{"id":16521554,"url":"https://github.com/cyphunk/wannaplay","last_synced_at":"2026-01-30T04:17:52.722Z","repository":{"id":21927446,"uuid":"25251784","full_name":"cyphunk/wannaplay","owner":"cyphunk","description":"My statement prepared for the public debate held Oct.15.2014 concerning the Wannaplay (Grindr/Tindr) art project that took place in Berlin.","archived":false,"fork":false,"pushed_at":"2014-10-16T12:01:10.000Z","size":128,"stargazers_count":1,"open_issues_count":0,"forks_count":0,"subscribers_count":2,"default_branch":"master","last_synced_at":"2025-05-31T02:11:16.689Z","etag":null,"topics":[],"latest_commit_sha":null,"homepage":null,"language":null,"has_issues":true,"has_wiki":null,"has_pages":null,"mirror_url":null,"source_name":null,"license":"other","status":null,"scm":"git","pull_requests_enabled":true,"icon_url":"https://github.com/cyphunk.png","metadata":{"files":{"readme":"README.md","changelog":null,"contributing":null,"funding":null,"license":"LICENSE","code_of_conduct":null,"threat_model":null,"audit":null,"citation":null,"codeowners":null,"security":null,"support":null}},"created_at":"2014-10-15T11:31:18.000Z","updated_at":"2025-03-19T01:34:29.000Z","dependencies_parsed_at":"2022-08-05T15:00:32.594Z","dependency_job_id":null,"html_url":"https://github.com/cyphunk/wannaplay","commit_stats":null,"previous_names":[],"tags_count":0,"template":false,"template_full_name":null,"purl":"pkg:github/cyphunk/wannaplay","repository_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/cyphunk%2Fwannaplay","tags_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/cyphunk%2Fwannaplay/tags","releases_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/cyphunk%2Fwannaplay/releases","manifests_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/cyphunk%2Fwannaplay/manifests","owner_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners/cyphunk","download_url":"https://codeload.github.com/cyphunk/wannaplay/tar.gz/refs/heads/master","sbom_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/cyphunk%2Fwannaplay/sbom","scorecard":null,"host":{"name":"GitHub","url":"https://github.com","kind":"github","repositories_count":286080680,"owners_count":28901112,"icon_url":"https://github.com/github.png","version":null,"created_at":"2022-05-30T11:31:42.601Z","updated_at":"2026-01-30T04:02:34.702Z","status":"ssl_error","status_checked_at":"2026-01-30T04:02:33.562Z","response_time":66,"last_error":"SSL_connect returned=1 errno=0 peeraddr=140.82.121.6:443 state=error: unexpected eof while reading","robots_txt_status":"success","robots_txt_updated_at":"2025-07-24T06:49:26.215Z","robots_txt_url":"https://github.com/robots.txt","online":false,"can_crawl_api":true,"host_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub","repositories_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories","repository_names_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repository_names","owners_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners"}},"keywords":[],"created_at":"2024-10-11T16:56:56.479Z","updated_at":"2026-01-30T04:17:52.709Z","avatar_url":"https://github.com/cyphunk.png","language":null,"funding_links":[],"categories":[],"sub_categories":[],"readme":"# Statement Oct 15 2014\n\nPrepared for the discussion in Berlin at HAU1 on the Wannaplay\nproject, Grindr and it's impact on the Gay community.\n\nI was asked to speak tonight, as a hacker and activist, concerning\nthe assumptions we place over online environments. But I feel i\nneed to start with something personal first.\n\nLast Sunday, at the last public discussion at HAU2, the first 15\nminutes were consumed by one individual that could not help himself\nbut demand that his concerns be heard. And while the audience booed\nor begged for a more ordered discussion I realised that this person\nwas exposing a vulnerability that went well beyond the Wannaplay\nincident. It also reminded me, with a strength that I have not felt\nfor a very long time, that one can never assume that their own\nexperiences are enough to understand the experiences of others.\nSomething I felt with a certain experience from my childhood.\n\nI grew up in a religious home. At 16 years old while riding in the\ncar with my mother and a friend of hers I made a homophobic joke.\nMy parents never condoned this way of behaving but I picked this\nup through my environment. Later that day my mother told me in\nprivate that I have no idea what her friend may have gone through\nin her life and no matter my beliefs that I should be aware and\ntreat everyone with utmost respect. This had a heavy impact on me.\nSo I would like to thank that individual from last week for reminding\nme of this event.\n\nConcerning the vulnerability he exposed...\nLiving in Berlin it is easy to assume a commonly shared understanding\nof equality and freedom for the Gay community. We benefit from this,\nand we celebrate it. But this beautiful city also makes it easy to\nforget that just 3 weeks ago the Gay Pride parade in Belgrade was\nquarantined for blocks. I witnessed the exact same scenario a few\nyears ago in Budapest. Our experience of equality here does not\ntranslate outside of Berlin and many living here here may be more\naware of this than we are.\n\nActually I need to stop here and correct myself. Early today I asked\na close friend to review my text and he reminded me that my description\nof Berlin as some bastion of liberty and understanding is completely\noff. Minority groups in Berlin, the Gay community included, are\ncontinuously burdened with acts of bigotry. I've developed this\nmisplaced assumption because I spend most of my time within the\nconfines of environments that celebrate this community, Hebbel Am Ufer\nbeing one of them. But my isolated understanding illustrates how easy\nit is to assume common understanding from ones own limited experiences.\n\nUnderstanding the limits of our own experience is so essential to\nthis topic because the virtual world lacks the physical cues and\nhints that allow us to obtain common understanding and common\nrespect. As an example consider the cruising culture which Grindr\nhas largely domesticated. I am not a member of the Gay community\nbut I, and I'm sure many here, have had the experience of visiting\nsuch a park. There is no Terms Of Service and no End User License\nAgreement that one signs when entering. Despite this it does not\ntake long to adapt to the common behaviour and show the level of\nrespect this environment deserves. We pick this up both through\nphysical and unphysical cues.