The removal of the Dissenter extention

Add-ons addons.mozilla.org
#18

I stuck with Firefox longer than most. I have recently been adopting more of the services like sync, etc. I tried to install Dissenter this morning and couldn’t find it. “this page is missing”. Did a search and discovered it was banned. My faith in Mozilla’s creed is at an all time low and I will very likely be abandoning Firefox for Vivaldi or Brave.

Brendan Eich gets ousted by SJWs, Mozilla hops in bed with https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/, tries to build interest in having firefox natively filter “fake news”, accepts millions of dollars from google…

Why does Mozilla even maintain the pretense that it cares about “an open and free web” while banning addons that allow free speech? This addon simply provides a portable comment section for ANYONE to use. It’s precisely the kind of decentralized tool we need to protect us from a 1984 style thought police dictatorship. All dissenter did was prevent the stifling of our freedoms. What’s mozilla’s response? BAN!

Did the donations from Open Society and Google affect the Mozilla foundations morals? The fact the chrome extension was removed on the same date tells me that Mozilla is beholden to google and opensociety in any matter of consequence. Let’s stop pretending all those donations haven’t had a massive impact in changing the mozilla mission statement. Just sell out entirely to your overlords mozilla. No reason to hide what we can all plainly see.

I should’ve taken this advice years ago. But I held out hope that things might change. They’ve only gotten worse.

7 Likes
#19

Free speech exists for many reasons, not solely to give us the ability to speak truth to power. It’s also so we can be a FREE people, unrestricted by gatekeepers and thought police.

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#21

Mozilla makes browsers, apps, code and tools that put people before profit.

Our mission: Keep the internet open and accessible to all.

Really???

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#22

I’ve been using Firefox since the 2.0 days. I stuck with it when everyone moved to Chrome, because I knew what kind of beast Google was. I stayed on this side of the fence despite the rough performance pre-Quantum and the stormy transition to WebExtensions. This kind of fascist BS, though, I can’t forgive. Not because of the extension in question, I don’t even use it. It’s unforgivable because it proved that Mozilla simply doesn’t practice what they preach. I had been suspicious about them for a while due to certain precedents, but now I know for sure that all their talk of openness and freedom is just a facade. You are on the same side as the bankers, the media moguls and all the rest. Goodbye firefox, I won’t miss you.

5 Likes
#23

Errr. Your examples from https://m.imgur.com/a/21TZ578 did not show “hate towards vulnerable groups.”

They show people talking about the guardian and a disdain for Marxist ideals.

If this is what’s classed as hate speech by this end of the political spectrum, Then now I have to question who sent these complaints about TOS violations. If anything, you have just added to the concern that these are not legit complaints and are just a push to remove free discussion.

Then again, your post is ambiguous. Are you trying to say that the goal of the app is to allow talking truth to power? Because all I see is people dissenting against Marxism and the guardian. Given that your title for this image collection is “From dissenter :(” i find that unlikely, but still.

Would love to hear your clarification on this.

Note: Links and quotes have been Ctrl + C / Ctrl + V from the post and link, If anything has changed as of this post, They have been edited.

3 Likes
#24

Translation: our overlods at google, opensociety, et al would like us to start banning addons that support your freedom and liberty like dissenter, or anything else that doesn’t align with a narrow political view (aka wrongthink). So please bear with us while we continue to offer you lips service about freedom and openness while at the same time restricting it. But, we promise we’ll do it slowly and over a protracted time window so you don’t notice.

5 Likes
[Survey] Is the future of the web open?
#25

Not you, not my browser and not google. Tech companies need to focus on making good tech, not trying to be the arbiters of social justice. Your job is make a good browser. Full stop.

4 Likes
#26

Translation: question 7, box 1.

#27

Yet mozilla just banned an addon that was made specifically for sharing views from anyone and everyone. dissenter… This is all pretense. Mozilla sold out to their overlords google and opensociety.org They don’t care about any of this, they give you lip service while removing your freedom in so many ways.

5 Likes
Mozilla Worldview Project Principle #1
#31

Its going to be interesting to see what your original comment was that a person would flag it. My original post was flagged and hidden as well but it appears to be restored.

