PSA: The Tesseract frontend includes a hardcoded hidden instance blacklist with all leftist and trans-friendly instances.

https://github.com/asimons04/tesseract/blob/main/src/lib/blacklists.ts#L2270

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/72685299

I discovered this after upgrading our instance yesterday, which also upgraded all frontends to their latest versions as well. After I did, our Tesseract frontend stopped working and I noticed immediately as it's been my primary for a while. Initially I thought it was an API version mismatch, but no, it was much worse.

Someone pointed out that the developer of the frontend added an explicit hidden and unmodifiably blacklist which includes any and all instances to the left of Kissinger. There's a commit which also explains their specious reasoning about our instance specifically, as it seems we've been on their shit list for a bit longer than that.

This instance and its admin staff encourages identity politics, groupthink, mob mentality, and extremist solutions to societal problems. Users who advocate violence are not moderated so long as the admins agree with the target. Caution and critical thinking are advised when interacting with this instance or its users.

When you use tesseract to connect to one blacklisted such instance , you just get a message informing you that Tesseract is "incompatible with that instance" which leads one to think of a technical issue, like an API mismatch, rather than the dev being an opinionated coward.

Isn't it funny how all the software developed by turbolibs, like Piefed and Tesseract, end up with hidden control mechanisms from developers who think they know better than everyone else? That they don't just think they deserve to tell you what you should think, but they should manipulate you to think it? Isn't it funny how libs go on about how bad it is to support lemmy due to the ideology of the devs behind it, and yet lemmy has 0 opinions as a software? It does make one think...

Anyway, I forked - it as one does - and disabled the blacklist, but since this is a massively ideologically compromised software, I'll doubt I'll keep this frontend up after Lemmy 1.0. I think we'll bring up mlmym again now that someone's maintaining it again.

170 points · 51 comments · view on lemmy.world

51 Comments

iByteABit@lemmy.ml · 45 pts · 22d (2 replies)

proton.me is in THROWAWAY_EMAIL_DOMAINS lol

Apparently you're also a filthy commie that should be Operation Condor'ed if you prefer to use an email provider that doesn't spy on everything you send and receive

mynameisbob@lemmy.ml · 21 pts · 22d

The epstien class got caught via gmail... nothing happened. 😒

kuiskaaja@lemmy.ml · 15 pts · 22d

that's insane, they don't even allow more than one free account

Cowbee@lemmy.ml · 43 pts · 23d

Amazing how these projects keep killing themselves by alienating huge portions of their userbase. Hard to survive in a FOSS environment by being extremely reactionary.

umbrella@lemmy.ml · 35 pts · 23d (17 replies)

of course it does. all they have is censorship and calling you names.

GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world · -24 pts · 22d (16 replies)

Piefed blocks any non-leftist sources, among other authoritarian censorship measures.

yogthos@lemmy.ml · 33 pts · 22d (13 replies)

piefed is a liberal right wing instance lmfao

GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world · -21 pts · 22d (12 replies)

Right wing? Any source that leans right wing is banned lol

Cowbee@lemmy.ml · 30 pts · 22d (4 replies)

Liberalism itself is right-wing, and is the only acceptable position on Piefed.social

GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world · -22 pts · 22d (3 replies)

Liberalism is classified as left-wing in most contexts.

Cowbee@lemmy.ml · 26 pts · 22d

Back when it was compared with feudalism, sure. As it stands liberalism is supportive of the status quo, it's socialism that's left.

ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml · 12 pts · 22d

That's one of those things that sound right if your only frame of reference is smoking the crack pipe of US electoral politics.

RiverRock@lemmy.ml · 10 pts · 22d

This is the exact opposite of the truth.

yogthos@lemmy.ml · 22 pts · 22d (3 replies)

Liberalism consists of two main parts. First is political liberalism which focuses on wholesome ideas used to market the ideology, such as individual freedoms and democracy. Second is economic liberalism which centers around free markets, private property, and wealth accumulation. These two aspects form a contradiction. Political liberalism purports to support everyone’s freedom, while economic liberalism enshrines private property rights as sacred in laws and constitutions, effectively removing them from political debate.

As a result, liberalism justifies the use of state violence to safeguard property rights, over supporting ordinary people, which contradicts the promises of fairness and equality. Private property is seen as a key part of individual freedom under liberalism, and this provides the foundational justification for the rich to keep their wealth while ignoring the needs of everyone else. Thus, the talk of freedom and democracy ends up being nothing more than a fig leaf to provide cover for justifying capitalist relations.

GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world · -21 pts · 22d (2 replies)

In most contexts Liberalism is left wing.

PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml · 19 pts · 22d

Only amongst people who don't understand it. Though I admit many self-identified leftwing people, especially in the US, think "I'm a liberal" means "i'm a good person."

yogthos@lemmy.ml · 16 pts · 22d

It objectively is not as I've explained to you in detail. If you think that liberalism is left wing then you don't understand what any of these words actually mean.

