Facebook flags Linux topics as 'cybersecurity threats' — posts and users being blocked
Facebook flags Linux topics as 'cybersecurity threats' — posts and users being blocked
DistroWatch is one of the largest affected organizations.
Facebook is banning posts that mention various Linux-related topics, sites, or groups. Some users may also see their accounts locked or limited when posting Linux topics. Major open-source operating system news, reviews, and discussion site DistroWatch is at the center of the controversy, as it seems to be the first to have noticed that Facebook's Community Standards had blackballed it.
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DistroWatch says that the Facebook ban took effect on January 19. Readers have reported difficulty posting links to the site on this social media platform. Moreover, some have told DistroWatch that their Facebook accounts have been locked or limited after sharing posts mentioning Linux topics.
If you're wondering if there might be something specific to DistroWatch.com, something on the site that the owners/operators perhaps don't even know about, for example, then it seems pretty safe to rule out such a possibility. Reports show that "multiple groups associated with Linux and Linux discussions have either been shut down or had many of their posts removed." However, we tested a few other Facebook posts with mentions of Linux, and they didn't get blocked immediately.
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Addition to include the DistroWatch link: https://distrowatch.com/weekly-mobile.php?issue=20250127#sitenews
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Oh well, it's only facebook and only linux.
There are far more important things to worry about and to do.
"They came first for the distros. But I didn't speak up, because it was only Facebook and only Linux. "
Never had a FB account never will.
I haven't logged into Facebook in over a decade, can't even remember the login email. Can't be arsed to jump through hoops to ask for it to be deleted.
Can't imagine why anyone would willingly make a fb page today.
Many towns use Facebook to post information about meetings, elections, events, etc., and they don't post it anywhere else. Unfortunately you can only look at a page for so long before they make you log in. So without an account you could miss stuff.
Are you seriously applying a fight for rights for people to software? LMAO.
What a ridiculous thing to do.
There are certainly are bigger issues in the world right now, sure, but it isnt about "rights for software", it is about the ability people to talk about what they want (in this case, software)
If you think this isn't related to human rights, then you've missed the point.
People have the right to use technology, and indeed we effectively need technology to exercise our right to free speech. You cannot have one without the other. Not anymore.
The right way to think about this that they are arbitrarily banning a topic of discussion simply because it is not dead-center average. This isn't even a legal issue, and the justification is utter nonsense (Facebook itself runs on Linux, like >90% of the internet). No government has officially asked them to do this, though the timing suggests that it is unofficially from the Trump administration.
This is about exerting control, establishing precedent, and applying a chilling effect to anything not directly aligned with their interests. This obviously extends to human rights issues. This is a test run.
Okay, thanks for explaining.
Boiling frog. It's easier to start oppressing people when you start suppressing their rights, so gradually, it's barely noticeable.
And I know Meta is a private company, they have their right to "moderate" what is discussed on their platform. But saddly, Facebook is still a big player in the social media landscape.
I still can't tell if this is sarcasm.
Linux, and libre software in general, is one of the few impactful tools available to maintain (or reclaim) the sovereignty of our communications, data, and access to the online world. Those things lie at the core of practically everything in our lives, from employment to education to laws to basic human necessities. Given how significantly freedom is being eroded lately, I can't think of many things more important in the long run.
Yes, but many foss is just created with those already in the know about what it does in mind.
FOSS has historically and continues to be unhelpful to many people coming into it. There's often no beginner level tutorials built in, no easily accessible communities that do not have at least one smug asshole that is utterly unhelpful saying things like "just fork it" or "it's not for you".
So if FOSS ever wants to actually position itself as helpful for the common person it needs a lot more people prepared to write these tutorials etc and build them into the software itself, not just assume internet access or that such things can be found online.
The biggest one is the terminal. As far as I'm aware it does not come with a tutorial built in ever on any distro. It does not on first opening it say "hey, here are the things you can do" because the developers do not consider that people might be entirely unfamiliar with such things and/or nobody wishes to write one or include it even if it is written.
So yes, foss is good for freedom but at the expense of having support built in to get people started, unlike many closed sourced software things. I don't therefore see how it is useful to people that have no clue how to get started with it, thus often sending them back to the very things FOSS says they should escape.
Beginner tutorials exist. Have you even tried looking? Linux has better documentation than anything I've seen in any other OS. Man pages, help files, and commented configuration files galore in just about every single Linux distro without any Internet needed, but it sounds like you never even bothered to look for them.
Sure, assholes online exist in Linux communities, but they are EVERYWHERE. We've got a couple right right here. That doesn't exactly distinguish FOSS communities from any other.
Generalizations about all of FOSS based on your limited experience with a few distros is just asinine. FOSS is way more than an operating system.
Expecting a machine to hold your hand through your learning is such a weird form of entitlement and an especially weird distinction to make since no other operating system does that to the level you expect either.
