Whonix is loosing their antifacist supporters

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The way how Patrick is responding to concerns related to whonix (accidentially?) supporting a neo-nazi network is troubling.
Whonix is loosing support and trust through this behavior.

Miguel Jacq a system administrator for whonix has just stepped down from supporting whonix, after years of involvement. Nina Alter who was working on securing funding to improve Whonix’s usability also just stopped. Micah Flee is requesting to be removed from whonix webpage.

I hope that is all just a big miss understanding. I find Whonix extremely useful and I don’t want it to break apart because of miss communication.

If anyone could come up with a logical reasoning to all this, I’d be very happy.

Micah Lee points some of this miss communication out. He also raises the question “Is the Whonix project run by fascists?”

He wrote an blog post dedicated to this. You’ll find it on his blog.

These concerns can’t be ignored, it is important to address them and respond to.

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http://www.dds6qkxpwdeubwucdiaord2xgbbeyds25rbsgr73tbfpqpt4a6vjwsyd.onion/wiki/Warning#Unsubstantiated_Conclusions

Users must be careful not to draw incorrect conclusions based on the existence of specific Whonix ™ communication channels, community software utilized, applications installed on the platform, or the availability of certain wiki entries.

http://www.dds6qkxpwdeubwucdiaord2xgbbeyds25rbsgr73tbfpqpt4a6vjwsyd.onion/wiki/Official_Whonix_Online_Profiles#Selection_of_Platforms

An account will most likely be created, when…

Criteria:

The platform must be somewhat popular or show potential to become somewhat popular.
Easy sign-up.
Legal.

Non-Criteria:

Networks respects privacy of its users.
Tor users are permitted to sign-up.
Anonymous sign-up permitted.
Other ethical or political considerations.
In an ideal world, "perfectly moral" decisions would be made but that is deemed impractical. For elaboration, see unsubstantiated conclusions.

Reasons for account creation:

Reserving account name.
Censorship resistance.
Escaping (potential) shadow banning.
Decentralization, diversity.
Allowing users to choose their favorite network.

Non-Reasons for account creation:

Endorsing that network.

In other words, just because a subset of unsavory types prefer a particular network does not discount it from being used to spread news about the Whonix brand. Further, it does not mean Whonix endorses the political manifestos of any particular sub-group(s) that frequent a particular network.

BTW:

“Loosing” is the present participle of the verb “to loose,” meaning “to free from confinement or restraint.” Example: “His response to the entry of the burglar onto his property was that of loosing the dogs on him.”

“Losing” is the present participle of the verb “to lose,” meaning “fail to keep; fail to win; fail to maintain the companionship of a person who is held dear, etc.” Example: “His main problem was his habit of losing at the roulette table.”
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@ torjunkie
Thank you very much for highlighting the obvious so that clouded opinion(s) don’t prevail and misguide busy souls into some blind alley via our human frailities - bovine mentality, FUD etc.

Stay safe and sustain your healthy dietary regiment to ensure a strong immune system.

Cheerios

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micah lee already attacked wikileaks and julian assange… what can you expect…

hxxps://twitter.com/DefendAssange/status/963908656629714944

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i can understand not wanting to address drama that spans from nothing more than “you have a gab account.” i have (or had) a couple that are related to identities i care about. i never used them. they were created specifically to prevent trolls from squatting them and playing disinfo games. unless there is something toxic about the postings of the whonix account on gab, this is a low blow. moreover, the fact that it’s a repeated instance of “antifacism” at play here, this feels quite trollish. Most of those I know, including myself, who oppose fascism and run in circles dedicated to that know how to spell the term. one typo may have been acceptable. but, it’s all over the place, including micah’s blog.

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That’s like saying Whonix is anti-privacy because there’s a Whonix Facebook account. Ridiculous.

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Thank you for your reply, that tries to address my concerns.

