toastedphantom

I saw this when running newpipe. But wait, it gets deeper. I clicked on the details buttons and it said as of today, we have 83 days left until Google rolls out this new requirement for apps inside and outside of the google play store. If any developer disagrees with their new terms and fees, they will be blocked!

I'll share some of the info below:

Looks like they're trying to nuke the remaining privacy and freedoms we have left on the internet.

What to do?

-Get your developer friends to not comply to their new guides

- Sign the open letter on the site and take action by checking out the full resources list on their website as well!

To summarize, this is all daunting especially when you feel all alone with unfair and inhumane regulations comming out faster than improvements but we got this working together!

Share the link with your friends, family and anyone who will listen!

Link to Keep Android Open.

Link to Install F-Droid.

Link to contact international regulators.

Link to the change.org petition; they have 1,82,263 signatures as of posting this, add yours to the list, I have already added mine.

Link to their open letter, which has signatories of 71 organizations from 23 countries.

Link to the page of their project you can edit, should you have any useful information.

Link to Google's Developer verification survey, for all the good it'll do, it's still worth a shot.

Link to Keep Android Open Wiki.

Link to the Consumer Rights Wiki.

I have seen people in the comments mentioning about how this won't work, and all I have to say to that is do not borrow grief from the future, if you're going to claim defeat just when the battle has started, it's not much of a battle than it is being a bystander. When outcomes have not yet existed physically, anything goes, I read this advice post whenever I'm in need of motivation, and it might be out of place, but I think you should, too. Good advice is when you can apply it to anything, and I think this counts, whatever motives you, goes.

If you're wondering what's the harm or what's the big deal and isn't this just - I'm going to stop you right there, please, keepandroidopen has covered all their bases on that as well.

You've never written a regulator email before? Don't worry, neither have I, but it should be no different from any other email. Just be polite and specific and to the point, and you should be good.

Dear [Title],

I am writing to you as a concerned citizen and technology user to respectfully raise an issue I believe warrants regulatory attention, which is the preservation of the openess of the Android operating system.

This is ncreasing friction around sideloading through repeated warnings and permission barriers that discourage users from exercising their legal right to install software of their choosing.

Pre-installed applications and services that are difficult or impossible for users to remove, effectively tying users to specific service providers without meaningful consent.

API and Play Services dependencies that make it technically challenging for alternative app ecosystems or forked Android distributions to function competitively.

This, if left unaddressed, is a risk that consolidates control that reduces consumer autonomy, concerns that I understand fall squarely within your mandate.

I respectfully urge your office to ensure that core Android APIs remain available to competing ecosystems on fair and non-discriminatory terms and help safeguard consumer autonomy.

I would like to kindly request a written acknowledgement of the complaint. Thank you for your time and for the important work your office does.

Yours Sincerly,

[Your Name]

If you know your history, you know that change has only ever been brought about by people making change. By people standing up for what they believe and know is right. History has taught you that battles are bloody, and in that, you forget that battles are also won.

You forget that every right you hold today was a fight someone else started. And here we are again, the battlefield looks different, but the battle is the same. An open platform is not a technical preference and it should not belong to a single company's interest. The moment we accept that a corporation decides what software you can run on a device you paid for, we have accepted something our ancestors would have recognised immediately as control.

They fought kings for less - and you know this, alright? I know you do. History is not some abstract, vague concept. History is not just meant to be in just be read in your history books. History is not made of people who waited, history is full of hope and spite and stubborness and life, and you are part of history, and you are alive.

Remember that.

I say this as someone who sells pottery, and many people who see my art assume I am using art as an outlet to “express myself.”

I am not.

I use art to challenge myself. A lot of what I do is the equivalent of doing a hard sudoko or a half marathon, answering the question of “can I do this?”

I use art to question things and explore ideas. Finding physical synthesis between concepts and working out a design to its end state.

I use art to make money. I make some things just because I suspect they’ll sell well, and I keep making them when they do.

This idea that an artist is “putting themselves out there” every time they create is not only stupid, but harmful, and it kills critique and analysis.

Yes every creative work is influenced by its creator, but the most preliminary step of analysis is to define the purpose of a work of art (functional, narrative, entertainment, persuasive, decorative, ceremonial, etc.) and a vanishingly small percentage of that is self-expression. Even then, it’s generally tied to the self’s relationship with something else—perception, society, etc.

It’s very tiresome to have people assume they know you because they like (or dislike) your art, to make assumptions about who you are and how you approach the world. It’s nothing new— people called the Impressionists insane and the Fauvists degenerate. And now people are expected to hand out their identities and traumas to prove they have the right to explore certain subjects.

Fancy Animals

we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)

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