Mozilla used Firefox's notification system to push the Facebook boycott
Some users of the latest stable version of the Firefox web browser for Android have received a push notification by Mozilla itself. The notification links to this blog post on the Mozilla website in which the organization states that it has joined the StopHateForProfit coalition and asks its users to do the same. One of the goals of the campaign is to pressure Facebook into controlling certain content more tightly on the platform.
The user selection process is unclear, but it is possible that the notification is limited to users from the United States.
Public reactions to the use of non-browser-related push notifications by Mozilla have been negative mostly, see user reactions on Twitter or Reddit for example.
Firefox for Android installations include a setting called "Product and feature tips" that is enabled by default on new installations. It appears that Mozilla used the system to push the notification to user devices. Disabling the setting should prevent future messages, but some users claimed that they got the notification despite having set the option to off.
Another option is to block all notifications from the web browser, but that would block notifications the user wants to receive as well.
One of the core questions that needs to be addressed in the aftermath is whether browser makers should be allowed to use a browser's notification system, regardless of whether it is through push notifications, update notifications, or something else, for non-browser related content, regardless of that content.
Proponents might say that it is the company's browser and therefor in their right to use the system for that. The company obviously has to live with the consequences of its doing; users who dislike it may disable notifications altogether or even uninstall the browser.
Opponents may see it as advertisement, an attempt to push certain agendas, a trust issue, invasive, immoral or even as an abuse of power. They too, may be inclined to uninstall the browser or disable notifications, with the former being more likely than the latter.
Now You: Did Mozilla shoot itself in the foot once again? What is your take on this? Remember, no political or religious discussion in the comment section.
The most ironic thing is that Mozilla isn’t even doing this for money, but simply for pushing their political and moral position. It means they see their userbase as a collective which they can use for poliical activism, not as individual users. The mozilla foundation is in total control of the corporation.
They probably really believe that their end justify the means. Which is a bit delusional.
What they don’t seem to realize is that people are already pushed back by the way this message is being delivered to them, not even talking about the obvious political bias which aleniates at least 50% of the userbase simply due to the contents.
Nobody should be surprised by this move. Object, decry, dislike, condemn if you want, but it is hardly surprising.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/
Mozilla has always been open about why Firefox exists which is to support an open internet. Mozilla does not exist to provide a benign, neutral software product that users can constantly whinge about. Never has been.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/history/
This is why, not long after any vaguely popular trend in computing arises, like virtual reality, you will see Mozilla try to twist the Firefox code to some sort of relevance in that segment:
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2018/04/03/mozilla-brings-firefox-augmented-virtual-reality/
The Firefox code, whilst historically flexible enough to create any app from it, may have bugger-all to do with anything suited to VR. That doesn’t matter to Mozilla. They need a ‘hand in the game’ vehicle with which to claim enough influence, in any and every segment where the internet exists, to push open standards and support freedom for end users … as they define “freedom”.
It’s as simple as that.
You wouldn’t expect the English government to allow posting of Nazi hate propaganda on billboards all over London because it would offend and potentially threaten it’s citizens. As the first duty of any government is protecting citizens, they would not allow it.
That is the same concept as sedition which is another reason ‘free speech’ is an idealistic myth.
Mozilla has always been a political entity. They’ve always been open about it as well so nobody should be surprised. Just Click Help > About and you will see:
“Firefox is designed by Mozilla, a global community working together to keep the Web open, public and accessible to all”.
Does that sound apolitical?
How about this:
“Our mission is to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all. An Internet that truly puts people first, where individuals can shape their own experience and are empowered, safe and independent.”
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mission/
Notice “people first” and the word “safe”? Hate speech is dangerous. It threatens people when it incites violence. People are potential users of an open and accessible internet (whether they use Firefox or not). Do I really have to connect the dots? People can’t use an open internet when they are being violently attacked!
How is it ironic? Mozilla has never been about money. They found a way to pay enough developers to lead the Firefox project and rely on shiploads of volunteers to help out as well. Any profit is rolled back into their primary objectives which is to do anything and everything they can and see fit to promote an open internet.
In this respect, Mozilla is more akin to a political party or a social enterprise:
“A social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being—this may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for co-owners.”
Mozilla have always been open about their intentions to use Firefox, and anything else they can produce, as a means for promoting an open, standards-based internet.
Since 2003!
“In 2003, the Mozilla project created the Mozilla Foundation, … continued the role of managing the daily operations of the project and also officially took on the role of promoting openness, innovation and opportunity on the Internet. ”
This ethos originated from the conversion of Netscape code to open source. In their view, that was a move to free up access to the internet from the domination of for-profit company bias. Their political agenda is an unsurprising development of that. It saved users from an internet dominated by Microsoft monopolistic behavior and has provided an alternative to Goowellian spyware (Chrome). They also tried to break the duopoly and first-world domination of the mobile phone market by creating a ‘Firefox’ operating system. Remember that? It was a political move first and foremost.
However the internet is not just code and software. It’s content. Should that content include hate? Is free speech defined by the right to say *anything*, even if the sole purpose of that speech is incitement to violence? Of course not.
Like it or not, Mozilla has taken a position. Argue their position and their tactics for pushing it, but don’t be surprised they have an agenda and are a political entity. They always have been! It’s just that most of the time they are having their say in W3C meetings or knifing their CTO in the back for using his right to free association in a way that happened to disagree with the many ‘marriage equality’ zealots within Mozilla. They have usually been arguing to ensure the software elements that define the internet are created with the best interests of an open internet in mind. This time, they’re pushing their agenda outside of the W3C, that’s all.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/
Like any political entity, Mozilla is pushed and prodded in various directions and to various actions over time. This move to use Firefox so politically is a new chapter in an old story. Mozilla was founded and exists to promote an open, free internet. Right now, they are driven by an ethos that freedom is not the freedom of “free speech” to which many people may subscribe (and which is a myth anyway as nobody is free to say anything and everything they want without consequences).
