Hello.
I have used Firefox for many years and i loved your product every day.
I especially enjoy its addon functionality and flexibility.
One of the addons I love is Dissenter. A free speech plugin that allows for commenting on literally every page of the internet without censorship as long as posts abide by the First Amendment.
The Mozilla Corporation is an American company. Is it really ethical to obstruct the right for free speech? Yes, freedom of speech also implies that some messages are undesired or even toxic, but its their right to do so as long as no laws are broken.
It would be extremely disappointing if the addon remains blocked from your library, and I really hope that you will look into this again.
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Yeah I heard about this too, thankfully it still works as of yet and it can be downloaded manually. It’s funny how Mozilla always talked about and supposedly wanted a “free and open internet” yet they ban an add-on for simply allowing comments on a wider scale.
Chances are that Mozilla received money from some news sites/corporations that weren’t big fans of the fact that people can now comment again on certain news stories (as they could a few years ago.)
I hope this isn’t the case and that Mozilla will listen to its users and understand that discussion is important, but I’m not getting my hopes up.
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LOL, there is an add-on for spreading fake news! 
(that’s probably the reason for the ban)
It has been banned because of hate speech. But are accusations of such really avoidable these days, especially if your political views tip to the right? This alone seems to already be sufficient reason for some people to become very upset, and its kind of trending.
I think that Congressman Tom McClintock makes a very good point on this matter:
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This is not a good look, Mozilla.
I continued to use Firefox even when everyone else had switched to Chrome, specifically because I want a product that is independent of corporate or political meddling. I do not trust Google and I would not use their browser, no matter how superior its features happened to be.
This is sadly not the first red flag I have seen that suggests Mozilla are not as committed to openness as they like to pretend they are.
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Mozilla has allowed itself to be swayed by a miniscule but vocal minority.
A group of rabid political activists hell-bent on shutting down any and all political discourse that doesn’t agree with their ideological bubble.
Dissenter is nothing more than a comments section site. No different Disqus, or myriad other comment systems. Additionally, you will NEVER see the commentary unless you EXPRESSLY WANT TO.
A: You have to download and install the extension.
B: You have to actively USE the extension. The content does NOT appear in-line on the page.
It in no way changes or “defaces” the websites they comment on.
It’s being banned because it cleaves to a LEGAL standard of speech, and refuses to censor anyone working within that framework. And that standard is far FAR too loose for the censorious activists who are trying to religiously deplatform their political foes.
This move, removing Dissenter from the Mozilla Store is a Bad Thing. You are aiding and abetting those who would silence people for merely having an opinion these complainers don’t agree with.
Granted, your users shouldn’t be surprised.
You’re a US West Coast company with all the social justice trappings.
It’s just disappointing…
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I dont use this plugin, but immediately see its importance, especially as the modern world makes a dramatic left turn towards totalitarianism.
To be frank I would be completely surprised to hear a coherent reason why such a plugin would be removed from easy access via addons.mozilla.org.
Of course what I mean is actually the opposite, if we hear any reason publicly my expectation is to hear some lip service along the lines of ‘we believe in free speech BUT’, then some drivel about how mozilla cares so much that they need to protect everyone from the boogeymonster who screams dynamic taboos from the rooftops and if you hear them you will be INSTANTLY radicalized.
‘And you better be thankful citizen, we are doing this for your own good.’
Meanwhile in the real world the plain truth is that the entire Firefox browser itself is almost guaranteed to be used every day to say hateful things, plan violent acts, share secret information, amongst countless other and probably more terrible things.
Would mozilla.org hold themselves up to the same standard that they would apply to everyone else in this unilateral way?
Shutdown the browser entirely right now.
You (mozilla.org) should all be ashamed of yourselves.
Some of you will be too ignorant to understand why.
Some will hide behind convenient and unearned virtue claims.
Some of you will be too scared to speak up, how ironic is that.
PS I screenshot this post
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From what I understand it was removed due to a hit-piece written for the Colombia Journalism Review https://archive.fo/sWxAS, and mozilla knee-jerk removed it rather than actually finding out if it broke any rules.
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The future of web is not open at all.
Open should mean Open To All. To be free and all inclusive.
Journalists like Assange? Arrested.
Addons like Dissenter? Banned from Mozilla repository.
Youtube comments? Going to be removed sooner than later.
Twitter and Facebook deleting accounts of people who didn’t break their rules? Sure they do.
The only ones I still had faith in, were Mozilla. I started with Netscape 2.0 and have been with the product for so many years.
But now, seeing that you, too, have caved in the censorship?
A company that always prided itself for freedom and defense of freedom and privacy?
What pressures have you received to give up so much, to subjugate yourselves with the mainstream dictatorship?
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Was killing my self wondering why my dissenter was no longer there…and I found out that Mozilla “the free speech browser” has shutdown our ability to speak and comment about pages and links freely…this attack on free speech will not do…I have been with you since the time you first started back in the day when a lot of people were still using Explorer…but this is it for me…contact me or make it public when you correct this atrocity.
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Firefox is not the “Free speech” browser, it’s the “healthy Internet” browser.
You can still install the extension. Just ask the devs to use a self hosted extension just like the AMO reviewer asked them to Here is an example
click dissenter_extension-0.1.5-fx.xpi
If they need help, they should just ask here on the addons community.
Being able to find the add-on elsewhere is besides the point that Mozilla is making a statement against free speech and is actively steering its users away from finding the tools that enable them to practice this right, by removing it from the only place a large portion of its users will ever visit for new add-ons.
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Banning free speech extensions goes directly against what mozilla supposedly works for: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/
“We are committed to an internet that includes all the peoples of the earth”
“We are committed to an internet that elevates critical thinking, reasoned argument, shared knowledge, and verifiable facts.”
Dissenter specifically allows all the peoples of the earth to dispute facts on web pages that do not allow comments or where the page owner removes opinions that they do not agree with.
Good example: Twitter banning anyone/removing posts mentioning Tommy Robinson irregardless of the context or content.
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I trusted Firefox because it remained free. You have lost a supporter.
Warn people that the internet is the wild west by all means, but stop trying to sanitize it. You only succeed in driving critical thinkers into dark fringes and away from nuanced views. Is that what you want?
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The goal of free speech is to say truth to power. It’s to hold powerful politicians accountable for their actions. Punching up.
The goal of hate speech is to draw hate towards vulnerable groups. Punching down.
This extension has a very clear goal https://m.imgur.com/a/21TZ578
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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.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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