Call for Votes : Should we accept Celebian as Sponsor?

[benjagm]

Context

Past week I was excited about a new JSON Schema sponsor request by Celebian because that happened after the work done to improve the Sponsorship packages and to refresh our OpenCollective profile. The first thing we did was to check the acceptance policy and in this process some doubts have been raised by some community members.

Research

We are not experts in the Tik-Tok business in which the prospect sponsor operates but buying/selling likes and followers has been pointed as potentially unethical by some community members.

Arguments received in favour of accepting the Sponsor:

• In their Github repo https://github.com/celebiancom the show that they are actually supporting other relevant OpenSource projects like: Django, Curl and Nuxt.
• Trustpilot reviews.

Arguments against accepting the Sponsor:

• buying/selling likes and followers could be perceived as potentially unethical.
• Trustpilot reviews not validated If they can generate views and followers on Tik-Tok they can generate review on TrustPilot.

Next steps

The intend of this issue is:

• Step 1: To check if we have more arguments in favour or against accepting the sponsor.
  Action: Please add the arguments as comments on this issue.

• Step 2: Ask the TSC for vote about finally accepting the sponsor or not with following the TSC voting process. Additionally we'll appreciate opinions and comments coming from anyone in the Community. Everyone is welcome!!
  Action: Use this issue to follow the voting process using 👍 or 👎 reactions.

Please, join the discussion and help us to take the best decision for JSON Schema! 🙏

[notEthan]

I'm curious how the acceptance criteria were selected? I see they are taken from the policy on OpenCollective (per
#516 (comment)), and can see many of them being vaguely objectionable in principle, though not really in a way particular to the JSON Schema org. Others - in particular financial and pharmaceutical - only seem objectionable in that the companies that provide them often do evil things, but I don't know that these are generally against any principle of the organization.

That is a broader question than this discussion asks and may be out of scope. In scope: However those criteria are picked, rejecting a company that trades in manufactured social media engagement seems in keeping with rejection of essay writing services, for selling a product that is basically dishonest.

[Relequestual]

I'm curious how the acceptance criteria were selected? I see they are taken from the policy on OpenCollective

OpenCollective have a dropdown list of types of companies that you can choose to not accept sponsorship from. I guess those are the categories they see people wanting to reject most.
At some point, seeing that list, I selected a number of them (listed) that I thought would be unequivocal.

[gregsdennis]

I'm personally indifferent here.

For me it just takes recognition that social media businesses (e.g. TikTok) are not in the game to benefit society. As such, businesses like Celebian are just a cog in that machine.

Would we accept sponsorship from TikTok, Facebook, or Twitter? I imagine that Celebian has to go in that same bucket.

Yes, the social media engagement they sell is manufactured, but they're honest about what they do, and from what I can tell, they do what they say.

[Julian]

I'd be a (weak) -1 -- for just the reasons mentioned in the original post -- it's ethically questionable as a practice.

[benjagm]

Quick note on the Voting Process: I realized that I was not following the process this time. Next time we will:

1. Use an issue in the TSC repository instead of a discussion.
2. Use the tsc-vote label.
3. User reactions in the first comment to provide the vote.

My apologies for the confusion.

[karenetheridge]

I vote no, do not accept; we should avoid applications or organizations that contribute to an unhealthy internet (and I would count fake data and AI-generated content as unhealthy).

[jdesrosiers]

Although I'm generally a lot more accepting than our stated rules currently allow, I'm a 👎 for this one. This product's purpose is to deceive social media users and manipulate the spread of information. I might be more forgiving if there was a guarantee that any effected post was required to be clearly labeled as having bought so many likes/views/whatever. If that were the case, it could be argued that it's a valid advertising/promotion market, but the hidden nature of this information manipulation makes this product potentially dangerous and I'd rather not have anything to do with that.

[benjagm]

Thanks everyone who provided its vote. We did reach out to Celebian to communicate our decision.

Additionally, this type of business will be added to the rejection criteria.

This conversation will be closed as we completed the voting process.