This is censorship, pure and simple. Gab, and Dissenter itself for that matter, are apolitical entitles whose stated goal is to allow any speech so long as it doesn't violate law. Say whatever you want, regardless of your political leanings. Admirable.
Mozilla has made their stance on such a goal clear. I don't believe for a hot second that this wasn't a politically-motivated decision, and it really puts the lie to their claims of protecting "a free and open web".
"Free and open" is diametrically opposed to blocking an addon whose sole purpose is to allow access to a third party web service.
What's the status of third party, unauthorized firefox extensions these days, didn't they ban them or make them a pain in the arse to use several years ago?
They might not have to host it, but if they make it hard/impossible for others to host and use it then they're certainly violating the first of the four freedoms of free software: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
It's stuff like this that makes it a far cry to call Mozilla "open" and "free"
Please, tell me again why Firefox is not evil and respect their users.
Playbook of valley companies in 2019:
- Systemically ban and censor conservative speech. Never-mind that 50% of the country and about 70% of the world adheres to the EXACT same, fairly reasonable opinions.
- Launch a massive PR campaign (opening salvo of which is accusations of Nazi adherence) against those crying foul, or pointing out the clear ultra-left bias in censorship and actions
- Claim that private companies hold no MORAL responsibility to uphold constitutionally guaranteed free speech laws
- Claim that the internet be treated as a utility, with free access to everyone, but ignore the fact that massive monopolies controlling the REAL utilitarian aspects of the internet (search, email, payments, hosting, cloud, etc. ) are all in cahoots to kill conservative speech, with cognitive dissonance of how they've combined to de-platform entire philosophies from the internet that they control
- Behave with absolute impunity with political agendas, and claim to be neutral
I don't think these folks understand the first amendment if they think it's relevant here...
Big money loves censorship. Why else would every big tech firm be so adamantly involved in it?
It's almost like they want to fail.
If you have to create a special message board that is the only place where you can say what you want to, perhaps you should think about what you are saying.
This is so obviously not an issue of "free speech." Free speech means the government cannot prosecute you for what you say. Any company can tell you to fuck off for any reason though, and that's the free market all the "free speech" advocates love so much.
I didn't know much about Dissenter until I Googled it just now, and it looks like its audience is primarily folk on the far/alt-right. Hell, it was created by Gab[1].
Given the rhetoric that is often found in comments from those groups, it's not too hard to imagine that the complaints Mozilla cited as the reasons for removal are legitimate.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network)#Dissenter