Mozilla may find that they face a bigger backlash from users than they hoped to create against FB in the first place. If so, they may adjust their behaviour and think twice before using notifications politically. That does not mean they will change their reason for being entirely unless they change their manifesto substantially in the medium term. How they apply it is a separate matter.
Many words, but what did you really say?
Many people know the political position of Mozilla, but what they do here and elswhere is overstepping the boundaries of their users. If they knew psychology, they would understand that this creates the opposite reaction of what they try to achieve.
Secondly, their position over time slowly moved from liberal to anti-liberal.
many words and few words…
someone please give a TLDR/TSDR so I can take an informed choice. thx.
Go back to reddit if you want a TLDR.
@PD
Part of becoming an adult is acquiring the ability to distinguish the real from the imagined, and the actual from the pretended.
One day you will learn this too!
Mozilla has unfortunately become as Mainstream as the big companies, and CUCK is the diseased religion they preach. Nothing new or good will ever come from them anymore.
They support deplatforming and censorship. It’s over I have switched thousands of NY computers to brave. I refuse to support censorship 9f any kind
“They probably really believe that their end justify the means. Which is a bit delusional.
What they don’t seem to realize is that people are already pushed back by the way this message is being delivered to them, not even talking about the obvious political bias which aleniates at least 50% of the userbase simply due to the contents.”
Most users do not care even if they admittedly disagree with Mozillas political beliefs as well as the method the message was delivered. Firefox users use Firefox for a reason and they are not going to switch to another browser over this conduct. Maybe one or two. If that.
They do not criticize Facebook for censoring stuff, like they should, they are criticizing Facebook for not censoring *enough* stuff. Mozilla in 2020.
Propagating your political opinions over a product that should be neutral (a browser) is unethical, and I would refuse to use Firefox even though I know how to turn that off. Such behavior shouldn’t be supported. There are neutral browsers out there – Waterfox, IceCat, Ungoogled Chromium, Bromite, Fennec F-Droid etc.
Last but not least: IF you feel offended by something someone said, especially if it’s really outrageous, you can report the incident to the police, and it will be dealt with before a court, most states already had laws in place against insults / libel / slurs etc. That’s the correct way to go about it in a democracy, employing a team of censors that delete everything based on their own biases is not.
Mozilla has never claimed to be anything other than an advocacy group for free and open access to the internet. They have a manifesto and have had for a long time. The fight for the user’s rights in many ways, including measures that may contradict their own best interests when, for example, they block Google super cookies by default despite receiving ad revenue from Gorwellian.
Since day one, that’s been how Firefox is primarily funded: Goorwellian search priority (and some other companies in different regions). They built this business model because they had to find a way to compete with MS when they gave their excuse for a browser away for free.
Since day one though, they have always been up front about their orientation. If you were not paying attention when the Mozilla lefties ousted Brendan Eich (the creator of JS) for rejecting gay marriage, then that’s going to be news to you. But there has never been any reason you could not have discovered this if you wanted. They do not hide. They cannot even if they wanted to.
@pd: That’s the second time you repeat the comment about Mozilla being for “free and open access to the internet”. It confused me the first time you did it, above, and I thought maybe you had gotten confused while typing it. But now you repeat, so clearly it is intentional.
Your argument makes no sense. If you are for “free and open access to the internet”, you are not for censorship. If you are for censorship, you are not for “free and open access to the internet”.
However, I do agree about Mozilla’s activism being obvious for many years. There is no surprise here.
I’m not sure on what planet “access to” means what you think it does.
Mozilla’s objective seems to be to reduce their user base to zero. Their market share declines month after month, yet they continue to engage in user-hostile actions, whether it’s removing settings, adding unwanted crap, or destroying the UI. I’d stop using Firefox if there was a viable alternative, but the only alternatives are Chrome based browsers that are even worse.
I liked it when software used to just work. Now you have to battle constantly with software to keep it working the way you want and stop it doing things you don’t want. Whether it’s Windows 10 or Firefox, companies no longer see software as a tool to solve a problem, but as a means to push their agenda, whether that be a corporate agenda or a political agenda. Computing was a lot better 20 years ago.
@Matthew
Behold, the no nonsense browser:
https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/README.md
In case you need extensions:
https://github.com/NeverDecaf/chromium-web-store
The no nonsense browser on Android:
https://www.bromite.org/
You can grab the Ungoogled binaries from:
https://chromium.woolyss.com/#windows-64-bit or use chrlauncher, as well.
@Iron Heart,
Forgive me for being an absolute dumbo in this particular case, but I hate phones and avoid them like the plague whenever possible. But want to install Bromite as per your suggestion. However, it’s nowhere to be found on the Google Play Store and the bromite site doesn’t have a download link anywhere. Instead it displays a message that I have to install the F-Droid repository, but the link isn’t complete (missing characters at the end of the URL I suspect) and so it doesn’t work. Last but not least the whole page is written in a pale gray font which for me is impossible to read unless I zoom in to maximum focus. That means scrolling from side to side and up and down just to read a single sentence.
Any suggestions?