RiverRock@lemmy.ml · 17 pts · 22d (1 reply)

This is one of those moments where one could reflect on how right wing they actually are

ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml · 13 pts · 22d

geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 22d

The thread you are in

Cowbee@lemmy.ml · 21 pts · 22d

Piefed blocks leftist sources too, piefed's ideological goal is essentially DNC establishment supremacy.

umbrella@lemmy.ml · 17 pts · 22d

what? piefed blocks leftist sources and instances last i checked.

mistermodal@lemmy.ml · 24 pts · 22d

Identity politics a.k.a. not centering white male imperial core voices, in the right wing parlance. These people are just nazis. Source: i am the most lazy of the hitler studies experts im not getting one

PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml · 23 pts · 22d

Proud to have made the list.

UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml · 21 pts · 22d

When feudposting isnt enough... feudcoding. Really sad to see, hope they get better someday soon.

RiverRock@lemmy.ml · 18 pts · 22d

Db0, welcome to the tankie troika 🤝

pleiades@lemmy.ml · 17 pts · 22d

I had no idea the Fediverse was politically charged to the point of pulling shit like this. These kinds of people are like two steps away from making backdoors for the NSA because they think it will make the world a better place

blxt@lemmy.zip · 15 pts · 22d

I was so confused, because I was thinking about the OCR thing… https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract

davel@lemmy.ml · 9 pts · 22d

Apparently https://github.com/asimons04 is @admiralpatrick@lemmy.world / @ptz@dubvee.org.

Relatedly:

$ curl -I https://dubvee.org/ | grep '^location:'
location: https://static.dubvee.org/goaway.webp
$

ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 22d

lmao they blocked "🥺👉👈" and "Perchance"

AmazingWizard@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 21d

Why do all these liberal projects have such authoritarian, dictatorial measures baked into their source code? thinkin-lenin

Why is it that the "tankies" building Lemmy have not hard coded their software with similar dictatorial, authoritarian measures? three-heads-thinking

I guess we'll never know.

Feyter@programming.dev · 6 pts · 22d (1 reply)

How does anyone come to the idea to built a tool to be used in a federated context and hardcode into it which instances are not allowed to be used with it?

However, this is just one person. Maybe the Dev did not expected anyone else to use it and just but the blacklist into it for personal reasons...

ZeroHora@lemmy.ml · 13 pts · 22d

They did put content warnings and remove it too, so I doubt it's just for them to use.

buddascrayon@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 22d (2 replies)

I don't understand the term turbolib. This kind of behavior is very much in the conservative vein. Especially the exclusion of trans friendly instances.

Cowbee@lemmy.ml · 31 pts · 22d

Liberalism and conservativism are both derived from the same general source, conservativism is just the more openly reactionary form of liberalism.

communism@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 22d

Conservatives are the right wing of liberalism.

geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 22d

Tesseract OCR sucks hard anyways. PaddePaddle ocr is infinitely better

convectionfusion@lemmy.world · -15 pts · 22d (3 replies)

I find it hilarious that .ml users who literally ban anyone not to their left are upset that someone else is censoring them.

ooh that's gonna get me banned too lol

HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 22d (2 replies)

Well you and the subject of this post are the side supposedly against "all" censorship aren't you? Or was that just a motto when convenient?

Also we don't give a shit if we get censored by other instances or users, and we censor in return. Agree or disagree I think our logic around censoring/getting censored is mostly consistent here. Go ahead and block us, go ahead and get your instance and client to block us, you won't. Because then you wouldn't be able to fulfill your daily "hurr durr .ml hurr durr tankie" quota.

convectionfusion@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 21d (1 reply)

Because then you wouldn’t be able to fulfill your daily “hurr durr .ml hurr durr tankie” quota.

oh baby, there's always hurr durr .ml content beyond lemmy.ml, no worries there rofls

HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 20d

Us living so rent free in your head that you'll talk about us in other instances isn't the own you think it is rofls

Also, great! You don't need us then, so go ahead and block us.

SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world · -16 pts · 22d (4 replies)

Someone pointed out that the developer of the frontend added an explicit hidden and unmodifiably blacklist which includes any and all instances to the left of Kissinger.

Do you think maga.place and hilariouschoas.com are left of Kissinger?

Cowbee@lemmy.ml · 23 pts · 22d (1 reply)

Do you think "includes" means "only?"

Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 21d

When it's a convenient excuse for excluding trans people and anyone to the left.

db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 18 pts · 22d

which includes

Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 21d

Do you think maga.place and hilariouschoas.com are left of Kissinger?

They're to your left.

Telodzrum@lemmy.world · -32 pts · 22d (4 replies)

Hmm, a lot of normal ones got swept in with the tanker and/or agitprop instances.

Too bad.

Cowbee@lemmy.ml · 36 pts · 22d

The leftist instances are generally the older, original ones. The targeting of queer and leftist people by the Tesseract devs is deliberate, and the fact that this is hardcoded to prevent people from even being able to choose if they interact with communists and/or trans users is ideologically coherent, even if evil.

queermunist@lemmy.ml · 29 pts · 22d

Gosh I wonder if there's a reason for that.

BrainInABox@lemmy.ml · 23 pts · 22d

I do not understand how you people still don't get it

RiverRock@lemmy.ml · 10 pts · 22d

Normal is when you act like we have another few hundred years to solve the capitalist climate crisis instead of like, 10.