Statement on planned protests during the upcoming FOSDEM 2025
60 comments
·January 21, 2025captainmuon
teddyh
Seems there is a conflict brewing. TFA says:
> As such, if a peaceful protest were to take place during the talk in question, we will not take action, provided the protest is indeed peaceful and does not disrupt the proceedings.
However, the link you gave explicitly states: “Our purpose is to peacefully disrupt Dorsey’s talk”.
I think I side with the FOSDEM organizers here; I am not OK with disrupting anyone’s talk. Protests are fine, actual disruptions are not.
aredox
Funny how tech thought leaders always praise disruption, and suddenly it is not fine when they are the ones disrupted.
Bypassing labor laws, banking regulations, copyright? All right! Making a fuss when they are talking? Uncivil, not OK, who do you think you are!
teddyh
Your rhetoric hinges on a wilful conflation of the two meanings of the word “disruption”. Also, who says I approve of bypassing labor laws, banking regulations, or copyright?
mschuster91
> Bypassing labor laws, banking regulations, copyright? All right! Making a fuss when they are talking? Uncivil, not OK, who do you think you are!
Many "tech thought leaders" are, for lack of a better word, clinically relevant narcissists. In their view, the world revolves around them and their ideas, everyone else has to stand aside for their grand plans, and god forbid you try and shine a spotlight on their bullshit - then you are the enemy.
That also explains the hard shift towards the (far-)right observed over the last weeks, with pledges of allegiance made in Florida. It's not just about the 47th threatening revenge against anyone not supporting him, it's more about the simple fact that the progressive/left doesn't provide the positive feedback that these "leaders" crave like nothing else.
elpocko
Right. Because protests (however stupid they are) should be silent and easy to ignore, they should not disrupt anything or inconvenience anyone.
jdietrich
Protesters do not have an untrammelled right to be disruptive; others in society do not have an obligation to facilitate or tolerate that disruption. If you want to stand outside the venue and shout, that's your prerogative. If you want to come inside the venue and cause disruption, then the organisers have the right to throw you out.
Strictly speaking, what we're discussing is direct action rather than protest. The aim of these protesters is not merely to make a public display of their disapproval, but to take active steps to prevent something from happening, i.e. to prevent a talk from taking place by "occupying" the stage. The participants in that action may feel morally justified and may indeed be morally justified, but that doesn't negate the consequences of their actions. Giving anyone impunity to break whatever rule they like if they feel it's justified is a very short path to anarchy.
apopapo
Protesting should be about raising awareness of disagreement on a topic. It does not have to be disruptive to reach that objective.
derektank
Civil disobedience is not synonymous with protesting and you can do the latter without the former. There are tradeoffs with everything and protests conducted with the tacit approval of the event organizers might be more convincing or more impactful than a disruptive protest that gets the protesters kicked out of the event.
teddyh
Allowing protests to escalate to disruptions is equivalent to allowing protests to censor anyone they don’t like.
rscho
Guaranteeing freedom of speech and preventing a talk from happening seems contradictory.
abetusk
Some more information:
Jack Dorsey's slot at FOSDEM 25:
https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-4507-infu...
Block's GitHub:
Selections from Drew DeVault's post:
"""
... we do not object to the need for sponsors generally at FOSDEM ... we do object specifically to Jack Dorsey and Block, Inc. being selected as sponsors and especially as speakers.
... Our purpose is to peacefully disrupt Dorsey’s talk, and only Dorsey’s talk ...
... His complicity, along with his present-day activities at Block, Inc. and the priorities of the company that he represents as CEO — its irresponsible climate policy, $120M in fines for enabling consumer fraud, and the layoffs of another 1,000 employees in 2024 despite posting record profits on $5B in revenue — are enough of a threat to our community and its ethos to raise alarm at his participation in FOSDEM.
"""
I'm a little at a loss for context. A shallow reading is that DeVault's contention is that Dorsey sold Twitter and is now involved in many cryptocurrency focused companies. Is this too reductive of a reading?
As far as I can tell, a significant portion of Block's codebase, as well as other sibling organizations, are FOSS.
pantalaimon
His main objection seems to stem from the fact that Jack Dorsey's net worth is $5.6 billion.
belter
His main objection is that FOSDEM is not CNBC. Should not be endorsing pretense of interviews, that are just marketing pitches.
dao-
> His main objection seems to stem from the fact that Jack Dorsey's net worth is $5.6 billion.
Fair. You do not become a billionaire without being a massive POS.
abetusk
I thought this was a pithy remark but it looks like it's actually pretty close to the truth.
From a recent post by DeVault [0] titled "No billionaires at FOSDEM" (thanks to belter [1]):
"""
In my view, billionaires are not welcome at FOSDEM.
"""
[0] https://drewdevault.com/2025/01/16/2025-01-16-No-Billionares...
rurban
Drew is just ridicolous. Dorsey is the least of our problems.
I'll be even there this year. But not interested in this event
gunian
In the words of my former manager "one of the good ones" there's levels to the barons
niels_bom
Here’s the talk description: https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-4507-infu...
belter
This is better to understand the context of the protest
""No billionaires at FOSDEM" - https://drewdevault.com/2025/01/16/2025-01-16-No-Billionares...
Also these are the recommended actions:
"To maintain the peaceful nature of our protest and minimize the disruption to FOSDEM generally, we ask participants to strictly adhere to the following instructions:
Do not touch anyone else, or anyone else’s property, for any reason.
Do not engage in intimidation.
Remain quiet and peaceful throughout the demonstration.
When the protest ends, disperse peacefully and in a timely manner.
Leave the room the way you found it. "
sneak
Oh, wow. I have come to expect nonsensical silliness from him but this is a new level of ridiculous posturing.
