Free as in speech

Summary: Why excluding politics from discussions about technology boils down to a set of lies, whose net effect is oppressive

THE longstanding denial that politics may belong in technology is the fault of people intolerant of opposing views. The risk of having to defend one's views or the heartache associated with a -- gasp! -- open debate is what deters political discussions in technical contexts. However:

• Digital surveillance is political. It's enabled by political parties.
• Back doors are political. Spies and militaries demand these and when things go awry politicians never hold them accountable.
• Censorship in platforms is political. Technology companies block particular people and organisations (sometimes whole countries) based on politicians' 'taste'.
• Embargoes and bans on 'export' of particular software is political. Foreign policies, not technical considerations, are responsible for it.
• Political figures enter technology companies and organisations like the Linux Foundation. They use these to advance their political goals
• There are more examples along similar lines, but the above might suffice towards making a point. Wikipedia (which is also political) defines politics as "a set of activities associated with the governance of a country or an area. It involves making decisions that apply to members of a group." It's a management thing. So to say "politics" is almost like management. "No politics" means "no talk about the management" (or governance).

The bottom line is, when people herald that some mailing list or forum should be a politics-free zone they basically seek to muzzle people whom they potentially don't agree with. They don't want to be in a position to confront issues that are potentially, inherently even, political in nature. It limits the breadth of expression or speech, for instance pointing out one's conflicts of interest.

"Software is political. Hardware is increasingly political too (there are built-in restrictions and sometimes back doors). Technical stuff as a whole is very political."Techrights never shied away from politics; our daily links are full of it, our IRC channels don't restrict that (this is abundant, but we get along at the end). We realise this may mean that we can alienate some readers. Earlier this month we wrote about people who mistake links for endorsements.

This is loosely related to what we wrote two days ago about diversity politics; they're often likely to be leveraged by those in positions of power to silence those who are not.

Software is political. Hardware is increasingly political too (there are built-in restrictions and sometimes back doors). Technical stuff as a whole is very political. Be very suspicious of projects or groups that ban rather than transcend politics. We're not talking about death threats; those aren't politics and hardly protected speech either (there are clear laws against these). ⬆

Image credit: Angelus, CC BY-SA 3.0