GrapheneOS4d ago
There are at least a dozen people spending at least several hours attacking GrapheneOS across platforms on a daily basis. It's a very strange situation. How do these people have so much time and dedication to keep making posts across platforms attacking us? It's relentless.
Show threadGrapheneOS4d ago

Every day, dozens of new accounts join our chat rooms to spread the same fabrications about GrapheneOS including via direct messages.

On Hacker News, one of the accounts making personal attacks based on fabrications in most threads about GrapheneOS has been doing it for 8 years.

Show threadGrapheneOS4d ago
Y Combinator has a financial stake in numerous surveillance and exploit development companies. Hacker News is a platform they own and the moderators on it have permitted years of vile harassment towards our team which they'd normally remove if others were targeted.
Show threadGrapheneOS4d ago
Hacker News mods micromanage it enough to repeatedly ask us not to reuse a bit of text across our comments. Meanwhile, they do nothing about disgusting personal attacks and harassment content consistently being spread in threads about GrapheneOS on their heavily moderated site.
Show threadGrapheneOS4d ago
The largest privacy community on Reddit /r/privacy bans any discussion or mentions of GrapheneOS. A bot automatically removes any post mentioning GrapheneOS they'll very actively ban people who evade their filters. The mods of the subreddit misrepresent this as something we want.
Show threadGrapheneOS4d ago
Many privacy subreddits have mods who are hostile towards GrapheneOS. We were banned from posting on /r/Android for multiple years. The mod who banned us said our official project account on Reddit was ban evading because they once unjustifiably banned one of our team members.
Show threadGrapheneOS4d ago
On Wikipedia, a company attacking GrapheneOS project made years of edits to the site pushing false narratives about us. They cited articles based on their own press releases. Other content was made paraphrasing Wikipedia which ended up being cited by it. It continues to this day.
Show threadXtreix3d ago

@GrapheneOS The French Wikipedia page for GrapheneOS is currently the only accurate one and I am one of the contributors, another community member started rewriting the page, and I joined in. I haven't contributed to the page in quite a while, but everything looks fine to me.

The US page is managed by people hostile to GrapheneOS, as you already know. If you change the content, a member will revert your edit. I’ve tried several times with no success, it’s deplorable.

Attacks from scammers and companies selling snake oil seem to have intensified since the collaboration with Motorola Mobility. It’s absurd how many trolls and malicious people I see on X, and it’s almost impossible to respond to them all. This social network is terrible, I’ve rarely seen so much violent content on a platform, fortunately, there are also people who support the project.

Show threadaliu17h ago
@Xtreix @GrapheneOS Your edit had the pretty big problem of replacing sourced content with unsourced content that sometimes uses buzzwords, after which you didn't engage in [discussion the revert pointed you to](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:GrapheneOS/Archive_4#Special:Diff/1324505725). That said, the sources in the article do seem enough to say that Micay was a co-founder and that gOS is meant to be the very similar successor to Copperhead. Without contradicting information from other editors I'm sure I can add this.
Talk:GrapheneOS/Archive 4 - Wikipedia

Show threadGrapheneOS16h ago

@aliu @Xtreix

> That said, the sources in the article

Articles based on press releases and Wikipedia aren't reliable sources. Laundering inaccurate content through authors of articles taking Wikipedia claims at face value isn't acceptable.

> gOS is meant to be the very similar successor to Copperhead

GrapheneOS is not a successor to CopperheadOS. GrapheneOS is the direct continuation of the open source project formerly known as CopperheadOS. There's plenty of verifiable info proving it.

Show threadaliu16h ago

@GrapheneOS @Xtreix It would be very helpful for the encyclopedia to know these sources! That's the hardest part of writing any Wikipedia article content, imo.

Golem Magazine appears to have had close communications with Micay and done their fact-checking. The article links an archived copy of Micay's own r/android post saying "true successor of CopperheadOS", so I'm curious to know what's the case here. Isn't "successor" and "continuation" the same thing?

Show threadGrapheneOS16h ago

@aliu @Xtreix

> Golem Magazine appears to have had close communications with Micay and done their fact-checking.

The article has major inaccuracies. Communicating with someone doesn't mean they have an opportunity to review the article before publication or that the author and editor are willing to fix the issues.

> The article links an archived copy of Micay's own r/android post saying "true successor of CopperheadOS",

No, that's not true. Daniel never posted any such thing on Reddit.

