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The story
The official account of GrapheneOS, a privacy-focused Android OS, has claimed that a state-sponsored disinformation and smear campaign targeting the OS is underway in the Netherlands and Germany. According to the claim, the campaign spreads flimsy security concerns to drive users away, while deliberately conflating GrapheneOS with products from shady vendors who modify and sell devices bundled with device-management software. The claim was picked up by the Lemmy community c/europe, where discussion ranged from skepticism about the claim itself, to commentary on the lead developer’s personality, to speculation that Germany may have shifted to supporting the EU’s “Chat Control” message-surveillance proposal.
There is a major, apparently state-sponsored disinformation and smear campaign against GrapheneOS underway in the Netherlands and Germany. It lines up flimsy security claims to scare users away, and it grossly misrepresents who actually uses GrapheneOS. These smear campaigns deliberately conflate GrapheneOS with products that shady vendors modify and fork on their own and then sell. Those products often come bundled with management apps for controlling employee devices, and in most cases they are either not genuine GrapheneOS devices at all, or they ship with malware apps built in.
Source: grapheneos.social / Original post here
What people said
Sure, they've got their reasons — but they also just talk out of their ass sometimes. Both things can be true.
Wait, didn't Germany change its stance and is now in favor of Chat Control (the latest version proposed by Denmark)?
Isn't that true of basically every Android fork though? Google's been using AI to develop Android for ages now.
"Sounds like someone at GrapheneOS lost the plot."
One of the lead developers has honestly been known as a bit of an odd character for a long time. He supposedly stepped back from social media, but a lot of the official account's posts still read exactly like his writing style.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
GrapheneOS is an Android-based OS that hardens device security and privacy, and it has built up a solid following as a countermeasure against smartphone surveillance. At the same time, commercial forks that mimic its name and appearance do exist, and products bundled with enterprise mobile device management (MDM) features are indeed circulating on the market — as commenters in the thread point out, this creates a structural problem where these get mixed up with genuine GrapheneOS. Chat Control, the EU proposal mentioned in the thread, is a bill still under debate in the EU that would automatically pre-scan private messages to detect child sexual abuse material; it has long been a flashpoint between privacy advocates and law enforcement, and Germany’s position is said to have wavered from meeting to meeting. Where the thread’s opinions diverged was over how much credence to give GrapheneOS’s claim of a “state-sponsored smear campaign,” with distrust of the lead developer’s public communication style apparently coloring how commenters judged the claim itself.
*This article excerpts and freely translates a thread from the overseas forum Lemmy c/europe titled “GrapheneOS claims There’s a major state sponsored misinformation and smear campaign towards GrapheneOS in the Netherlands and Germany.” Our editorial team takes responsibility for this translation.
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