Framework, the maker of repairable laptops, is embroiled in a controversy, as the company and its CEO are openly supporting people with, well, questionable views.
If you know a little bit about PR in social media space, you might note that, right out of the gate, a project by a vocal white nationalist known for splitting communities by their mere presence, is not a great highlight choice for an overtly non-left-right-political company like Framework. Does it get worse from here? Sadly, it does.
↫ Arya Bread Crumbs
The questionable views we’re talking about here are… Let’s just say we’re not talking about milquetoast stuff like “we should be a bit stricter with immigration” or “lower taxes on the rich”, but views that are far, far outside of the mainstream in most places in the world.
Let’s ditch the superlatives and review David’s post objectively:
- He thinks that even if you were born in the UK, you only count as British if you’re white.
- He wouldn’t consider living in London specifically because it has too many people of color.
- He uses racist tropes to accuse Asian men of being dangerous predators who attack white women.
- He pushes debunked conspiracy theories about immigrants replacing white people.
- He finds a march where speakers called for banning all non-Christian religions and ethnically cleansing immigrants “heartwarming”.
- Finally — and maybe most alarmingly — he argues that all of the above is normal and not extreme.
You can use whatever word you want to describe all that. But if you, like me, didn’t realize that this is who DHH is, we can probably agree that he’s way worse than we thought.
↫ Jake Lazaroff
Framework has stated in no uncertain terms that it is supporting and embracing people like this. That’s a choice they are entirely free to make, but I, and many with me, then, are entirely free to choose not to buy and/or promote products by Framework. I still sincerely hope that all of this is just a massive breakdown of PR and common sense at Framework and its CEO, but since they’ve already doubled-down, I’m not holding my breath. This whole thing is going to haunt them, especially since I’m fairly sure a huge chunk of their community and users – who are buying into hardware that is, in truth, overpriced – are not even remotely aligned with such extremist views.
I care deeply about Framework’s mission, but I don’t give a single rat’s ass about Framework itself. There are countless alternatives to Framework, some of which I’ve even reviewed here (like the MNT Reform or the NovaCustom V54), and if you, too, feel a deep sense of the ick when it comes to supporting extremist views like the above, I urge you to take them into consideration.
Thank you for raising this here
It’s really scary to see open source spaces openly supporting white supremacist transphobes. It’s already scary enough that they’re gaining power everywhere, now they are making it hard to turn to tech to escape their hatred
That is the issue when we have both nationality and ethnicity described with the same word. An issue with inherent ambiguity of natural language.
And this issue is the same in many different places.
Or sometimes the opposite. For example, all Turkish citizens are Turk by constitution. However some prefer to be called Arab, Kurd, or some other ethnicity.
This is a deep rabbit hole. But a remnant that comes with moving from multi-ethnic empires to nation states.
From their point of view: “What do you call a English person who is English by ethnicity?”
I’m not sure we can find answers that will satisfy everyone.
I only randomly read the linked articles; had BaseCamp been mentioned, I would more certanly have read them. Oh, so this person got even weirder.
This is what I wrote to them the other day. No response yet, and I don’t expect one. But I hope at least someone at their company takes positions like mine seriously and might help them reconsider their alignment with evil people.
Hello,
I am writing to you as a formerly potential customer of yours. I’ve followed your company from the beginning, I adore the idea of user-repairable computers and you seemed to truly care about your customer base and any potential new customers.
After seeing your company not only gleefully support the bigoted and fascist-aligned developers behind Omarchy and Hyprland, but to then double down and fully embrace the hatred and racism and sexism espoused by those developers rather than even entertain the notion that you may have made a mistake, makes me very uncomfortable and unable to support your company. I had planned to make my first purchase from you, a Framework Desktop mainboard, within the next couple of months to replace my aging AMD 5600GT based mainboard. Now that you have come out as fascist aligned and fully supportive of bigots and racists, I can no longer in good faith spend any money with you.
I will now have to pay more to get a full PC from Minisforum or Geekom or another of your competitors, rather than replace just my mainboard and keep my existing case and power supply. You see, your active support of bigotry and hatred has a knock-on effect of causing more e-waste rather than less, which is against the mission statement you insist you believe in.
Actions have consequences, and your company’s actions surrounding this issue speak volumes about who you really are and what you really care about. While I am not directly affected by the words and actions of your new fascist friends, many of my friends and colleagues are BIPOC and/or LGBTQIA+ and/or immigrants, all of whom are targets for the hatred and violence of those you have aligned yourself with.
Shame on you. Be better.