this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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Rust
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That's not software being political, that's admins using software for political goals. That same web of trust (or whatever it is) isn't political, it only gets political when you choose who or what is in that web. It can be used to limit spam, or it can be used to silence opposing views.
A far left and a far right person could use the same software for opposite political ends. You can see precisely that with Lemmygrad vs Exploding Heads, both use the same software stack, the main difference is in the moderation. Lemmy itself isn't really political, it's just that the people admining the original instance have a certain agenda.
Some software is more compatible with certain ideologies than others (e.g. decentralized tools like blockchain is near useless for an autocratic regime), but even then you'd probably be surprised how your tool is being used (e.g. Tor was created by the US military, and now it's largely use to subvert law enforcement and international espionage). It just so happens that humans are really good at molding tools to different purposes.