Corporations pay for support services. The code is free (as in speech). No one ever claimed that the support was also (or even should be) free. Microsoft support is a joke. Apple support is mostly just a sales scheme. Linux support forums might be hostile to entitled noobs looking for a handout and a quick fix, but they are fucking heros when given a chance to help those who put in the effort to help themselves.
Man pages, help files, and commented configuration files galore
Technical documentation != Tutorials. Not even remotely.
Linux support forums might be hostile to entitled noobs looking for a handout and a quick fix
"Oh so you use Linux? Name every distro (to prove you 'put in the effort' to my standards)"
Sarcasm aside, Lime Buzz is completely correct; FOSS as an ecosystem has cultivated an air of ahem techno-elitism, and that severely undermines its actual usefulness as a tool of individual freedom or certainly resistance. If a tool requires a bunch of X (time, money, base knowledge, etc) in order to utilize, it's not going to be useful to people who do not have that resource to spend on it. Which is going to be the majority of any given group. And that has really made it as an ecosystem much less important than many other concerns. Individual projects can still be important, but Linux is certainly not going to save us from Authoritarianism.
Corporations pay for support services. The code is free (as in speech). No one ever claimed that the support was also (or even should be) free.
Corporations may unfortunately be people, but people are certainly not corporations, and shouldn't be expected to pay for everything corporations do.
If you believe that Linux actually helps people- that it materially improves their lives over being trapped in a predatory tech world built by for-profit entities who are happy to sell their customers out to a fascist government- then you are conceptualizing the relationship between Linux evangelists and new users incorrectly. We're not providing sales and tech support in that case, we're providing them aid. And aid workers don't ask people to show how much they've tried to help themselves before offering them help.
And if you don't think Linux actually aids peoples' lives, then you just agree with Lime Buzz that
There are far more important things to worry about and to do.
Thanks for explaining what I was getting at better than I am able to currently, genuinely.
Man pages are not good for beginners. Help pages, I am not sure if they exist within the OS for such things I mentioned such as the terminal or not.
I was being specific so as to avoid it blowing up into multiple things, but yes there being no tutorials built in is common to many FOSS things I have come across.
I disagree wholeheartedly with your assertion that people should not be handheld through the learning process or that it's entitlement to expect or even want it, if we want people to learn and get better at things then such things are useful and needed but they have to start somewhere and having a machine 'hold their hand' is better than them getting frustrated imo.
So what if no other OS does it to the degree I think it should? FOSS could prove itself to be better by doing what other OSs don't, but you seem to be suggesting it shouldn't and that is something I genuinely don't understand. If we want people to use it as I often see FOSS obsessives tell people yet do absolutely nothing to support them in doing so, just call their closed source software shit, tell them to move to open source and then are like "lol, byeeeee" if they do and then have no idea how to use it, especially if they do so just to not be berated by them again.
I disagree that people earnestly looking for help should be called 'entitled noobs' and even if they are, so what?
I'd rather help them so they can move on to learning on their own. This is exactly the attitude and viewpoint I was addressing, foss people cannot see how it benefits us all to help even those that just want a 'quick fix' to their problems as it is more than possible in a few years time those people might be even more helpful as they remember how they were treated in the face of their confusion about it.
I don't agree only that those people put in the effort themselves should be helped, even if it's indirectly, writing a beginner level tutorial and then linking it is more useful and nets more use to foss than just saying "no figure it out yourself" in the long term and I genuinely do not understand why people think that 'handouts' are bad if they get a good result in the future or at least get the person to stop asking.
I've actually written many tutorials for things and plan on writing more in the future, I've helped many people with software both closed and open source, so yeah, I have some experience there and completely understand people's frustration with the general foss community when they cannot get help. I've been that person many times too and so decided to do something about it, I genuinely hope others do too so that we can all grow together whether people start from 'entitled' roots or not.
Linux community has been better at being helpful, though, as the years passed.
Expecting a machine to hold your hand through your learning
Linux support forums might be hostile to entitled noobs looking for a handout and a quick fix
...but still freakin' insufferable.
Lime Buzz has a point here.
If they're doing this to Linux they're likely doing the same for other topics. And it's not just Facebook that's going downhill like this
Point well taken, thanks.
Hope you're being glib-- because censoring an open-source, more privacy-minded, and alternative operating system to Big Corpo is only an excuse and the continuation.
Well, my point was that it's funny that people who likely never lift a finger to help people in other ways suddenly come out of the woodwork when it's technology they like. But yeah, I see your point, it isn't great that folks won't learn about it on their walled garden social media and hopefully that might lead them to escape it.
Weird that you assume nobody who supports FOSS is helpful to any other leftist causes.
Kinda wedge-like.
wedge-like?
You know, like, targeting leftist solidarity and looking for anywhere and everywhere to drive wedges. Wedge-like.
Oh my intent was the opposite. But fair enough.
I'm curious how this approach is meant to achieve solidarity. Can you elaborate on your thinking?
It was more of a call out to people that only care about foss and nothing else, a challenge.