Show threadaliu16h ago
@GrapheneOS @Xtreix Ah, I see, the post is made by a different user while Micay did comment on it. I found another source that I can use to lend enough weight to include how GrapheneOS says it was a renaming of CopperheadOS. That's the best secondary source I've found, though, so the article can't state that ("in wikivoice") without attributing the claim to GrapheneOS yet.
Show threadGrapheneOS
@aliu @Xtreix The biggest issues in the article are the incredibly inaccurate narrative about the history of GrapheneOS presenting it entirely based on Copperhead's debunked claims which they widely propagated with press releases and their own direct edits to Wikipedia. They heavily wrote the content in the CopperheadOS article which is still present there. CopperheadOS is the former name of GrapheneOS and after that was a zombie project based on repeatedly forking our code.
3:00amWeb
Show threadGrapheneOS16h ago
@aliu @Xtreix The next biggest issue in the article is how it cites an announcement from us about the harassment towards Daniel completely out-of-context while ignoring most of what we said and misrepresenting it. Interpreting primary sources that way isn't supposed to be happening especially when it involves a living person. We didn't announce what it claims we did and it omits the context of what we said we were dealing with and why it was happening. Why is the main context omitted from it?
Show threadGrapheneOS16h ago
@aliu @Xtreix The article very clearly takes something out of context, misrepresents it and tries to present it as a contradiction entirely based on direct interpretation of primary sources. If the article cannot cite the ownership of the original GitHub repositories, commit history and much more to correctly present the history of the project then why does it use primary sources to misrepresent our statements? The standard being used to justify the inaccuracies is ignored to justify others.
Show threadGrapheneOS16h ago

@aliu @Xtreix The bias against GrapheneOS by the authors of the article including people who work for companies it is extreme.

Take a look at the CopperheadOS article. It's a massive page about something which only ever existed as the former name of GrapheneOS and then a proprietary fork of GrapheneOS only ever used by hundreds of people. They repeatedly forked the latest GrapheneOS code to keep recreating it. Why is it that it has a huge article presenting it as a standalone thing?

Show threadGrapheneOS16h ago
@aliu @Xtreix The fact is that Copperhead and companies working with them heavily edited the articles. For years, most media coverage based their basic understanding about both on the Wikipedia articles and started from the point of an inaccurate narrative. Wikipedia is citing laundered information from itself as a source. That golem.de article and most other sources are essentially blog posts. You're just recycling information from Wikipedia written by Copperhead back into Wikipedia.
Show threadaliu16h ago
@GrapheneOS @Xtreix Well, I don't know the context and I can't find a secondary source to provide the context, while there are secondary sources other secondary sources claim are reputable that contextualize the early repo history you mention.
I think that's the problem: Wikipedia has yet to find a better objective indicator of truth than being published by the bubble of secondary sources, and I can't think of any either.
Show threadGrapheneOS16h ago
@aliu @Xtreix People who aren't subject matter experts doing cursory research based on the equivalent of blog posts by people who aren't subject matter experts isn't a recipe for writing accurate content. The approach is incredibly biased and primary sources do get heavily cited including in this article. Conveniently, the primary sources are cited to take statements in an announcement from us out-of-context in order to present a warped take on it and try to make us look bad based on it.
Show threadaliu16h ago
@GrapheneOS @Xtreix The problem with that is you're also a blog post. I really appreciate what you are doing but lowering the RS barrier to interpreting primary sources when people still disagree on a fact would make a lot of fact-finding discussions the equivalent of Reddit toxicity and Truth Social toxicity combined.
Show threadGrapheneOS16h ago
@aliu @Xtreix Okay, so remove the paragraph in the article inaccurately interpreting the announcements we made about protecting Daniel from harassment. It shouldn't be in the article unless it comes from secondary sources, particularly since it involves a living person and the current content is an extreme misrepresentation of what was said and the context of it as part of someone trying to make a jab towards us. Why is that paragraph there, but actual facts can't be cited?
Show threadaliu16h ago
@GrapheneOS @Xtreix I think it's a tiny bit plausible that these sources were bought by Donaldson to parrot his claims while also painting Donaldson as the villain. But the sources we have only contextualize the part where you think primary sources favor your view and not when it doesn't, and absent of an official announcement that tries to contextualize the 2024 resignation we can cite, this is what's best.
Show threadaliu16h ago
@GrapheneOS @Xtreix If there's already a post on the gOS website somewhere that says Micay will not be succeeded by a different director or whatever you want to add, feel free to link it!
Show threadGrapheneOS16h ago
@aliu @Xtreix The post is citing us as a source out-of-context while ignoring the vast majority of what we've said about it. We said those steps were taken to protect Daniel from harassment and yet harassment isn't mentioned in the article. It's presented in an incredibly slanted way as part of false narratives being pushed about GrapheneOS to attack it.
Show threadaliu16h ago
@GrapheneOS @Xtreix Give me of a link of a website that you know.
Show threadaliu16h ago
@GrapheneOS @Xtreix PSST: Just as a test please reply to this post, not the previous one, ASAP if you see it.
Show threadaliu16h ago

@GrapheneOS @Xtreix If you were confused by other replies: Sorry about that, you're replying so clickly that I suspected you were a bot! I again apologize.

