etc., doesn't seem appropriate. Even if it were true (which no one has evidence to claim), it would still be completely unacceptable to talk about someone like that. Your comments about them or the community "needing therapy" perpetuates that sentiment.
Intensity is one thing. That is arguably true and the OS may not be the leading AOSP fork in terms of security and privacy (see: Capabilities against forensic extraction) if it weren't the case. It is the projects unwillingness to compromise in this area that makes it stand out in that regard.
Other projects and companies make claims about and market their projects/devices/services. Not that I'm arguing that GrapheneOS should be the only ones able to comment on or evaluate those claims, but they are certainly some of the most qualified to. We shouldn't give them a pass because they claim to protect us against "big tech". Those things should be critically evaluated because it matters so much.
GrapheneOS evaluates other's primarily based on their technical merits and against their claims they make. How many of those who oppose do the same? Or do they just call them divisive, crazy, and incendiary?
Thank you for the civil discussion. I hope it can continue.
That wasn't what I meant by false. It was your phrase about the activity of project socials being mischaractered, which I still maintain it is not.
It really depends what is said and how. As I have said before, and as the original comment you responded to said, the project socials (and community) constantly put down other projects and bring up grapheneOS in any discussion about ROMs. The problem is they seem to lack awareness and often ignore context.
For example, if I mentioned LineageOS as a good option for somebody who wants to degoogle their Samsung phone, you can bet that a grapheneOS maintainer or sympathiser will show up. They will inform everybody how insecure lineageos is, throw a bunch of technical terms around, and finally recommend the purchase of a google pixel and to flash it with grapheneOS. This happens regardless of what the original user says they want (a degoogled Samsung phone), here the question was asked (possibly thread about Samsung phones), what budget the user has (they might not have any to buy a new phone), and so on.
I could call it "making objective criticism" like you call the actions of the grapheneOS maintainers and community. Do you understand now why that argument doesn't work? To you it may seem objective, but to others it is brigading, unwanted, annoying, and also insulting. Immediately entering every discussion about another ROM with a "that insecure" and "you might as well not have a passcode and hand over everything to Google" is far from the objective arguments you think the maintainers and community are making.
Hopefully it is more understandable now what I (and some others) take issue with. If grapheneOS maintainers and the community could just please stay on topic, make relevant comments, and be more diplomatic, maybe even supportive of other projects, that would improve their image so much...
🙏 Thank you too.
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