@torjunkie
at the time I shared my concerns, Whonix chosen to promote 5 social networks through their footer.
fb, twitter, telegram, matrix and gab.
fb, twitter and telegram are mainstream. Matrix is very popular in the free software community with the potential to reach mainstream.
Gab is the only network that does not fit the criteria I just mention. There are many networks that don’t fit the mentioned criteria. If you would just choose kind of any, as you suggest, that should have been visible. But it isn’t. There was only Gab, a network from the alt-right to radicalize people for their racist agenda.

You present me a logical reasoning, that does not fit the reality as it was when I raised my question. The footer in question changed afterwards. My question addressed a situation of the present and the past at the time asking, not the future. Now whonix promotes several other social networks, but that is not an explanation why whonix was long time promoting Gab as the only network that is not mainstream or widely used in the free software community.
(for those not knowing how the page looked before, take a look at “web archive”)
web.archive.org/web/20200514204409/https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Documentation

Beside that I like to address:

Non-Reasons for account creation:
Endorsing that network.

Let’s assume it as true for a moment. Why is it then that Gab, as the only network that is not mainstream or not wildly used in the free software community, is promoted all over the Whonix webpage at the time I raised this concern?

Claiming to not endorse something, but to promote it then on every page of the Whonix website creates at least some logical conflict to me, that I hope to be explained.
The reasons you presented for the creation of a presence at Gab does not require to do such a heavy promotion yet Whonix does so and I have seen no explanation to it.

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is the whonix account on gab making toxic posts? it’s that simple. tor was also a military project at one point, right? and, depending on who you listen to, the use of the tor network by the public hides the evils of the us military. where does this stop? keep it simple. is there a whonix account on gab that is doing something problematic?

your “question” is a logical fallacy in and of itself. “gab is a right wing radicalizing network. whonix has an account on gab. therefore, whonix is right wing unless they answer my questions.” spot the logical fallacy there.

if someone is complaining, that is often times the most respectful thing to do. there’s an entire movement happening right now involving abuses of the state and police, particularly as it is targetted at race and ethnicity. and your current battle is “whonix has a gab account, among many others” without providing even one example of an offensive gab post. think about that.

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Reading comprehension 101 to the rescue!

The platform must be somewhat popular or show potential to become somewhat popular.

Popular as in number of users, not as in the “liked by you” kind of popularity. Somewhat popular is a subjective statement open to interpretation. Gab has a million users. “potential” means not popular now, but can happen.

Not in the criteria

This argument sounds awfully close to :

“Tor is used by criminals therefore you are a criminal if you support unconditional privacy”

“Facebook developed an exploit to attack a user therefore you promote user compromise”

Your fallacy is the same old and tired one made by Big Brother and it even goes beyond attacking platform safe harbor protections to associating opinions of other users with another user of the platform. Not even the US gov is that bad yet, but I am sure you will be both on the same page once they claim to be doing it to protect your views.

  • Asks for explanation
  • Get’s one
  • Pretends they can’t read and demands it again

People would respect you more if you say what you mean instead of feigning ignorance. Say you disagree. It’s OK! FYI in actual free societies, everybody is allowed to have different opinions including stuff you don’t like. It’s a feature not a bug.

Keep in mind that branding anyone who looks at you funny, “fascist” and “Nazi” is an insult to the memory of true victims of Fascism and makes you no different than the very Fascists you pursue.

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This drama is all sad, dull, stupid and pointless. I hope this won’t affect the continued development of Whonix more than it already did, and I hope Patrick will have enough mental energy to go through the nonsense and basic misunderstandings that he’s being forced to handle. The levels of sophistry that we have reached where we try to investigate and expose everyone for the slightest clues is crazy. 2020 truly is a sad year.

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The other commentators have already addressed your points adequately.

In addition, I will point out the unsubstantiated assertions stem from an inductive fallacy by the original claimant (the so-called “association fallacy”):

“if there exists any x in the set S so that a property φ is true for x, then for all x in S the property φ must be true.”

P1: A is part of group B.
P2: A is part of group C.
C: Therefore, all members of group B are part of group C.

The fallacy in the argument can be illustrated through the use of an Euler diagram: “A” satisfies the requirement that it is part of both sets “B” and “C”, but if one represents this as an Euler diagram, it can clearly be seen that it is possible that a part of set “B” is not part of set “C”, refuting the conclusion that “all Bs are Cs”.