Where did you say that? It would be best to cite it as an official statement from your website.

Show threadGrapheneOS16h ago
@aliu @Xtreix There was no official announcement from GrapheneOS saying what's claimed there. It's citing a personal account and misinterpreting what it says. If the content cannot be sourced from a reliable secondary source, it should be removed. It's an incredibly biased interpretation of a primary source. How does that qualify as something notable if you can't find any secondary source saying what it does, but yet you would remove factual information about GrapheneOS without one?
Show threadGrapheneOS15h ago
@aliu @Xtreix Why is the article directly interpreting what someone posted on their personal Twitter account and subsequently deleted as if it was an official announcement? You can't actually justify that, especially when it's warping what was said by leaving out the context. Why is harassment not mentioned when the topic of the posts was harassment and a plan for dealing with it? The plan was revised a few more times prior to official announcements about the actual concrete details...
Show threadaliu15h ago
@GrapheneOS @Xtreix Could you link those official announcements?
Show threadaliu15h ago
@GrapheneOS @Xtreix WP:ABOUTSELF is fine if without reasonable doubt. Making a statement about how exactly that's misleading would provide that reasonble doubt as well as clear up confusion for anyone not very active on Mastodon.
Show threadaliu15h ago
@GrapheneOS @Xtreix I think it would benefit both of us here if we each went back and re-read posts a little carefully. So carefully, in fact, that I unfortunately won't be able to reply for a few hours. This is a very interesting rabbit hole and I do want to see where this conversation leads.
Show threadGrapheneOS15h ago
@aliu @Xtreix Both the CopperheadOS and GrapheneOS articles on Wikipedia make libelous claims about the founder of GrapheneOS. People involved in the harassment towards him have been involved in editing the article. That's why the article is citing his posts about harassment while leaving out the fact that it was about harassment. That's why it's trying to present something as a gotcha which isn't at all. Those posts did not say or imply that he permanently stepped down as a director.
Show threadGrapheneOS15h ago
@aliu @Xtreix The actual content of the posts says that he was stepping down from those roles to recover from the harassment. It's quite clear from the content of the posts that he wasn't leaving the project but rather stepping away from demanding roles due to stress. Nowhere is it implied that he was leaving the project or permanently leaving as a director. That narrative comes from people engaging in harassment and they've been editing the article including linking harassment content in it.
Show threadGrapheneOS15h ago
@aliu @Xtreix Harassment content linked by the article was recently removed but there are still many leftover parts from the groups who added that content. Any approach which leads to this happening is awful. Misrepresenting primary sources to try to make a gotcha attack on GrapheneOS by twisting what was said is somehow fine but verifiable facts debunking the false narratives presented as a history of GrapheneOS are ignored. Wikipedia thoroughly fails to defend against astroturfing and trolls.
Show threadGrapheneOS15h ago

@aliu @Xtreix It's a misrepresentation of what was posted on a personal account which was never an official announcement by the project.

Why is the article talking about it in the first place? What makes it notable when you cannot find any secondary source about it?

We're well aware that Wikipedia editors simply interpret the rules how they want to achieve the end results they want and that there are extreme double standards applied everywhere including here. It's not honest or acceptable.

Show threadGrapheneOS16h ago
@aliu @Xtreix You're demonstrating that you're extremely biased and apply double standards. It's not something which is going to stand. We know the reality of Wikipedia which is that it's extremely astroturfed and biased. It reflects the overall bias of the editors. It doesn't reflect a consensus among people who want to have accurate content.
Show threadaliu16h ago
@GrapheneOS @Xtreix If there's already a post on the gOS website somewhere that says Micay will not be succeeded by a different director or whatever you want to add, feel free to link it! As I've mentioned, that should be usable as a primary source.
Show threadGrapheneOS2h ago
@aliu @Xtreix We're not going to give you more things you can misrepresent as part of the existing attacks on the GrapheneOS project by Wikipedia contributors. You folks are misrepresenting public statements by GrapheneOS and warping what was said into a gotcha. Why would we give you more so that you can add another sentence to the article continuing the attempt at misrepresenting what happened as a gotcha? Why would we help you justify including it in the first place? We know what you're doing.
Show threadGrapheneOS16h ago
@aliu @Xtreix Why is it that there's a paragraph based on a manipulative interpretation of our posts without the context, without actually conveying what was written in them and with a Wikipedia editor's own opinions clearly involved in it? Why is it that you can't use objective facts from a primary source but you're fine with an inaccurate interpretation of something directly from a primary source? Why is there one standard for making attacks on GrapheneOS and another for correcting them?