PS. With all the Discord stuff, in case you wonder why you never see me promoting Matrix, it’s not because it’s a usability nightmare (which it is) but because it’s made by the kind of people who’d be happy to call ICE a customer.
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@aral This is not the case. See https://element.io/en/legal/ethics for the public ethics policy of who we sell to.
Is there a public list of the governmental & police entities that are your customers?
Also, some clarification is needed what you mean by »We don’t sell to governments who are under investigation by the #UN for international atrocities«. Which organs or specialized agencies of the UN do you mean? You seem to be referring to the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, who doesn't investigate, but merely creates reports, within an early warning system.
Also, you're saying »We don’t sell to organisations who are committing human rights abuses (i.e. abusive organisations within a government, even if the wider government itself isn’t in scope).« Who is performing that assessment, and according to which criteria? Which potential customers have been rejected so far, after this assessment?
You're also saying »We don’t sell to governments with poor human rights, to avoid risk of harm to their population. This is currently defined as countries scoring 20 or less« in the Freedom House ranking. Among others, this allows e.g. #Qatar, #Algeria, #Turkey, #HongKong, #Serbia or #Israel to become your customers. Are they?
Without specifics, especially evidence, verifying that you abide by your policy becomes impossible, and it stays yet another text.
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@aral this looks like a promising solution that might work for some people https://peergos.org/
I haven't fully research it but might test it soon. -
@aral Your position implies that the police is an enemy and that states shouldn't have any kind of law enforcement called "police". But can you pledge that you will never, ever call the police, nor expect any police intervention or involvement, no matter what?
States are human super-organisms and their existence is both necessary and unavoidable in our world. And states need a police force to be effective. @element
@aral @element What we need is effective democratic control over all public institutions and social spaces, not abolishing police or other standard state institutions. And for that effective democratic control, we need open standards and open protocols, among other things. (I would even say they are indispensable, although the public discourse doesn't seem to understand that yet).
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@LukefromDC @aral I am still waiting for Mastodon to have E2EE support.

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@aral Your position implies that the police is an enemy and that states shouldn't have any kind of law enforcement called "police". But can you pledge that you will never, ever call the police, nor expect any police intervention or involvement, no matter what?
States are human super-organisms and their existence is both necessary and unavoidable in our world. And states need a police force to be effective. @element
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PS. With all the Discord stuff, in case you wonder why you never see me promoting Matrix, it’s not because it’s a usability nightmare (which it is) but because it’s made by the kind of people who’d be happy to call ICE a customer.
The “F” in FOSS doesn’t stand for fascism.
@element https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110340953550548309
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@KarlHeinzHasliP @ahltorp @element Depends who you consider to be human, I guess.
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@kravietz @couscous @aral @element @ahltorp
I see it that opponents view it as "blood money" that poisons the project, and supporters see it as "the police/military have these fuckloads of money, might as well have them go to some commons"
now, is "tapping MIC budgets for a good cause" enough to outweigh "selling your services to the oppressor"?
two things can be true at once, and there's an (at least perceived) risk of the project getting too chummy with the violence-dispensing institutions
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PS. With all the Discord stuff, in case you wonder why you never see me promoting Matrix, it’s not because it’s a usability nightmare (which it is) but because it’s made by the kind of people who’d be happy to call ICE a customer.
The “F” in FOSS doesn’t stand for fascism.
@element https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110340953550548309
@aral @precariousmind @element Hahaha. So next time I see someone putting down Signal and boosting Matrix, I can say “signal isn’t run by fascist bootlickers.”
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Imagine regaining effective, broadly inclusive democratic control where it was lost (or winning it where it was absent). Then the problem of slave-patrol mentality will be easy to solve. Otherwise, you will end up recreating the same thing under a new name. It's not the name that is the issue, it's the shape of the institution within societies that don't adhere to democratic standards.
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@aral Your position implies that the police is an enemy and that states shouldn't have any kind of law enforcement called "police". But can you pledge that you will never, ever call the police, nor expect any police intervention or involvement, no matter what?
States are human super-organisms and their existence is both necessary and unavoidable in our world. And states need a police force to be effective. @element
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@MisuseCase @aral @element Do you know that there are many different countries on this planet and some of them function much better than the US?
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@davidgerard @mlen @aral @element I fucking should