Disrupting a talk simply because you don’t like AI or fintech is, for lack of a better term, lame. A payment processor isn’t responsible for the climate emergency, and a company isn’t evil for having a wealthy founder or having to do layoffs.
His upset is misplaced.
swiftcoder
> a company isn’t evil for ... having to do layoffs
"have to" is carrying a lot of water for the fintech with >5 billion in revenue
raverbashing
Honestly it's past time we recognized a lot of open source orgs and participants have an adulting problem
floating-io
That's not at all limited to open source orgs and participants I've found. Seems to be a large percentage of the world these days, really...
ThinkBeat
Sigh.
The people who spend a significant amount of time (often in my experience unpaid) arranging a conference have to mix and match and probably make some unpopular compromises for reasons know best to them. I do think one should get them the benefit of the doubt as to why.
Just dont attend the talk. It is that easy.
The ultimate protest would be a nearly empty room. That would be quite humiliating for the person giving the talk.
fmajid
Read Bryan Cantrill on how unimpressive Dorsey is to anyone with a clue:
"I, like many people, have a complicated relationship with Twitter. As Adam and I regaled in a recent Twitter Space, it started when debugging the Twitter fail whale in the offices of Obvious in 2007, where I became thoroughly unimpressed with their self-important skipper, Jack Dorsey. In part because I thought he was such a fool, I refused to join Twitter out of principle."
https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2022/11/05/twitter-when-the-wal...
It seems to me letting Dorsey speak and ridicule himself in front of an audience of technically savvy people would actually be the best way to discredit him.
em-bee
somehow this reminds me of the story of another internet personality when he met richard stallman for the first time because he was staging a silent protest at his talk. one of the observations was that the protesters were actually interested in the talk and there were more people in the room than expected because of it. it was mentioned or even discussed on HN but i can't find it now.
Aissen
A nice reminder by Jan (who is not defending the selection committee) https://social.wildeboer.net/@jwildeboer/113862181623385975
(Drew's latest posts has similar reminders)
Tomte
A bit downthread:
> This special relationship and this special event can be destroyed by the actions from just a few.
That's so true.
At our university in the 00s student protestors (they were against some fees, I think) posed as the student council for electrotechnics and got PA equipment from the university administration. Which they used to disrupt some big welcoming ceremony for foreign guest academics.
Now the electrotechnics parties had no PA equipment anymore. Because the administrative employee pointed out that technically the equipment was never for such use. Over decades(!) he had always handed it out because why wouldn't you support a big student party and the organizers had always been very responsible with it and returned it in pristine condition.
But now the risk for him personally outweighed any goodwill. Tough luck!
constantcrying
Why would any event accept or welcome people who are there to sabotage it?
"Our purpose is to peacefully disrupt Dorsey’s talk" then do it outside, that is where your Protest belongs and where you actually have a right to protest. Obviously anyone who comes to an event with the goal of disrupting that event needs to be removed or just not let in.
It seems extremely uncontroversial to ban everyone involved in the planned protest from attending.
hawski
It is not that easy.
From https://fosdem.org/2025/faq/#registration
> Q: I plan on visiting FOSDEM, where can I register?
> No registration is required.
> Q: How much does a entry ticket for FOSDEM cost?
> Attendance is free, including access to all talks and facilities.
constantcrying
Why? If he or anyone who announced that he is going to partake in disruptions tell them to leave, if they do not leave call the police.
EdiX
My understanding is that FOSDEM is run by volunteers on a shoestring budget mainly thanks to the support of the ULB (a university). They don't have security, they don't have badges or registrations, you can just walk in and out as you please. I have my doubts this is going to last if people start to deliberately try to take a fat dump on it to elevate their own ego.
marksomnian
> if a peaceful protest were to take place during the talk in question, we will not take action, provided the protest is indeed peaceful and does not disrupt the proceedings
Would staging a sit-in explicitly intended to prevent the booked speaker from speaking be classed as “disrupting the proceedings”?
GTP
In my opinion, yes.
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maltris
Whats going on with the special snowflakes trying to get attention? First the WordPress-guy, now this one. Maybe we should all acknowledge that we are much less important than we would like to. And thats OK.
CodeCompost
The Streisand effect is strong with this one.
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sneak
This doesn’t say anything about what the talk is, who is giving it, who is protesting it, or why.
I hate this style of press releases. It’s rude to assume your readership is hip deep in the scene drama.
wiether
Why would they provide name?
Their statement is a global reminder of the organization rules:
- they don't give preferential treatment to speakers
- they allow peaceful protest
graemep
It reminds me of something that often frustrates me. An allegation that someone said something (e.g. something offensive), but without quoting what they said (or providing context) so I cannot actually evaluate it for myself.
gadders
[flagged]
kanbara
it’s not about reading opinions, it’s about the world’s richest man enabling nazis, pushing misogynistic views, and destabilizing the globe so he can make a buck and push his obsession with mars. oh and let’s not forget the anti-queer, anti-black stuff.
the_gipsy
gadders
"It has also been pointed out that Dorsey does not bear sole responsibility for Twitter’s sale. However, he is complicit and he profited handsomely from the sale and all of its harmful consequences. The sale left the platform at the disposal of the far right, causing a sharp rise in hate speech and harassment and the layoffs of 3,700 of the Twitter employees that made it worth so much in the first place."
https://drewdevault.com/2025/01/20/2025-01-20-FOSDEM-protest...
null
Context: Jack Dorsey is giving a talk and Drew DeVault is organizing a protest against that https://drewdevault.com/2025/01/20/2025-01-20-FOSDEM-protest...