Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not about breaking laws but about not having to break laws by not operating in regimes like China.
Do you not buy any goods made in China?
Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store
191–200 of 931 posts
Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store
#192I think Apple's action here provides a good case for breaking up platforms. If the App Store were decoupled from the main hardware-making and hardware-selling part of Apple, then there wouldn't be a conflict of interest between providing a neutral app-selling platform and retaining access to foreign markets.
What platform is big enough to break up the big platforms?
However, I'm not trying to push any political agenda, I just thought it was interesting that this was a good example of tech platforms being too powerful.
Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm actually quite surprised that iMessage has seemingly flown under the radar in authoritarian countries for this long…maybe nobody uses it there?
People only use it because it's enabled by default and takes over from SMS with minimal intervention. There's no point using it when there's also WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal/etc. The competition are largely cross-platform. I'm surprised Apple even bothered to make it in the first place. They could have saved themselves the effort and not got into that market, rather than making an app that makes them look bad.
Green Bubbles: How Apple Quietly Gets iPhone Users To Hate Android Users https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150211/05455029985/green...
Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
The United States Federal Trade Commission.
Mhm. And shouldn’t they, then, be broken up as well? Which monopoly breaks up the monopoly upbreakers?
Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm actually quite surprised that iMessage has seemingly flown under the radar in authoritarian countries for this long…maybe nobody uses it there?
People only use it because it's enabled by default and takes over from SMS with minimal intervention. There's no point using it when there's also WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal/etc. The competition are largely cross-platform. I'm surprised Apple even bothered to make it in the first place. They could have saved themselves the effort and not got into that market, rather than making an app that makes them look bad.
Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Should you now remove Safari because it allows you to access data that would potentially help with criminal intent? Worked for gab.
For a site like Gab, I always wondered if having a massive amount of users posting messages making fun of the alt right movement, painting neo nazies like the idiots they are and criticizing the site user base wouldn't have been a better way than outright censorship. It would have really tested the supposedly pro free speech stance of that site. I mean I'm being a bit tongue in cheek there but I'm really not sure if…
No, both are the wrong approach, in my opinion.
If you "deplatform" and censor nazis, then all you do is fuel their victimhood which will only enforce their believes, and worse, people on the brink of sympathizing with them will see them as the victims and underdogs too, pushing those people further in their direction.
Now, if you just ridicule the nazis just for the sake of it, you essentially achieve the same result: nazis can again declare themselves the victims.
What you got to do is debunk their falsehoods, outline their hypocrisies, highlight the stuff they do not want the general public (especially those people who are on the brink of joining their "movement") to know. Of course, humor and satire and even ridicule are very potent ways to then get your information across, but you have to actually say something/show something with it. You probably won't influence them, they already made up their minds and run their cognitive dissonance in overdrive, but putting this information out there, especially in entertaining way, denying them plain victimhood, showing how they are the bullies and denying them the prerogative of interpretation (they often have because we're too lazy to actually argue against them and resort to idle insults instead) is what can and does make "undecided" people think twice before joining their movement.
I saw that with Hilary and her "basket of deplorables". This kind of insult and ridicule drove quite a few undecided people right into the arms of Trump. I believe this is actually the single event that won Trump his presidency (it just just my belief based on what I saw, not something I claim is a verified fact). The Rust Belters who secured his success didn't give much fucks about email servers, "BENGHAZI!!!" or the Russian trolls claiming Hilary's people run a pedo ring in a pizza shop, but they did mind being called "deplorable" because they were concerned about their blue collar jobs in the context of immigration and globalization. This is further evidenced by Trump's targeted (facebook) ads hitting on those topics and how Hilary is a "stooge" for the globalists and Goldman Sachs ("Crooked Hilary", "drain the swamp").
I can see that a lot with the AfD party in Germany, which isn't exactly alt-right, but sure has a lot of alt-right members, including some rather prominent ones like "Bernd" Höcke, and uses quite a bit of alt-right/identitarian/ethno-centrism/"supremacy" ideology as well (they also e.g. deny climate change, think women belong in the kitchen, really do not like homosexuals - even tho one of ther party co-chairs is openly lesbian, but all this is rarely talked about).
They have a tendency to portrait themselves as the victimized underdog, and it works, works extremely well.
Even works with me sometimes, subconsciously at least, and I despise them politically and ideologically, and find most their policies outright abhorrent.
Every time I see stories about antifa attacking AfD events or AfD people, I sympathize with them for being the victims of violence.
Every time the other parties fuck with them not on merits but just to fuck with them, like in a recent state election when the election commission tried to reject the vast majority of their candidates on a technicality, I fear for democracy and I sympathize with them to a degree.
Every time I read a comment saying something like "every nazi/AfD/alt-right/white supremacist is a cunt" or even "...has to die" or "out to collect some nazi scalps", I sympathize a little with them, because they are people after all (with some very vile idea, misguided and indoctrinated, but still), as I find this kind of violence and dehumanizing rhetoric very problematic, same as as I find the way they usually try to dehumanize other people or are openly violent evil and disgusting.
However, when I see satire and cabaretists make fun of them, not just because, but outlining the evils hit they say and do and debunking the falsehoods they spew, that's something that resonates with me, and not just me.
In Germany, you got a slew of programs and prominent comedians that do that, from heute show, extra 3 and Die Anstalt, over to Böhmermann and Sonneborn.
The US has quite a few of those, too, like Real Time, Last Week Tonight, The Daily Show (that I know of and regularly consume), but comparing both countries styles, I find the US stuff often lacking in substance underneath, going just for cheap shots, unrelated jokes and outraged rhetoric instead, in particular when it comes to John Oliver (tho he has his moments, too)
Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
Using a dog icon for the police isn’t exactly a great look if you’re trying to be neutral. It’s roughly equivalent to using a pig to represent the police in the US. I don’t see why they couldn’t have just used one of the standard emoji for police there - it’d be a lot less likely to offend.
As a counterpoint, I grew up with McGruff the Crime Dog, which is still used today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGruff_the_Crime_Dog Also worth noting that K9 Units are heavily utilized by police https://www.police.gov.hk/ppp_en/11_useful_info/pdu/index.ht... There is a historical precedent of that association.
Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store
#198This move comes after Apple re-instated the app into the app store under public pressure. This comes after Apple told Senator Howley that the decision to block the app had been a mistake: https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1180214941867036672 It's important for the discussion that this app does not violate any local laws in Hong Kong. It is a safety tool. You can check out the web version here (click icons and paste…
Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Saying you do not want to see anything political, is apathic and shows you lean towards whatever the status quo is. That's not what they're saying: they just don't want it on Hacker News. > Here's how to deal with the issue instead: upvote stories you enjoyed and/or press hide on the links you do not want to read. This is coincidentally how you deal with spam without a spam filter. At some point, it's not very prod…
> That's not what they're saying: they just don't want it on Hacker News. They decided that not only they do not want to see it on HN; they don't want anyone to see it on HN. > You're free to use a website which uses an API to include/exclude based on a whitelist or blacklist. Use RSS with it, et voila. It is a practical solution which does not require third party tools. Also, it is about more than you; it allows you…
Right, which as far as I can tell is essentially the Kacker News guidelines in what to submit.
Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store
#200I think Apple's action here provides a good case for breaking up platforms. If the App Store were decoupled from the main hardware-making and hardware-selling part of Apple, then there wouldn't be a conflict of interest between providing a neutral app-selling platform and retaining access to foreign markets.