So, in this case the inductive fallacy is:

  • The Gab platform (“A”) is utilized by Whonix project team members (“B”).
  • The Gab platform (“A”) is utilized by right-wing sympathizers (“C”).
  • Therefore, Whonix project team members (“B”) are right-wing sympathizers (“C”).

This is a basic failure in reasoning. If the same (twisted) logic was applied to the Tor onion network – which has a not insignificant proportion of “unsavory activity” (fraud, hacking, drug sales, illegal porn, counterfeiting, money laundering etc.) Dark web - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader Dark web - Wikipedia – then it could be claimed users/advocates/developers of that network (The Tor Project, Whonix, Qubes and countless others) endorse that activity.

Nobody makes that claim because it is patently false and likely defamatory.

In conclusion, the original argument is just a form of ‘baiting’, whereby a weak attempt was made to invent an imagined association between Whonix and an undesirable ideology. There is no case to answer, and personally I won’t be wasting any more energy on debating this topic.

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i just expressed my disappointment to micah for this exact reason. i honestly can’t express how surprised i am that he has fed into this. he maintains “torbrowser-launcher” for debian. maybe covid19 isolation is making people overly agitated for stimulation? i truly am shocked by this, as i am that someone would refuse to apply for a grant as a result. wtf? is professionalism just a thing of the past?

btw, you should have let them identify their own fallacy. i like to play a game with such people where after they refuse, i offer to donate $100 to their charity of choice if they’ll admit it. it makes the continued denial that much more interesting. :wink:

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The problem isn’t Whonix trying to be reachable to people who are against fascism on Gab. The problem is

  1. advertising privacy technology on a site that is known as a safe haven for neo-nazis to the extent its explained in the very first section on Wikipedia. Whonix is making privacy tech much more accessible to neo-nazis by being present in their domain. Whonix is also approving the site’s ignorance over the social issue.

  2. advertising Gab on Whonix website. This wouldn’t be necessary even if Whonix continued its existence in the social network. Advertising neo-nazi social media on Whonix project page isn’t right.

These are the reasons I see the Whonix project sympathizes with the neo-nazis and their enablers.

As for Tor, it’s different. It’s reasonable for Tor to enable onion sites of bad actors, it’s a problem that can’t be fixed without doing more damage than good to the society. If Tor was linking to Gab’s onion site on their home page, now that would be outrageous. If the Tor Project had had their own official account in the playpen site, and if they had offered opsec on a separate off-topic section, on the basis all users need proper privacy tech, I don’t think you’d have any trouble seeing the problem. Yet you’re not very far from that right now.

Like I said in the TFC thread, I’m also voting with my feet until you fix your shit.

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well, i can hardly speak for the project. but, as a proud “antifa,” i’m fine with you voting with your feet. as i noted earlier, i have accounts on gab to keep them from being jacked for disinfo purposes. whonix has one too and, so far, nobody has identified a post there that they take issue with. it is more than fair for whonix to show what account on gab belongs to “whonix” to prevent silly games. but your issue is that an account simply exists, not the content of that account. you’ve lost the plot.

anyways, while i linked micah to this thread, he seems to want to keep it to twitter. feel free to jump in there. https://twitter.com/JetBlackCloud/status/1277078475350908929

in follow up, i’d like to see whonix dump the gab account. but where all of you screwed up is that you simply could have asked for that. instead, you dropped an accusation that the project was fascist because patrick, who runs a largely volunteer project that relies on donations and grants, didn’t respond to a logical fallacy. i’m personally offended by that and i dare you to accuse me of being “facist” or fascist friendly. this was approached in an entirely childish manner. you all should have known better. instead, here we are. to what end?

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Micah’s logical strawman:

Gab’s identity = political views of its leader

Gab = pedophile site on Tor network

Account there = pedophile

Reality looks more like:

Gab = Tor network

Account = onion

Unless anyone is aware of toxic postings from Whonix on Gab or elsewhere, this is BS.