@TelV
F-Droid is an alternative app store for Android that houses apps which are fully free and open source. Bromite is such an app. The very first thing you need to do is to allow the installation of apps from other sources (apart from the Play Store):
https://www.wikihow.com/Allow-Apps-from-Unknown-Sources-on-Android
After this, you have two options, the first is to download Bromite from here (save the APK to some destination on your phone, go to the file manager, then press on the APK file):
https://www.bromite.org/
BUT I wouldn’t recommend you to do this. It is better to first set up F-Droid, because then Bromite will be able to receive automatic updates without you having to update it manually every single time. You can download F-Droid from here:
https://f-droid.org/
Then, after having installed F-Droid, add the Bromite repo using this method:
https://www.f-droid.org/en/tutorials/add-repo/
https://www.bromite.org/fdroid
By the way, the F-Droid repo also has “Unmozillaed Firefox” in it:
https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/
;-)
PS: Out of curiosity, any idea what happened to the mobile version of Waterfox?
@ Mathew. Well said. The good old days really were the good old days. So sad they are gone.
A boycott is by definition a voluntary action by the consumer. If Mozilla uses its position as a major browser vendor to try and push people to join their boycott of Facebook, it ceases to be a boycott and instead becomes industrial sabotage. If justice is served Mozilla will be charged an antitrust violation for this.
In another timeline, this would be a legal problem, but we are in the age of moralism where the “right” things will just go through with no problem even if illegal, because no one wants to look at it and risk their own reputation.
Antitrust? Are you serious?
LOL
Your definition of boycott is incorrect, and your understanding of antitrust laws are erroneous.
Why have such strong statements and opinions on topics for which one is ignorant?
Ok so it was clear from the start that firefox was at heart a political entity. As for the notification, I didn’t have them because I’m in france.
But a boycott is by definition a voluntary action by the consumer… Ideally. But in reality, it doesn’t work that way.
All boycotts that worked were not only relying on peoples ideal: It’s people spreading the word, and urging others to do the same, peer pressure, hype, etc. etc. How did you learn from past boycotts? Through people, press articles, people (again) attached directly or not to an entity that is politically engaged. How is that different, since we use the for free the tools from a politically oriented organisations. If I had this notification I would have dismissed it with a shrug… I know what mozilla is and I expect that kind of stuff to happen from time to time…
It’s not even the first time that big company pushes for activism. The thing is, the way they did it, was a bit tactless. Now I’m automatically redirected to the french version so the wording might be a bit more tame, I don’t know.
But it boils down to:
We are participating to this boycott. What if you did the same?
To me there is no pressure to join this movement. Which I won’t since I don’t use facebook.
As for the pushing of notification the wording of the notification is strange (or my english bad and I misunderstood):
“You have an option to allow notifications.
You have an option for Product and feature tips…
Disabling the Product and feature tips didn’t prevent this but disabling the notification do”
Now I know I’m a developer and these kind of esoteric stuff is usual to me but my reading is that.
If there are two options it does mean that there are two level of authorizations:
One for general notifications (Ranging from app related notification to, it seems mozilla news)
One for product related info.
I would say that from a design standpoint they should have added a second option to cut mozilla news .
As a summary, and because some seems to complain about long comment. No boycott works because people and engaged organisations push and raise awareness about this because they now the more people they get the more people they get the more peer pressure there will be to do the same. It’s basic psychology and even the kindest charities does it.
As for mozilla, it feels to me like a clumsy attempt at doing just that. At least, they didn’t use shame or scare tactics like I saw on some article. They were pretty tame on that.
industrial sabotage?
@David
Yup “industrial sabotage”, makes complete sense to me, but then I’m yet another crazy idiot.
My feeling is that it is not in the attributions of a browser to deal with anything else then itself. A valuable intention does not prevail, IMO, on the respect of users’ responsibility. In the same way that it is not in Mozilla’s attributions to associate PDF files to Firefox. The company is overstepping it’s rights and obligations. If it considers it has moral responsibilities then it must state them clearly and announce that Firefox will contribute to a user’s better browsing experience with or without his acceptation, but that leads us to a moral dictatorship.
Remains that the boundary between non-assistance to a person in danger and non-interference in one’s life is a true debate. My opinion considers that non-interference must prevail except in very precise situations where life itself is in cause; this is not the case with Mozilla and its users.
So they’re basically pushing ads to get people to join their political brigading effort against “hate speech”. At least the “hate speech” they disagree with anyway. Wow maybe it is time to embrace Brave. Firefox is doing everything they can to send people packing.
@Anonymous
Just a hint at my own Brave setup, which I configured with privacy in mind: https://www.ghacks.net/2020/07/05/behave-for-chrome-and-firefox-warns-you-of-port-scans-and-local-attacks/#comment-4467393
I’ve been a Brave user for some years now, it never dropped any kind of nonsense message on me so far.
Different subject, but I would appreciate it if Brave would drop its “Zuck the cuck” advertisement.
@Cor
Brave Rewards are disabled by default. That being said, there are some vestiges in the UI that can be removed, if they bother you:
brave://settings/appearance –> “Hide Brave Rewards Button” –> Enabled.
brave://settings/newTab –> Disable Sponsored Images, Brave Rewards, Binance.
brave://settings/extensions –> Crypto Wallets –> Disabled.
You’re welcome.
@Iron Heart
Sorry, I should have posted a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlD28Rp5Xuk
@Cor
Monumentally stupid ad, I agree. Yet ads are not a reference point for the quality of the browser itself, IMHO.
@Cor
I also believe that this is user-made, since I do not see it on Brave’s own channel.
@Iron Hear
Just a hint of my Firefox ESR setup – user.js with a couple of clicks and done, with additional configurations keeping privacy in mind.
Firefox is bad, Mozilla is bad, but there is no alterative yet.
