Why I left librem social
A few days ago I posted about my discontent with librem’s mastodon instance. Here I elaborate on my decision.
Around the beginning of 2020 my computer broke down, my battery stopped working and a bios message on startup prevented me from continuing to boot. My laptop was stuck in a boot-loop. And my posting has mainly focused on my mastodon account, formerly on librem’s instance.
If you’re not already aware, librem is a product line from Purism - A software and hardware company basted on the U.S. focused on software freedom in the gnu scene of the word. That in and of itself is a good thing, free and open source is something I advocate for. However, support for free software is only a means to an end. I don’t really care for the GPL license, I care for protecting users - especially from vulnerable groups due to some other means of oppression. A world I would love to live in is a world of justice and access to the basic necessities for all, without exception. In an incisively digitized world, the means of communications, socialization, citizenship, education and creation are technological means. Those digital means I advocate should be universal, and even if I come off as extremist, an extension of Human Rights. If a legal document, such as the GPL license is one pathway to achieving digital justice and universal computing programs, then yes, all software ought to be free software! But if free and open source becomes a goal rather than merely a method, then we will get stuck under nonsensical knots.
For instance, what happens if free software is used to take away the freedoms of other users? Well, if free software is an absolute, then so be it, oppress away those unlucky users. But I claim it should not be an absolute goal, it should be a means to a goal, to the goal of social and economic justice and dignity in virtual grounds. If free software is used, in the worst case scenario, by Nazis - then it should become fairly obvious that “freedom” on it’s own its not sufficient. Freedom over what? Free to do what? Who benefits from this freedom or de-regulation?
Sadly, free software is been used by Nazis, today! A social media popular amongst the far right, Gab, has been looking for methods to avoid censorship, therefore a decentralized mode of organization will do wonders for defending the alt-right’s turf. Last year Gab migrated to Mastodon, Adi Robertson wrote for the Verge:
Many Mastodon instances hold users to a higher standard than bigger social networks. On Gab, meanwhile, users post a striking amount of hate content and have protested even very limited moderation. As of this writing, the Gab timeline’s first page features a warning about “International Jewry,” a string of posts with the hashtags “#eugenism” and “#ethnostate,” and a political cartoon of four lynched bodies (marked with an LGBT Pride rainbow, a Star of David, a Black Power fist, and a feminist symbol) above the caption “SOON.”
Some Gab content has crossed the line into criminal activity. The UK jailed two teenage neo-Nazis in June for posting terrorist propaganda. Florida police also arrested a user last month for posting racist threats and possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. And in 2018, *a man posted an anti-Semitic Gab message just before killing 11 members of a synagogue in Pittsburgh. Gab denies that it condones hatred — CEO Andrew Torba says it simply allows any speech that’s “legal in the United States” with a few exceptions. It correctly notes that Facebook and Twitter also contain hate speech and violent threats. Gab is far smaller than these sites, however, and its bad posts are particularly concentrated.*
Freedom - Foss kind of freedom - is not worth it. And in Linuxy circles this critique of freedom is often ignored. When it comes to freedom, gnu fanatics claim a solution for user exploitation is a fully free software computer environment. Users are not “set free” by oppressive platforms’ methods being regulated away, but by users all individually using only GPL licensed software. Or an especially neoliberal take, and a popular one might I add, is for all computer and internet users concerned with their rights to go out and purchase 1,399 plus dollar computers and 749 dollar phones…. from Purism. The goal of the company is to pull of an apple style ecosystem with FSF approved software only. That means gnu freedom ain’t so free after all.
By choosing librem’s mastodon instance I was essentially tagging myself as a free software advocate, and again, a FOSS advocate I am not! I don’t have an interest in FOSS on its own, since like I said previously what I advocate is social and economic justice in digital spaces. Yes, some part of the goal means software should be freely accessible for more creations to flourish, but creativity and access is only one bullet point in the agenda. Similarly I don’t agree with free speech absolutists, who claim all speech is scared and anything below not boosting everyone’s speech to everyone else’s consciousness is censorship. Like free software, free speech has a purpose, a goal beyond free speech by itself.
I don’t support librem’s goal as a company, I don’t fully agree with their values, I don’t endorse a method as a goal in itself. I don’t think free speech or free software is an absolutely good, or a noble goal by itself. And so I say goodbye to librem’s platform.