Fallacy 1 = Tying the creation to the creator - this concept is so hard
for the feeble minded to understand. You don’t have to be ideologically on the same page with your bus driver, farmer, plumber to use their products and services and go about your life… Is Whonix associated with cooperation with spooks, aiding drone attacks and turning society into a surveillance dystopia because they have an account on Zuck’s site? Objectively Zuck’s beliefs and actions have done much more damage to humanity than some extremists on Gab.

Revelation: People can share common goals and needs without agreeing with one another. There isn’t a people with more diverse usage motivations than Tor users and their traffic provides cover for one another even if the actions of some are absolutely despicable. Their common goal is freedom from surveillance. It’s a sad day when Gab is providing more tolerance to diversity of views than most (all?) major platforms. You may be happy they are censoring your enemy’s speech, but just think what else they are doing. Links and mentions of Blueleaks are obliterated from Twitter. The canary in the coal mine is dead and rotting.

Fallacy 2 = Associating users’ beliefs with the creator. Hans Reiser the author of ResierFS stabbed his wife to death. Do Linux devs
endorse murder for carrying ReiserFS? Are ReiserFS users murderers?

Fallacy 3 = Creating Equivalence between Freedom of speech with child exploitation. You’ve really sunk so low when you resort to that argument. What are you even doing, pretending to promote the First Amendment? With supporters like you who needs enemies?

Whonix and its documentation is easy to find on the web and freely available to all. I don’t think they need Gab to become known.

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@Tempest don’t waste your breath arguing with a clown like Micah. I’ve lost all respect for him when he called Julian a Nazi and a rapist.

There are great people and then there are the parasites and vultures that hope to prop up their own repuatations by bringing them down and destroying their life’s work.

Micah if you’re reading this, know that you will never amount to a tenth of who Assange is or what he has done for humanity no matter how hard you try to to smear him.

His attacks on Whonix are just the latest attempt to get another notch on his “activism” belt and “antifa street cred”

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Referring to Micah Lee’s writing on Whonix’s relation with Gab, I’m not having anything to do with your project until you distance yourself from the neo-nazi social media. I mean, what the actual fuck people?

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Tinfoil chat sounds quite interesting. Also I read this article by Micah lee you mentioned no offense but it sounds pretty paranoid, I’m personally not a fan of Gab but I am interested by the mastodon software itself, Whonix has accounts for many platforms probably for extra outreach, I doubt it is an endorsement for the “ideologies of each of those platforms”?

If you like this project and want to participate you shouldn’t let something like that hold you back, it’s freedom software and at the end of the day anyone could potentially use or modify it for whatever, imagined ideological differences shouldn’t matter when developing a general platform because anyone can take advantage of the work regardless.

I support freedom software regardless of who uses it because I believe better ideas and solutions will win out on the free marketplace of ideas eventually and that availability of freedom technologies will change the world in ways we can’t fully even imagine yet.

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That’s not what I’m saying. You got it wrong.
I’m saying promoting a right-wing network is promotion of a right-wing network. Simple, right?

I’m noticing that I’m taking position against a white supremacy network, while you take the position of defending it.

There’s more important things to do, but everyone based on their capabilities and possibilities. …still, don’t underestimate the effects online communities have.
If all you can do is not defending white supremacists organizing, that would be better then this post of you.

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I know, but I don’t know why you tell me this.

Read this again:
“fb, twitter and telegram are mainstream. Matrix is very popular in the free software community with the potential to reach mainstream. Gab is the only network that does not fit the criteria I just mention”

Gab is the only network that is not Matrix or mainstream that Whonix promotes, at the time this issue was brought to attention.
There are many networks that would fit the criteria that Whonix chose as a criteria to create a new account. BUT Whonix chosen only Gab as a non-mainstream network, beside Matrix. And the later is fame in the free software community that Whonix is part of.

I am calling nazis nazis. Gab is a network by Neo-Nazis. That’s the topic. I’m not insulting just “anyone”, I’m calling a neo-nazi network by what it is. Are you suggesting that calling fascists “fascists”, such as the people behind Gab, is no difference to what fascists do/did?