@We love comments
I seriously doubt that you implemented any change that is both non-placebo and non-breaking, that would make your setup superior to mine. I know the usual user.js files for Firefox already, and still don‘t use it.
Number of times Iron Heart has now used the gHacks comments section to promote Brave: 65.
Ironic, given that this thread is talking about using technology to push an agenda.
At least Mozilla is open and honest about their agenda: A free and open internet.
**Removed** [Editor: please provide proof for such a statement, otherwise, it gets removed]
@Kincaid
So, you‘ve counted every mention of Brave uttered by me so far? Good job, what exactly is that supposed to show us? That I am somewhat convinced of software I use? Brave is a viable alternative that hasn‘t pushed any kind of political nonsense on users so far, and in case you haven‘t noticed, I was not even the only one here mentioning it. Whether or not users drop Firefox over this is not upon me to decide anyway, so not sure what you are on about.
As for Mozilla supporting a free and open Internet… I‘ve read that the chinese communist party‘s goal is supposedly a just, anti-militaristic, and oppression-free society. Stating some intent somewhere, an intent that is not legally binding at all, is not proof of anything, and Mozilla is currently doing the plain opposite of what they claim.
You‘ve said in one of your comments down below that you support pressuring others into heavy-handed censorship – with all due respect, I tend to avoid contact with persons that aim to deprive others of their freedom of speech, which is a basic human right. I also don‘t find it very ethical of you to pressure Martin into doing anything whenever you don‘t get your way, ironically insisting on your own freedom of speech or else…
@Iron Heart:
Agreed on every point. I noticed another user above, pd, making the same argument about censorship somehow equating to “a free and open internet”. It’s the most bizarre argument imaginable. It’s literally 180 degrees from rational. It really is worrying when people think that way.
I can confirm that this push notification was NOT limited to US only. Living in Estonia, my Android is set to US English language.
Waterfox 64bit.
It’s actually not surprising. They’ve already released a couple of inane and pointless browser extensions pushing similar rhetoric. One of them, iirc, does nothing but remove the word “bitch” from sites, or something along those lines. That’s part of the reason why I’ve stopped my donations to Mozilla, because I don’t see my money going to the actual browsing experience.
I still use FF on desktop because it’s the only one I can neuter sufficiently (if Epiphany/Gnome-Web had gorhill-level element/frame/script blocking and support for Vim bindings, I’d switch to it full-time, because it already has better GPU acceleration and power consumption compared to any of the big browsers on Linux), but at this point I’m simply tolerating it until something better comes along.
Its a bit ironic though. Previously they didn’t play the political game with browser functions and remained as neutral as they could in PR while their head honcho (current Brave founder) was an openly homophobic bigot in real life. Now it’s almost the opposite – they claim their workforce is embracing inclusiveness and whatnot, but have started using their browser to push political/social agendas.
@Matti
> their head honcho (current Brave founder) was an openly homophobic bigot in real life
Brendan Eich employs this openly LGBT person at Brave Software: https://twitter.com/flamsmark
Seems like he can differentiate between his private opinion and the standards set at the workplace. But most people, including you, simply won’t get that.
Just because Eich privately supports a christian view of marriage doesn’t mean that he despises LGBT people, believe it or not.
Also, Eich hasn’t misused the Brave browser so far to push his (or anyone’s) political agenda. He isn’t that stupid and likely considers this to be unprofessional, too. Can’t say the same about Mozilla.
By the way, if you avoid anything created by Brendan Eich, stop using the Internet, this guy literally invented JaveScript.
*JavaScript
Funny why you get so defensive. I was just stating the irony, not bashing that browser. I clearly stated that, despite being a homophobe, Eich didn’t force his leanings into Mozilla the same way the current Mozilla are forcing their leanings into Firefox.
@Matti
> Funny why you get so defensive.
It’s the appropriate reaction when someone who always treated his employees fairly (which even his former Mozilla colleagues admitted to), irrespective of his own privately held opinion, is called, and I quote: “an openly homophobic bigot” (for a private donation, no less)
That’s not OK at all. There is no indication that Eich ever treated anyone unfairly at the workplace. Quite the contrary, actually.
> Eich didn’t force his leanings into Mozilla the same way the current Mozilla are forcing their leanings into Firefox.
This is true. Mozilla misuses Firefox to push their nonsense like the stuff this very article describes, the same has not happened to Brave yet.
@Matti
Unless you give complete submission, calling Eich a “homophobe” will not be enough. You must be a complete Christophobe! This is the problem of convergence. EVERYTHING converges to these political movements, and software becomes garbage.
“a christian view of marriage”??
Do you know how many Christians support marriage equality and full equality of all people?
Sorry, mate, you gave yourself away there.
Best you just stick to advertising Brave directly
@RichH
Brendan Eich is a Catholic, and last time I checked the teaching of the Catholic Church regarding homosexual marriages was that these can‘t be carried out by the church. So would replacing „christian“ with „catholic“ in my comment above do it for you? I realize that a minority of protestant churches are accepting of homosexual marriages.
I think you should refrain from using non-sequiturs here. My own opinion regarding homosexual marriages wasn‘t even voiced by me, but if you insist on a statement of mine, then all I can tell you is that I have no part in other people‘s private lives. If two persons are happy with each other, it is not upon me to judge or even to comment on it – I would overstep my rights and hamper other people’s freedom of choice if I did. Live and let live, I say.
I really only asserted that Eich obviously upholds a view of marriage consistent with the view of the church he is a member of, and that it is not fair to outright insult him over it, seeing how he has never actively disadvantaged any LGBT person from what I know. Marriage is also something very intimate and each one of us has his or her own idea about it, so again, who am I to judge Eich‘s private beliefs about something so personal?
