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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/30849791

Starting on January 19, 2025 Facebook’s internal policy makers decided that Linux is malware and labelled groups associated with Linux as being “cybersecurity threats”. Any posts mentioning DistroWatch and multiple groups associated with Linux and Linux discussions have either been shut down or had many of their posts removed.

We’ve been hearing all week from readers who say they can no longer post about Linux on Facebook or share links to DistroWatch. Some people have reported their accounts have been locked or limited for posting about Linux.

The sad irony here is that Facebook runs much of its infrastructure on Linux and often posts job ads looking for Linux developers.

Unfortunately, there isn’t anything we can do about this, apart from advising people to get their Linux-related information from sources other than Facebook. I’ve tried to appeal the ban and was told the next day that Linux-related material is staying on the cybersecurity filter. My Facebook account was also locked for my efforts.

We went through a similar experience when Twitter changed its name to X - suddenly accounts which had been re-posting news from our RSS feeds were no longer able to share links. This sort of censorship is an unpleasant side-effect of centralized communication platforms such as X, Facebook, Google+, and so on.

In an effort to continue to make it possible for people to talk about Linux (and DistroWatch), as well as share their views and links, we are providing two options. We have RSS news feeds which get updates whenever we post new announcements, stories, and our weekly newsletters. We also now have a Mastodon account where I will start to post updates - at least for new distributions and notice of our weekly newsletter. Over time we may also add news stories and updates about releases. Links for the feeds and the Mastodon account can be found on our contact page.

  • 299792458msOPEnglish
    15·
    3 days ago

    In my mind there is more piracy in Windows but I would not know for sure.

    • GolfNovemberUniform@infosec.pubEnglish
      113·
      3 days ago

      Well a lot of stuff for Linux is reverse engineered and some is just copied (WindowsFX, ElementaryOS etc). Kali Linux is also a thing.

      • Badabinski@kbin.earth
        11·
        3 days ago

        I have some issues with these assertions.

        Assuming we’re talking US law (relevant because it’s Facebook), reverse engineering has been tested in court and is not copyright infringement. It can be patent infringement, but is not necessarily so. That means that clean-room RE efforts like Wine are absolutely above board. If Wine devs haven’t personally seen decompiled Windows code then they’re good to do whatever.

        WindowsFX/LinuxFX/Wububtu/whatever is sketchy. It has problems with trademark and copyright infringement (can’t just yoink MS fonts, they have restrictive licenses). It does not represent the mainstream Linux distro community and is not something people should really be using (or paying for). Their license database with PII has been breached multiple times, as an example.

        ElementaryOS’s DE Pantheon looks and acts like MacOS, but Apple does not hold a patent on an application dock. You generally can’t patent or copyright UX unless you’re doing something really novel (like Apple’s swipe-to-unlock feature back in the day). There’s plenty of prior art that would prevent Apple from patenting most parts of their UI/UX. Pantheon’s theming has a strong resemblance to Apple’s “trade dress,” but I’m guessing it’s distinct enough to not be considered copyright infringement (it’s not a derivative work and wouldn’t be confused for or reduce the market share of MacOS).

        Kali Linux is nothing special. It’s just a Debian derivative with a bunch of pentesting and security tools installed by default. You could install most or all of those tools on Windows or MacOS, and I’m sure many people do. I have personally installed nmap on every computer I’ve owned over the past 10 years. There’s nothing magic about Kali, it’s just somewhat more convenient for people who do pentesting.

        If someone at Facebook thinks this way, I hope they’re disabused of their notions.

        Like, fuck Facebook, I don’t use that shit, but also fuck this weird dumbass decision they’ve made.