I in general do not think most of the foss community is good because they have shown themselves time and time again to be overly protective of it and themselves in opposition to what most people actually need from software or other things.
It has some very worrying views politically which likely stem from abusers like stallman and that we live under such a myopic, self centered system such as capitalism and so this leads people to have a very blinkered view on what is important, often times, sadly foss obsessives are smug know-it-alls who tell you that if you don't like it then just fork it or to go back to windows etc, instead of actually being helpful. Not to mention many of them have very bigoted views.
They do not see that foss could be more liberatory if they actually pulled their heads out of their ego and took a more community based approach. I get that some are like this and I am grateful, but I've been told many times no without any justification given or given bizzare workarounds that do not actually fix the problem and so had to basically abandon the software they claim is good because it no longer works for its supposed purpose. FOSS is no less hierarchical or authoritarian than other software inherently as many times unhelpful changes are forced upon users without their consent and it can be difficult to change back or disable, but people like to pretend it is for some reason.
Part of the problem with it is that we all live in a system where the developers need money to live and so will refuse point blank to help if they are not paid which sadly leads to them mostly supporting companies and not what people say foss is actually useful for: the common person. So it is as subject to them whims of capitalism as anything else but people like to pretend it is not for some reason.
People do need to eat and so it is good if they are paid, but I wonder how many people actually do so and how much developers care if they do unless they are getting the big bucks from them somehow.
The point therefore is that foss on its own is not as liberatory as people seem to think it is and it is more that people who only care about foss this was directed at.
I use linux and other foss things daily, but I do not think they are as good as they could be because they are actively hostile to people's needs and to devs too (see the kernel rust incident), this is why I find it a bit silly to care about linux compared to other things, but if people do care about both then that is good.
Also sadly, having more people in the community with more diverse needs and views does not inherently shift many developers and they double down more, so I did not think having facebook censor it was neither here nor there as to whether foss was or could be good or not.
I do understand now that maybe that was presumptious of me but for other reasons unrelated to linux and foss itself and more to the discussions people might have and how much those are allowed or not.
Thank you for explaining! While I didn't like your initial comment, you definitely brought up some excellent points. I also agree that the FOSS community can be more welcoming.
And it's been great running into you around here. Hi!
Sure! Glad to have explained and hopefully helped. I thought I had better after people called me out for something I didn't exactly mean and possibly things I did but was incorrect about.
Yeah! Nice to run into you too around here! How's it treating you? If you'd like to say, that is.
I definitely agree that there are problems with some FOSS enthusiasts, but I don't think it's constructive to paint FOSS and FOSS enthusiasts as a whole based on their actions. To me, responding to problems involving diminishing the visibility of Linux and FOSS with "but why don't you care about x" isn't particularly constructive, and does little more than drive a wedge between people who think FOSS is a priority (but not their only priority) and people who place FOSS as a lower priority but who are otherwise natural allies.
In particular, the casting of open source devs focusing on what their own creative impulses drive them to make as 'authoritarian' is itself an attempt at authoritarian imposition. To take one's own time out of one's own day to code something is an act of creativity. FOSS is, by nature, less inclined to operate on a top-down model than corporate software development.
What you're asking for isn't a less hierarchical structure, it's a more hierarchical structure. As it stands, open source devs create what they feel is best and you are, as they say, absolutely welcome to fork it. There's nothing authoritarian about that. They've put their time in to create what they see the need for, and you literally are able to either go code additions you want to see yourself, roll back to earlier versions, or even hire someone to make it for you. You are not free to demand that they create what you want to see.
That isn't them holding an authoritarian model over end-users, that's them graciously handing out their hard work, their mental energy, indeed even their spoons, to the rest of us. The only authoritarian part of the conversation between end users making demands of developers and developers focusing on what they choose to spend their time on is the attempted authoritarian demands of end-users.
This is work that they literally give out for free. Not just the end product, but the source. If there's a feature you want, you literally are welcome to add it. That is not the case with closed-source software. In fact, if you attempt to modify closed-source software and redistribute it, there's a significant chance that you'll end up with a lawsuit or at least a DMCA take-down notice on your hands.
Stallman is a creep. 100%. There are other creeps who code. 100%. But there are also all sorts of other people, including members of marginalized groups, who code. For some of them coding is something that helps them feel okay. For others it's something that takes up a lot of the energy that they have. Sometimes it's both. It is completely unfair to demand that they code what you want the way you want when you're unwilling to do that yourself.
I think you're not really looking at the demands that you're making of others and exempting yourself from out of hand in the same breath. If you want to see something in FOSS, you have every right to go add that thing. You do not have a right to others doing it for you.
FOSS is the solution to a lot of the problems we're running into right now. It's no coincidence that Trump's inauguration was packed full of billionaire tech bros who are currently doing everything in their power to further marginalize every marginalized group. FOSS may well be the only reason we continue to have spaces where we can have these sorts of discussions and actually advocate for social progress or any form of leftist solidarity.