I am also not using Brave because of Eich – I use it because I think it‘s a genuinely good browser for my own use case (Oopsie, was that an advertisement already?). Using any product because of the CEO (who is likely not even directly involved in its development, i.e. coding) is a fairly silly notion. That‘s like saying you use Windows because you think Satya Nadella is a genuinely fine lad…
“they claim their workforce is embracing inclusiveness”
“They” being Mozilla Leadership?
Guess it doesn’t apply to them, not a black face to be seen.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/leadership/
Donations to Mozilla Foundation are not even used for Firefox development:
https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/a98gmi/donations_to_mozilla_foundation_are_not_used_for/
This just made me go to Brave browser permanently.
Same. And it appeared to be that Brave is much better than I thought.
I tried brave, but I hated it. I think it sucks, always nagging me to join that dopey rewards system.
I’d rather have that than my browser telling me what to boycott.
@Jill @Gabriel
Check out my reply to @Cor above, Brave Rewards UI elements can be deactivated in Brave‘s settings.
Amongst the things they want to censor is ‘militias’, which i found hilarious. Aren’t Militia activity largely legal?
I live in Poland, have notifications disabled in the browser, and still received this pro-censorship crap. I can’t trust FF anymore, so I switched to another browser.
>Did Mozilla shoot itself in the foot once again?
They’re kind of starting to run out of legs at this point. 😂
Not sure who wrote (Voltaire, is it?) “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.
Maybe reversing the logic applies as well : “I approve of what you say, but I will fight to the death your right to impose it”.
Approving, disapproving is or should be secondary when the concerns are those of liberty, liberty to express but liberty to refuse.
Concerning PDF associated to Firefox, I disapprove; concerning Facebook’s responsibility to consider hate speech and behave accordingly, I approve the analysis but disapprove the carrying out.
But my opinion is far less important than our liberty to accept, refuse and not be indoctrinated.
What I mean is that understanding a situation is too often misconducted by emotions and hysteria, that the slightest move, policy, behavior will be exaggeratedly approved or disapproved with over-reactions, adoration or hatred, definitive conclusions all within a total lack of tolerance leading to a total lack of a rational thought. Approving or disapproving shouldn’t lead to worship nor to crucifixion in the same way throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
I’m not surprised that the slightest mistake (we consider to be) leads to excessive reactions here as everywhere and is grabbed to condemn a browser while promoting another as the alternative, because one is bad and the other is good. This is IMO intellectually dishonest and insane. Perfection is not of this world and when it comes to consumerism (which is what a browser is) then I consider my choice should be led by far more components than what I consider as a mistake or a blessing. Argumentation, debates ere essential but nowadays monologues too often replace dialogs, unfortunately.
@Tom Hawack
> I’m not surprised that the slightest mistake (we consider to be) leads to excessive reactions here as everywhere and is grabbed to condemn a browser while promoting another as the alternative, because one is bad and the other is good.
Uhm, Tom, no browser except Firefox is misusing the notification system to spread propaganda. That’s an objective fact.
> This is IMO intellectually dishonest and insane.
No more than you defending FF in spite of moves like this.
> Perfection is not of this world
This is a far cry from perfection, it’s not even an ordinary mistake, it’s overstepping a certain line that shouldn’t be crossed (using a product that should be neutral as a propaganda platform).
> then I consider my choice should be led by far more components than what I consider as a mistake or a blessing.
It’s perfectly reasonable to drop Firefox over this, if you don’t, your decision, just like it is that of others to drop it.
@Iron Hear, the problem is not facts, here, but again that facts, whatever they be, good or bad or considered as either, lead to comments which comment not the facts but a browser as a whole and take advantage of the opportunity, as you do but we know that this is your way of thinking, to promote another browser. The article is not about comparing browsers but about a fact concerning one of them.
You will never understand my dear friend that I defend nothing in particular, I say my word be it positive or not (as above in my first comment) but concerning a facts, or facts. Who would condemn anyone on the basis of a mistake, even of an error, even of a non recognized mistake or error? Too many nowadays.
> It’s perfectly reasonable to drop Firefox over this, if you don’t, your decision, just like it is that of others to drop it.
How arrogant, presomptuous can one be? You could at least add that this definitive sanction is in your opinion (not necessary to add ‘humble’ that would be an excessive requirement as far as you’re concerned). Forget yourself and focus on facts, calmly.
@Tom Hawack
I wonder why you are losing your cool in this manner? Mozilla is abusing their position as the browser developer to push propaganda on their user base. Fact. They are also the only browser vendor so far that does so. Fact.
I know that you have snippets and push notifications disabled, you never saw the propaganda message this article deals with anyway. Yet, in a “preaching water while drinking wine” manner, as always, you are trying to downplay an issue that never affected you in the first place, but affects others. Sick of it, personally. Just saying.
Also, you are the wrong person to teach me anything about humility here, you like to hear yourself talk much more than I do (the comment I replied to could easily have been condensed to 2 sentences, basically, and was totally devoid of hard facts), but you knew that already…
Have a nice day.
@Iron Heart, humility is proposed regarding your comments while your statement about the fact I’d like to hear myself talk is an assumption you precisely transform as an argument on the basis of your lack of humility.
But maybe should I rather refer to a way of processing one’s thoughts amid themselves (serialization) and amid those of others. I mentioned above intellectual dishonesty and insanity. I’m starting to consider dishonesty is not your problem. The problem is you think wrong, I’m not referring to your beliefs of course but to your very way of missing correlations.
