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Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

businessinsider.com

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Re: Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

#191

Post by JackPoach »

watwut wrote: post #165
JackPoach wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It's kind of pointless to demand from FB, Apple, Google, Amazon and other tech giants that they both don't interfere with freedom of speech and other freedoms and do promote various kinds of favorable social agendas at the same time. Also, KSA is backward as fuck, I just don't see how it's Google's fault that someone wants to live in the dark ages.

But ... the app is designed to prevent the freedom. The function of notifying is literally for the purpose of stopping women who don't want to live like that by people who force them to live in the "dark ages".

So, in other words, you are willing to ask Apple and Google to proactively police their apps, if they are designed to prevent freedoms on not. You'll probably need to ban any app related to Koran or Bible, because they condemn certain types of sexual preferences. Anything Catholic, Mormon, Scientology, got to go. So, when do you stop? How about apps used by Pentagon (Pentagon kills people)? Or banking apps that charge exhorbitant fees and 'prey on the poor'. It's a really fine line.

Again, you can with both want and not want for the tech giants to police behavior of others.

Re: Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

#192

Post by jaabe »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #102

I am surprised that no-one has brought up a neutrality argument yet. The app is legal within Saudi Arabia and in fact published by their government. Are we to take down any app which violates anyone’s morals? Or just the morals of particular countries? If an app is blasphemous by the standards of say Mormonism or Islam, should we take it down? After everyone is done, how many apps will be left? If we enforce some mor…

I think you're spot on with your UN suggestion. I mean, didn't we (the world) establish the concept of human rights, exactly as an answer to this problem of bias? I think we could go a long way, if we simply required our technology to abide by the international human rights convention.

Of course this might be a problem for a lot more Apps than the Saudi women's-tracker.

Re: Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

#193

Post by xanipher »

megaremote wrote: post #182
sschueller wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pornographie is legal in the US, yet you won't find any of those apps in the app stores. Either you are neutral or you take full responsibility of what you offer in your walled garden. You can't have it both ways.

No, it is not full or none, that is ridiculous. You are allowed to have a line that you will not cross.

How is it reasonable that "this line that you will not cross" is pornography and not "an app that tracks and controls Saudi Arabian women"?

Re: Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

#194

Post by leoh »

vkazanov wrote: post #183
stickfigure wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: Would you be willing to make this same argument for a (hypothetical) Apartheid-era app that enabled whites to manage blacks? I think it's pretty reasonable for the court of modern political opinion to pass judgement on the more egregious examples of injustice in the world. Yes, morality is relative, but there's a strong majority opinion on this - especially in the countries that build the technology…

I think the more important question is: whose "modern political opinion" is the decisive one. Notice that even relatively politically close countries have diverting understanding of important cultural issues. Think about sex-related subcultures in Japan and, say, US.

What sex-related subcultures in Japan are you talking about?

Re: Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

#195

Post by deathanatos »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #102

I am surprised that no-one has brought up a neutrality argument yet. The app is legal within Saudi Arabia and in fact published by their government. Are we to take down any app which violates anyone’s morals? Or just the morals of particular countries? If an app is blasphemous by the standards of say Mormonism or Islam, should we take it down? After everyone is done, how many apps will be left? If we enforce some mor…

Honestly, I think this is what the Prime Directive really gets at. The mistake was "interfering" (hosting) in the first place.

Re: Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

#196

Post by [deleted] »

thanatos_dem wrote: post #173
mk89 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Under Saudi law, every woman has a legal "guardian" who can restrict her travel to specific airports and routes, and get automated alerts when they cross borders. What neutral argument do you really wish to have? The fact that their legal system is messed up won't make me say "oh, but by law you are not allowed...".

I think the parent poster’s point is that that’s a very western perspective of morality. Imagine if the tables were turned, and the apprent promiscuity promoted by apps like Tinder was deemed immoral by a country that’s more conservative. Should that app be pulled globally as a result? To them the fact that we allow so much casually dating could be (and in middle eastern cultures often is) viewed as “wrong”.

[deleted]

Re: Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

#197

Post by int_19h »

mschuster91 wrote: post #175
int_19h wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. So let's pass laws and slap some serious sanctions on KSA. If there is a country that deserves them, it's this one.

The problem is that sanctions have to be enforced, and the current US government is... severely lacking in that aspect: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-28/the-trump...

Yep. And not just the present one - Saudis have a strong lobby.

But we're still a democracy. Not a perfect one, but if enough people want something, they have the tools to make it happen.

Re: Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

#198

Post by AnthonyMouse »

geofft wrote: post #114
joejerryronnie wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This quickly leads to unintended consequences. What happens if a large group of people (perhaps wearing red hats with a four letter acroynym) decide they want big tech to step on a flower you hold dear?

I don't think I'll be able to prevent them from making that demand simply if I don't make demands either. (I certainly don't think that they're not smart enough to realize that a demand could be made until they see me make one, for instance, nor that they're that exact shade of polite that thinks this is an illegitimate tactic until they see it used at which point it becomes legitimate.) So I don't think this is, in…

> I don't think I'll be able to prevent them from making that demand simply if I don't make demands either. (I certainly don't think that they're not smart enough to realize that a demand could be made until they see me make one, for instance, nor that they're that exact shade of polite that thinks this is an illegitimate tactic until they see it used at which point it becomes legitimate.)

It's not that they won't make demands, it's that they'll use your demands to legitimize theirs. If you don't make any then you can credibly defend against theirs by saying that nobody should. If you do, what will you say to theirs? Do as I say not as I do?

> Even asking big tech to step on them seems to have a better chance of accomplishing my goals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowback_(intelligence)

Re: Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

#199

Post by int_19h »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #188
int_19h wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US public opinion. Why? Because Apple and Google are both American companies, and their respective stores are hosted in US. If Saudis don't like it, they can roll their own, without our assistance, and without us profiting from any of it.

> If Saudis don't like it, they can roll their own, without our assistance, and without us profiting from any of it. Be careful what you wish for. They have the money to do it. Cornering a market isn't that hard if you're doing it for strategic reasons rather than to turn a profit. And then what? We have to petition the Saudis to approve our apps? Maybe it would be better if we didn't have a central party that contro…

It would be, but the walled gardens that we have are not propped up by any legislation, so they're creations of the market. Enough people like them that they keep running.

Thus, to prevent them, you will need regulation - which stops at the border. Saudi government will have their own, and you can be sure that it'll be the kind that enables what they want to do.

On the other hand, we can boycott and embargo them. Much good that money will do them if nobody will touch it, or if the products developed with it are banned from most well-paying markets.

Re: Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

#200

Post by dang »

clubm8 wrote: post #11

"Apple and Google accused of hosting Saudi gov't app that tracks women " is a weird phrasing. It's absolutely, 100% verifiably true they host it, as the article plainly states: > Both Google Play and iTunes host Absher, a government web service that allows men to specify when and how women can cross Saudi borders, and to get close to real-time SMS updates when they travel.

We changed the submitted title ("Apple and Google accused of hosting Saudi gov't app that tracks women") to the HTML doc title. Perhaps the submitter was attempting to follow the site guidelines ("Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."), but introduced some confusion in the process.
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