Since there has not yet been an official announcement regarding this matter, I wanted to provide some clarity to the community.
Last week, it was discovered that the Tesseract frontend included an undisclosed and unsanctioned blocklist that prevented users from seeing certain people and communities across the fedivese. This led to significant controversy across the Fediverse, after which the original developer withdrew the project and left the Fediverse.
Everyone is entitled to their own views and to make their own choices about the content they wish to see. However, when those choices are built into an open-source project, they must be disclosed publicly and presented transparently to users. Quietly imposing a blocklist without their knowledge is a serious breach of trust and, in my view, raises legitimate concerns about the security and integrity of the software.
As a result, we have disabled the Tesseract frontend on sh.itjust.works indefinitely.
We are open to offering other alternative frontends. If there is one you would like us to consider, please share your suggestion in !main@sh.itjust.works or !agora@sh.itjust.works.
Thank you
This just reads really weird. It sounds like you're saying that physically assaulting your 'enemies' is an OK form of political action, but a hidden blocklist is a step too far. I can't quite see the ethical coherence there.
Hating on the guy because of his politics is fine, but pretending the issue is merely with his tactics whilst simultaneously condoning violence as a legitimate tactic is incongruous at best.
If I'm ever on anyone's hate list, I don't think I'm alone in saying I'd rather be clandestinely blacklisted than beaten to a pulp.
Eh, insomnia is kicking my ass, no idea how badly phrased it is. Too tired you go back and look, much less edit lol.
My point is that revolution isn't always peaceful, and it doesn't have to be the default. And, punching nazis should be the national pastime (of any nation).
But that's bigger scale, not the scale of some fucknut doing dirty with software. At that scale, you aren't involved in a revolution when you're harassing someone, you're just being a dick, even if the person you're harassing was a dick first.
Insomnia is nasty.
I think that's less confusing. It sounded like the method was the problem. But you're saying the scale of the counter-movement ones actions are a part of is the difference?
That makes a lot more sense. So this guy's tactics (though not his politics), would have been acceptable if they were part of a larger movement?
It's of interest to me because there's been a lot of chatter about the use of violence against political adversaries at the same time as condemnation of this guy's underhand methods (which are clearly much less problematic for the victims than violence would have been), and I wondered if people were justifying it by whose side they're on, or some broader ethics.
Like if the tesseract guy had a hidden blocklist of Nazi, and right-wing groups and then DDOSed the main perpetrator, that would presumably be OK. After all, it's the sort of stuff Anonymous get up to, right? And that's generally considered fair game.
If Anonymous has shadow-blocked Barclay's and then DDOSed them, I think most here would think that was a pretty cool stunt (myself included).
So really the whole tesseract thing boils down to 'this is a left-leaning group and so anti-left action isn't welcome'.
Well, tbh, I would still object to a hidden list, no matter the content. But that's me, I can't speak for the fediverse as a whole in that regard. I don't doubt it would make a difference to some segments of the population here. Hell, I know there's contingents that would be fine with the secrecy side of it in the name of their particular axe to grind.
In his screed about why he made the list, and who/what he put on it/them it's clear he had a specific axe to grind. I'm actually fine with that part. Don't agree with his choices, and I don't think those choices reflect his stated purpose ( come the fuck on, Ada? She's one of the most steady and consistent admins out there, period. And she's regularly pursued the least aggressive possible measures to protect her community/instances).
But if he'd been fully open about it, we could all have made our own choices about using it. Free and open, which is the real essence of the fediverse. That's why he needed escorted off the premises in a direct but humane manner.
Anonymous is a different thing, both in scale and secrecy. It's not even a "thing", per se. It's collectivist direct action. I'm always torn in that regard, since they're isn't really a proper movement, a proper revolutionary goal. The methodology is fine as far as that goes, I just don't trust "it". When fighting established paradigms, secrecy is necessary if you're going to break laws. But it also comes with the price that ideologically aligned people and groups can't really rely on, or help.
I also tend to think Anonymous is half measures at best tbh. Stunts, not a real and coherent movement. Then again, the whole reality of my personal experiences with the general left in a fascist world has me rather disillusioned. There's literal concentration camps in my own country, and nobody is stopping it, and I mean in the way that should have happened when the U.S. did it before, and when the nazis did it last century.
But people at large then at least had the excuse of not realizing what was going on, so an actual uprising to free the people in them and destroy the existence of the death camps (and that's what they are). I couldn't even manage to get anyone to do anything locally. Nada, zilch, nil, not even organizing protest, much less anything that would save the lives of those prisoners. And I'm too fucking old, too fucking disabled, and too obligated to others to be a one man failure at it. It ain't a one man job.
Shit, I got started. Sorry, that's way off from the actual topic. Point was supposed to be that humans have a right to revolution, to pursue self rule. And in pursuit of that right, you use the tools that you have, including violence as needed. But dipshit patrick was one guy, not a structure, and there were better ways to achieve the goal of neutering him than nasty DMs, whingy posts about asking to be put on the list, and threats.
Well, insomnia seems to do you good, that was an interesting and measured post, which is a rarity.
I think I agree with most of what you say, which is unfortunately going to make my post far more boring than yours deserves in response.
I feel similarly about Anonymous but for my cynicism about their capabilities making me perhaps a little less concerned about their lack of structure. Their actions amuse me solely because they tend to be aimed at institutions who deserve to be rattled. I don't imagine them taking Barclay's down, but it would give me a wry smile if their websites went down for a day.
Likewise disillusioned with the left (though I suspect maybe resulting from different experiences). I'm what might be called the old left - unions, environmentalism, welfare. It saddens me to see so much individualism dominate the modern left and I blame that for our lack of collective action. Far too much concern about themselves to think much about others. I'm not saying my generation were martyrs, but we got on fucking boats and sailed in front of whaling harpoons. We didn't whinge about our feelings, then throw a street party and call it activism.
Anyway, rant over. I too am old and tired, and probably far more curmudgeonly than is healthy.
So, yes, maybe structure is key, it stops any Tom, Dick, or Harry from deciding their neighbour is a fascist because he didn't give the lawnmower back and therefore is the justified recipient of violent counteraction. But, as above, I'm not sure I even trust structures anymore.