1.1- The article : “Mozilla used Firefox’s notification system to push the Facebook boycott ”
1.2 – The article’s question : “Did Mozilla shoot itself in the foot once again? What is your take on this?”
Let’s comment on the article and include an answer to its question, OK?
Now, once we’ve stated our truth about the fact related by the article, a subsidiary question may appear :
If we condemn the fact related by the article, after if possible having explained why, do we consider this as a major fault worth condemning and possibly quitting or never installing this one company’s practice?
Two different things. You cannot mix up everything, bounce systematically and moreover to promote an alternative as you do, this is pointless, it’s not a correct way of thinking. Now of course you’re not the only one to to express such a basic lack of rationalism but you’re one of the few to appear to be so stubborn. Again, I’ll put this on this on the account of anything but dishonesty, i’m sure (or almost) that you just don’t understand what philosophy or Law could provide, forget the contents I mean brain mechanics, not their thoughts, dreams, convictions, just the way of organizing them. I won’t debate with you anymore, hopeless, yet I’ll counter any of your assumptions I consider incorrectly stated, not because of what they state but because of their lack of correlation, as always.
The end of my comment has been truncated (happens). The end is :
—
Two different things. You cannot mix up everything, bounce systematically and moreover to promote an alternative as you do, this is pointless, it’s not a correct way of thinking. Now of course you’re not the only one to to express such a basic lack of rationalism but you’re one of the few to appear to be so stubborn. Again, I’ll put this on this on the account of anything but dishonesty, i’m sure (or almost) that you just don’t understand what philosophy or Law could provide, forget the contents I mean brain mechanics, not their thoughts, dreams, convictions, just the way of organizing them. I won’t debate with you anymore, hopeless, yet I’ll counter any of your assumptions I consider incorrectly stated, not because of what they state but because of their lack of correlation, as always.
@Tom Hawack
> I’d like to hear myself talk is an assumption
Tom, people can read your comments, I am just stating the obvious.
> do we consider this as a major fault worth condemning and possibly quitting or never installing this one company’s practice?
I consider it such, because I want my browser to be a tool, not a propaganda platform serving the whims of Mozilla. That goes for many other people as well, me thinks.
> You cannot mix up everything, bounce systematically and moreover to promote an alternative as you do, this is pointless, it’s not a correct way of thinking.
Why not? There are people out there who no longer want to deal with Firefox over this. Understandably so, might I add.
> Now of course you’re not the only one to to express such a basic lack of rationalism but you’re one of the few to appear to be so stubborn.
Me: It’s not trustworthy, switch to something else. Better safe than sorry.
You: Having had this setting disabled here anyway, I’ll just pretend that the problem doesn’t exist, and when that becomes impossible, I’ll downplay it. In any case, make sure those rose-colored glasses are on point.
Sure, I am the irrational one.
> I won’t debate with you anymore, hopeless,
I won’t miss you. Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.
@12bytes.org was spot on, even if it was put rather bluntly, you are totally off the charts.
Mozilla becoming a political intrument has been happening for a long time. There is allready enough spoken about that here.That’s the reason I changed to Brave long time ago.
and as Iron Heart rightly pointed out, Breich is not a “homophobeâ€.
It looks a bit like the same mistake that upgrade guru Woody made when he started that “blacklistâ€/â€whitelist†nonsense in his Unconscious bias and hiring tread. Except this is far more worse.
the multi-million dollar Mozilla corporation that says it’s “Committed to you, your privacy and an open Web” and “Mozilla puts people before profit” is engaged in censorship activities, plain and simple
i find it remarkable that the corporate clowns who are setting the path for Firefox are apparently blind to the fact that users generally do not want to see this garbage pushed on them
such extremely controversial “system add-ons” (installed by default without user interaction), “features” and “studies” have resulted in widespread and scathing criticism several times throughout Firefox’s sordid history as it continues its decline in market share, yet these clowns seem incapable of recognizing, much less admitting their mistakes
yeah, there’s a lot of garbage on social media, but what makes the morons at Mozilla think that they — the makers of a web browser — have a role to play in censoring it? how does this jive with their statement “Committed to you, your privacy and an *open Web*”? how does this jive with everyone’s inherent right to free speech?
unfortunately Firefox is still a top choice for the privacy conscious person in my opinion, though only after applying a wheelbarrow full of tweaks and installing some privacy-centric extensions – i’d love to see a change in the browser landscape with more competition from large, capable and ETHICAL teams, but that landscape is pretty barren at the moment; it’s either Firefox, or a derivative thereof, or Chrome and anybody that gives a hoot about privacy likely wants nothing whatsoever to do with Google
for more on my personal view of Mozilla, see The Mozilla Monster article at 12bytes.org/articles/tech/the-mozilla-monster
Chromium ≠Chrome.
Chromium is open source and can be stripped of “phoning home” anti-features:
https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium
https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Deviations-from-Chromium-(features-we-disable-or-remove)
It’s puzzling how even some people who criticize Mozilla don’t acknowledge better alternatives. Stockholm syndrome much?
Just for the sake of bashing Mozilla, the ghacks Kommentariat, known as the otherwise grim defenders of privacy, are defending Facebook.
Facebook, the worst surveillance capitalist corporation, that magnifys divisiveness, incite violence, promote hatred, and intentionally manipulate fact and reality for their profits.
Disgusting hypocrits!
…
The first sane comment in this thread.
@Tom Hawack said on July 25, 2020 at 12:22 pm
>>>I’m not surprised that the slightest mistake (we consider to be) leads to excessive reactions here as everywhere and is grabbed to condemn a browser while promoting another as the alternative, because one is bad and the other is good.
This is IMO intellectually dishonest and insane.