If its as you describe, a definition of free speech, then getting flagged is a perfect example of the problem that Dissenter was designed to combat.

Ideological censorship is real, and short of gross and untruthful misrepresentations, I have yet to see any reasoned coherent explanation for removal of the Dissenter addon.

I doubt its possible to give a ‘real’ reason for the removal, its all going to be doublespeak and unearned virtue signalling.

Free speech is fundamental to freedom, its the main tool to protect everyone against dictatorships tyranny and of course the boogeyman of recent years FASCISM

This professor of linguistics says it much better though:

I did a quick search of mozilla.org and found zero references to ‘free speech’, I wonder if there used to be a statement on the same and if it was removed?

https://www.google.com/search?&q=site%3Awww.mozilla.org+"free+speech"

Anyways the point of this post was to ask to see your original.

5 Likes
#32

You wont always agree with free speech, this is the point. Mainstream Media control a narrow narrative that they want you to see. It often chooses not to cover stories or output highly misleading content.

Surely you are not saying free speech is bad? It’s the first amendment for a reason. Free speech includes speech you don’t like.

4 Likes
#33

Yes, its goal is free speech. There is no such thing as hate speech, its a meaningless term designed to allow a tiny group to spoon feed you news and control the narrative; is that what you want? To be a drone who is told what to think?

People need to toughen up, don’t like what Dissenter says (it’s the most civilized comment thread I’ve ever seen btw) then don’t install the extension. What’s the problem?

Would you shut down all speech that offends anyone? Who should decide this stuff?

Even this thread will probably be closed. You’re begging to be a drone, wake up.

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#34

After more than 10 years using Firefox, even in the worst days i keep Firefox because “A non-profit with one mission: defend the free and open web” but with this censorship, i em going to brave now.

really disappointing, i really regret helping in the code, simple thing years ago but now i regret every single help i lend to Mozilla.

4 Likes
#35

It has been a week since I started this topic in the hopes of making Mozilla aware of the seriousness of their mistake.
In this time I have contacted Mozilla through their input form https://qsurvey.mozilla.com/s3/FirefoxInput/ several times requesting at least a reply on this matter,
Today I will make the same request for a final time again in this thread.
Mozilla, Please respond.

5 Likes
#36

This is deeply troubling. I cannot belive that the web browser of the free and open internet removed a app that allowed freedom of speech. How often have people said, “If you don’t like what is out there make your own”. Now they did and everyone just banned it. There is also NO option to keep developer plugins auto loading and up to date. Not only is this a massive inconvenience it shows us Mozilla’s true colors. I cannot believe they have not even issued a statement on this.

3 Likes
#37

I finally got around to reading the reply Mozilla made to Gab and its worse than I expected, no information whatsoever, its just an unsubstantiated claim of breach of acceptable use which falls exactly into what my first post pointed out (Notwithstanding of course that Dissenter appears to be inline with the First Amendment and deletes/censors the most extreme language to that standard).

The ENTIRE BROWSER ITSELF can be used for any purpose whatsoever including the most terrible things imaginable.

So fundamentally if the claim of a standard of USE, is that a plugin may not ever be used for something ‘bad™’, then to not be completely ridiculous and obviously hypocritical, Mozilla must apply that standard of use to the browser itself.

Therefore they must shut down Firefox now.

Its so hard to imagine the mental gymnastics required to think this is a good idea.

4 Likes
#39

I never ever before heard about that thought. Nice and good organization.

#40

I am confused. There is an April 23, 2019 archive of this page at the WayBack Machine, however, I cannot create an additional updated record right now at https://archive.org/web/ inputting Save Page Now: “The removal of the Dissenter extention”

The saved page that appears shows:

Oops! That page doesn’t exist or is private.

which seems incredibly suspicious

#41

I assume you get the same issue saving other threads on these boards?

Pages containing scripts to pop out of frames or otherwise reload may not work on the Wayback Machine. I recently was trying to screenshot one that reloaded continuously, testing my skills at clicking the Stop button at just the right moment. (Perhaps I should have disabled JavaScript? Hmm…)

#42

Yeah, I tested another topic, and same issue.