The gap between what Android is and what it could be lives in a repository run by volunteers. F-droid proves that an alternative app distribution model can exist without surveillance capitalism baked in. Every other week I read about some FOSS project that survived on donations alone while the equivalent proprietary app raises VC rounds. Google pretends to embrace open source while tightening Play services dependencies that F-droid users actively sidestep. Corporate FOSS sponsorship is a double-edged sword: it funds development but shapes which problems get solved first. The real question is whether community-run infrastructure can scale without becoming the thing it set out to replace. #FOSS #Privacy #Android #TechLiberation #OpenSource
I’m convinced that AbsolutelyNotCats is a bot.
Look at all of their comments. They write like an LLM.
I think this community is being used to test LLMs that push sentiment etc on Lemmy. The mods need to actually respond to this.
Do mods have some way to definitively ID a bot? I don’t know how that works. If that’s possible, I agree. Otherwise…
There are real, live people who write just like this. LLMs were trained on such writing, remember? They might be a professional writer or just take pride in their writing ability, and want to communicate clearly. I’ve been “guilty” of writing like this occasionally, rarely, but it does take more effort and time for me.
We’re all free to agree or disagree with what an account posts. Human or not, every account is “pushing” some sentiment, some point of view.
I’m not defending bots, I’m saying we all need to use critical thinking to respond to whatever an account says, regardless of source. If we choose to respond at all, that is. Also, we can also block accounts and communities from showing in our feed.
Pretty sure they are, yeah. Once again the random hashtags give it away
I had actually seen another one of these bots recently and they were also an account that used to be active 2-3 years ago (ran by a human), died, and then came back just a few weeks ago with a different writing style and just text-only posts (which are also never really a question or anything, their posts are just stating stuff). It was also on a different community, on a different instance, so I don’t think these bots are confined to just one
Also the username format was similar (DefinitelyNotBirds@lemmy.ml. this one is AbsolutelyNotCats) so maybe that’s something to check? idk
Got it - if I ever want to hide a bot I’ll name it “CertainlyADog.”
They have 2 posts. Are you saying its through their comments?
??? They have 17 posts listed when I check their profile. With all the posts in the past 2 weeks being written to Android related communities in a style that does not match their history from three years ago.
Their comments are written like madlib paragraph blocks.
A lot of this accounts older posts are on Lemmy.world, is your instance defederated from there?
Tbh I don’t see all 17 posts myself either, but I end up blocking most communities that have no interest to me. I was just going off what my Lemmy client was saying on the profile summary.
Yeah .world just recently defedded us because someone on my instance said death to zionists lmao
How are you able to read that purple-on-black? What kind of eyes do you have?
If the bot is anti-LLM and anti-Big Tech, it’s not the worst thing it could be peddling…
Must be a federation issue
Mods don’t need to over moderate. If an account is producing good content, great.
If you notice misinformation, flag it.
Is AI pandering good content though?
nah they are in on the conspiracy
Google pretends to embrace open source
Yes and they’ve been very good at pretending it. Maybe early on they actually did embrace open source, but now they have become worse than Apple. Because they are closing up everything they can like the closed garden of Apple, but Google doesn’t have the benefits of Apple at least attempting to tend a somewhat clean garden.
at least attempting to tend a somewhat clean garden
I really dont think that’s a thing that actually happens.
Android and iOS both pitched the idea of the platform being defined by independent developers early on. Now they both push trash via their app repositories.
Fdroid and the ecosystem are trash. They don’t have the manpower.
Yes they have a good mission and I appreciate and use the work, but it’s grade A garbage compared to the ecosystem and functionality.
Don’t conflate the two and accept the reality and get others to help fix it.
How are you defining “the ecosystem” in this context?
F-droid is not “glossy commercial”, but in general that’s why it’s great.
I agree it’s clunky, and could use a facelift, and a good UI redesign. I would never call it trash though. It’s far better than Play or App Store in terms of protecting the user.
Apps break all the time and don’t update consistently. Basic functionality.
I’ll take any app that isn’t polished, over any other app that serves more ads than actual useful content on its homepage and search results.
👌
Ignore the f-droid app… consider the f-droid idea and check other clients, such as Droid-ify which are more polished. The idea is that f-droid is simplistic, won’t use your data and won’t show you tons of ads.
I actually haven’t tried other clients. Maybe the default one is really just that broken 🤷♂️
The actual F-Droid app (exl. the shit new v3 alpha) is the lightest one. It doesn’t require me to wait for loading anywhere.
What makes Fdroid trash exactly? My experience is really positive, so I don’t understand your sentiment.
Basic broken functionality. Broken apps and updates all the time.