THANKS!
@99
To be clear: Facebook censoring certain opinions has nothing to do with the privacy concerns related to the platform. The privacy level is still as precarious as before, Facebook is still the same surveillance capitalist entity as before.
What this article is about and what most people here criticize is Mozilla misusing the notification system of Firefox to spread their political ideas, whether we agree with them or not is irrelevant to the discussion. We don’t want Mozilla to misuse this for any purpose, be it Facebook or anything else.
@99 No defending at all.
Facebook was the darling of the swj’s, untill Zuckerberg took a stand. Freedom of speech.
Suddenly Facebook became the enemy, Mark and Ms. Sandberg “should not be left in control of Facebook”. : https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/opinion/soros-facebook-zuckerberg.html
Talk about censhorship and hypocrisy. Firefox takes over the censorship of Facebook.
Who in his or here sane mind wants a censorship advocating browser.
>>>Facebook censoring certain opinions
Hear hear, seriously?
“Facebook censoring certain opinions” that’s pretty news out of Prinz Eisenherz Comicland.
To be crystal clear:
Facebooks viewpoint of radical indifference the positives and negatives must be viewed as equivalent, despite their unequal moral meanings and human consequences — known as “Bosworths imperative of connection” — leaves no room for any “censoring” what ever.
From this perspective their only rational objective are the $70 billion made through advertising.
Facebook gives a sh*t about peopels opinions!
And that is what it is all about,and not Mozilla “misusing the notification system of Firefox”, mein kleiner Prinz.
@99
> And that is what it is all about,and not Mozilla “misusing the notification system of Firefoxâ€
Well, in this case it would be very mean and rude of you to turn off the related functionality, wouldn’t it? Because if you turn it off, the propaganda message will never reach its intended destination (your brain). I’d go even further and suggest you set your region to en-US and use a VPN set to a US location just to make sure, so that you can receive those propaganda messages way before the other europeans do. I am being serious here, do exactly that. Mozilla will appreciate it.
I stick with the reasonable that a browser should remain neutral and not appeal to me in favor of any political cause, and most importantly they shouldn’t interfere with the content displayed. That’s a ridiculous concept, much like saying your TV should have a say in what you can watch would be.
A Brave shot in your own foot …
>>>and most importantly they shouldn’t interfere with the content displayed
It is remarkable how convulsively you avoid under all circumstances to respond to the content of this notification even with one syllable.
As Tom Hawack said on July 25, 2020 at 4:11 pm
@99
And same like I said to Tom Hawack, my reply to you is: I won’t miss you. Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.
I won‘t address what you have written because you failed to understand the nature of the criticism voiced by most people here. The point is not what Facebook does, the point is Mozilla pushing their agenda, misusing the notification system of Firefox in the process.
Try posting a link to some “right wing” website and see what happens to your post.
@99, to be clear about the fact that Mozilla used Firefox’s notification system to push the Facebook boycott related in this article, a recall of my comments, and sorry to quote my above comments :
“My feeling is that it is not in the attributions of a browser to deal with anything else then itself. ”
—
“Concerning PDF associated to Firefox, I disapprove; concerning Facebook’s responsibility to consider hate speech and behave accordingly, I approve the analysis but disapprove the carrying out.”
—
“Now, once we’ve stated our truth about the fact related by the article, a subsidiary question may appear :
If we condemn the fact related by the article, after if possible having explained why, do we consider this as a major fault worth condemning and possibly quitting or never installing this one company’s practice?”
The topic her is indeed Mozilla’s behavior rather than our opinion about Facebook. What I meant to say and confirm is that we may very well agree on Mozilla’s analysis of Facebook policies and yet condemn the fact they’ve used Firefox’s notification to express it; secondly, that if we do condemn this fact, do we consider it a sufficient reason to condemn if not to boycott Firefox for this sole reason.
This said, I personally agree on Mozilla’s analysis of Facebook, disagree with their carrying it out via notifications and do not consider IMHO it is a legitimate reason to ban a browser. We have three questions to which I emphasize on my three answers.
Dear Mr. Hawack
The Latin expression “totaliter aliter” (completely different, entirely different) has its origin in a modern story of two commentators who imagined Freedom of Speech in social media in the most glowing colors and then promised each other that the one who would get banned first , appear to the other in a dream and should only say a single word to him. Either “taliter†– it is how we imagined it, or “aliter†– it is different than we imagined. After the first one was banned he appeared to the other in a dream, but he even says two words: “Totaliter aliter!”
Guess who was the one that got banned first.
Don’t you find this Funny “What is your take on this? Remember, no political or religious discussion in the comment section.” when this was political and most of the tights, even the price, hows and whys of technology, the pro-privacy enough or not are also political. It is actually ridiculous when people say that when everything was touched by political magic at some point.
My take on this issue, are people surprised? Can I get reminded why people keep supporting Mozilla… again? They started spreading this crap on blog, but since their few users don’t care about their blog, they made sure to spread it on android.. and of course twitter as well.
But are people surprised… again? few days ago some people started receiving a BS messages on Firefox New Tab that said: “We have a lot of work to do to dismantle systematic racism. One way to start is by listening to Black writers and thought leaders” and “Continue your anti-racist learning with new articles in this Pocket collection – with topics ranging from protests and parenting to Black resilience, art and joy.” Do people get dumb Pocket messages often or was it a “special” occasion/exception this time?
Imagine pushing all this BS agendas by a BS company and expect a good response. I honestly hope people finally wake up and start using Brave or Vivaldi or whatever, and let this Mozilla ship sink already.