\n\nThe Internet lacks such cues entirely. The best we have to emulating\nthem are emoticons and the Emoji icon set. It is easy online,\nlogarithmically easier that in the physical world, to assume that\nones own understanding of a virtual community is shared by most.\nThis is very common and I think this can be seen in the Wannaplay\nproject. But this can also be seen in how we use such environments.\n\nIn august of this year someone documented, anonymously, how anyone\nin the Grindr community can be physically tracked. This capability\nhas existed since its inception. The same issue was exposed in Tindr\nin February. Tindr responded by adding a certain level of entropy,\nor randomness, to the distance readings for individuals. In Tindr\nyou still know if someone is in your neighborhood but you will not\nknow who is the closest. Grindr has responded by giving their users\nthe option to remove accurate location readings for their profile.\nHowever, knowing if another Grindr user is in the same building as\nyou is an important function utilised extensively by the community.\nSo by default accurate tracking remains. Despite this we still use\nsuch services.\n\nWhen we use them we sign agreements that we hardly understand. We\nbehave as if virtual spaces were controlled by the commons when in\nfact our interaction happens instead within the private property\nof corporations. And there is no Terms Of Service or End User License\nAgreement that can prevent these misplaced assumptions. Assumptions\non etiquette or how we are supposed to behave with each other. But\nmore importantly we lack the physical tools to protect each other.\nAnd this brings me to what I feel is one of the more import points\nof discussion. That of the Internet mob and the hate directed against\nthe Artist, and in some cases against HAU, and I was astonished to\nlearn the amount of hate directed against the victim.\n\nTo explain why I find this so important we should compare how we\nhandle hate offline.\n\nBerlin is still challenged with fractions of hate that reveal\nthemselves in sporadic moments. As residents we have become used\nto attending Anti Fascist rallies when NPD or AFD would speak\npublicly.  We create a buffer between the hate and the hated. Our\nphysical presence sends a message to the public, to the victims and\nthe perpetrators all at once. This action, the physicality of it,\nis an essential function even when laws exist that prohibit hate\nspeech.\n\nAnd even though many countries have enacted anti-internet-bullying\nlaws we still have no way to create this buffer online. For all of\nhuman nature that the Internet has and continues to liberate this\nwill remain a concerning problem.\n\nIt is responsibility of everyone to be aware of this problem and\nask themselves if they are helping enable it.\n\nThe lack of physical cues to educate each other of common etiquette\nonline gives me a way to understand how Dries thought his project\nwould be received differently, as well as explain why part of the\ncommunity has responded so clearly in difference to this assumption...\nIt does not help me understand some of the journalists and writers\nonline that appear to benefit from the emancipation of hate that\nis provided online. The writers that suggest that the victim responded\nin a manner for personal gain are in fact they themselves the ones\nwhose personal gain should be examined. Because suggesting this is\nonly as absurd as suggesting Dries built his project with intent\nto harm.\n\n\n# Amendment Oct 16 2014\n\nSomeone from the audience at HAU1 on Oct 15 read a statement from the\nCEO of Gindr concerning features added in a recent update and noted\nthat the software would now allow for location \"tribes\". He found\nthis interesting as a Gay man of color living in an environment that\naccepts him partially but leaves him and others dealing with\ndifferent forms of segregation. While the features added to Grindr do\nlead to interesting discussions around inclusion and segregation\nwithin communities it also brings us to the topic of social\nengineering through code.\n\nWhen I describe the false safety we place on Grindr and other\nlocation based digital communities, illustrated by the example of\nrecent disclosures on how to track members in the Grindr community,\nI've been asked if I'm blaming the users. While this does serve as a\nwarning if there is any indictment it lay with developers and not the\nusers.\n\nWe are slowly moving the responsibility for the construction of\nsocial behaviour and good citizenry from the hands of policy makers\nto the hands of engineers. Where city planners build parks and rebuild\nroads engineers devise UI models, reputation schemes and collectives.\nIn this environment ethics and concerns of morality are left to\nmarket will. A place where corrections are made only after injustice\nhas been served. This can be seen in Grindr's response to the\nWannaplay project, in Tindr and Grindr's response to the tracking\nissue. This can also be seen in the foundational protocols of the\nInternet itself where, for example, the same feature used to prevent\nGermans from hearing GEMA licensed music on Youtube is also utilised\nto oppress people around the world, with life threatening consequences.\nThe engineers that build these protocols have yet to address this\ninjustice.\n\nIn an increasingly digital world, one built by mostly male engineers,\nthe question of capitalist drive of social structures seems mute.\nWith digital neoliberalism a given, rather than discussing\npost-privacy we should be defining post-existentialism.\n\n\n\n\nThis work by Nathan Andrew Fain is licensed under the\nNon-White-Heterosexual-Male License\n\u003chttp://nonwhiteheterosexualmalelicense.org/\u003e.\n","project_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fcyphunk%2Fwannaplay","html_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/projects/github.com%2Fcyphunk%2Fwannaplay","lists_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fcyphunk%2Fwannaplay/lists"}