I am not really surprised they do this crap, if they didn’t even care to kick unfairly a co-founder over BS, why would they care about users and pushing crap to them? it’s their obvious agenda, and they only care about google’s money.
Mozilla people in general, are a bunch of clowns, living in fantasy lalaland. Now I don’t even want to think about the people who will keep supporting them after all this BS and think this is actually a good thing. I guess there are people who would love more censorship going on and advocate it while talking about “open internet” or some crap like that and speech should only apply as long as there are no opposite views, people who can’t have a discussion because they want to change how people think to achieve a lemming society, the ones who call themselves ‘OpEn MInDed’ but are closer most hypocrites closest ones because they live by trendings and get noticed and following others not to gain knowledge and wisdom and really use their brain for logic and general basic thinking.
I am sure there will be many who will support this, But I am glad most people are rejecting it.
@Tony Capello
“I am glad most people are rejecting it”
Can you quantify that claim with fact, or is that just some deceptive rhetoric and/or a wishful bias?
I reckon it’s the later, which would mean we likely can’t trust anything you say.
@ Tony Capello Excellent post, indeed the intolerance, hate and sheer lack of logical and sound thinking. it’s all a fairy tale land.
I am a long-term Firefox user.
Boycotting Facebook (a heavily censored platform) is OK.
Pushing censorship of opinions (or games) that you dislike isn’t. If it’s illegal, it’s illegal – full stop. If it isn’t illegal, then it’s not the job of tech giants to circumvent democracy and perform 21st century book burnings based on the standards of unelected activists — a “social credit system” for online content.
Even less acceptable is using a web browser to publish such propaganda. Or any other propaganda. To be more candid, it’s a deeply disturbing and disgusting abuse of power and consumer trust. Calling it a “shot in the foot” seems to be diplomatic.
Sure, if others don’t share your views on… whatever, then do your best to violate their basic human rights to have their own opinions and views and beliefs and to express them. That’ll fix everything. And if you’re really successful, then they’ll get so frustrated that they’ll eventually take violent actions to make themselves heard.
You can’t fix anything by thinking you have more rights than those who don’t agree with you.
if you really hate Mozilla following its own precepts, and you like the increasing hate speech on Facebook, then start using the Gab-like browser, Dissenter. I appreciate Mozilla for what it did.
As long as they censor opinions that you don’t like then I guess it’s fine. When they come for you, you’ll be the first one crying about it.
People who get this message are alredy lost and you could do nothing about that. They are cannon fodder.
The thing I don’t like is right after a Firefox installation all these new tabs start opening by themselves. I do not even have time to adjust my settings before even being forced to a website.
And yes I always disable notifications in settings after a new installation, I don’t want to be bothered by an annoying notification popup I want to browse where I feel like browsing at the moment. :)
Yes, a “shot in the foot” indeed. Hijacking someone’s browser is at best a very rude practice. They’ve crossed the line here. Mozilla would be better pitching their appeal(s) to the public from their website homepage instead…
… And while their at it, how about some concerted effort in clearly documenting in detail, *every* browser setting in one easy to find location and including such documentation in the local install.
@TelV
Download Bromite apk from,any of this two sites and install it:
https://github.com/bromite/bromite/releases/tag/84.0.4147.95
https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/bromite/
I don’t support sites or services that willfully allow hate to propagate, so I don’t use Facebook or Google.
I support Mozilla for being one of the few organizations that have the courage to stand up to hate.
@Kincaid You’re entitled to your opinion. I disagree but of course you are. Problem is Firefox does not accept disagreements, which is the hellway to hate.
@Sebas You disagree with not supporting Facebook and Google and their Brave New World, but will lecture Mozilla on accepting disagreements? Talk about pot calling the kettle black
I see one of my posts, which was on-topic and not rude in any way, has now been censored by gHacks. gHacks is a private site, and so they are welcome to censor whatever they like.
In turn, I am welcome to remove gHacks from my list of sites I allow ads to appear on. I am also welcome to no longer buy anything from gHack’s revenue-generating offers.
As such, I have now blocked all ads on gHacks and I will no longer contribute financially to this site. I also will no longer be sharing gHacks links on social media.
Sometimes, comments are unpublished because they may need moderation.
I think you should just get rid of the comments.
Social is a failure, as all to many people are deficient, or worse.
Perhaps just have a voting system, and we can always email ghacks if need be, involving corrections and what not.
Perhaps don’t scroll to the comments section, if you dislike it so much.
Benny Hill supported censorship !?
Yeah right…..I think not.
Seems reddit FF mods do not like people disagreeing with them. Got a ban. Thank you nextbern.
Meanwhile they still have not fixed the webpage spoofing bug. On a mostly unrelated note, thanks Firefox, for letting the Web become Blink exclusive.
Oh dear! Please replace “their” with “they’re” in my previous comment.
Virtue signalling.
It wasn’t about Facebook or some noble cause, it was about using blog spam to glitter over firefoxs disgraceful reputation with their self-proclaimed virtues. As if they would affect facebook or any other high profile boogeyman with this.
“Now You: Did Mozilla shoot itself in the foot once again?”
I have a feeling the foot situation is best described in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61iWom9bk9s
today I received the following notification on the home page of my firefox browser:
“This week we saw the culmination of a four year disinformation campaign orchestrated by the President…”
I’m constantly disturbed by the moral grandstanding that these tech companies take all the while censoring conservatives and stoking people’s fear and anger. The only disinformation campaign that’s occurred in the last 4 years has been the smearing of conservatives, calling everyone transphobic, racist, yada yada yada.
I can’t even find a web browser that doesn’t push a political narrative on me…. it’s very disturbing how influential and politically biased big tech has become.