Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content • Hacker News Board

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#401

Post by plorg » Mon, May 18, 2020, 5:06 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #286

At this point: I wish they’d just take a stronger stance and ban everything they don’t like. Just ban the political party they don’t like, ban anything that speaks out against China, just ban it all. We need to go back to the web, where anybody could install Apache and off they went. Bandwidth is cheap now. BitTorrent exists. I hope google and twitter and Facebook and all the rest just hurry up with all this. Some ot…

There is indeed a problem here, and FAANG are being hamhanded and overaggressive in their response, but it's hard to find an overt bias that maps neatly onto the dominant (American?) political cleavage.

Much more often (as here), these companies are 1) making decisions in a way that allows them to abstract away and thus ignore the nuances of individual cases 2) putting the burden of implementation on underpaid workers who are not equipped to make these decisions and 3) reacting to any noticeable pushback by moving 200% in the opposite directions.

Locating the problem in Political motivations overlooks the economic incentives that monopolies have to 1) lobby/appease the people in power 2) use political opportunity to squelch competition and 3) treat their workers as disposable commodities.

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#402

Post by dmix » Mon, May 18, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

veeti wrote: post #169

jimmySixDOF wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can try Pocket Casts [1] who are my favorite and only Of course that's assuming that they don't get the same play store treatment from GOOG It's a little too ironic that Goggle, who has countless times made the argument that they aren't responsible/liable for what their users do on a service ("honestly senator its just a platform we provide"), and then here they are the ones calling for some downstream accountabi…

Don't worry, Pocket Casts is a much bigger developer. They can generate the necessary online outrage to get relisted. It's the small guys that get shafted.

And this is how we end up with monopolies. "Well intentioned" policies designed for giant companies only.

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#403

Post by acituan » Mon, May 18, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

nelaboras wrote: post #267

heinrichhartman wrote: post #211

This is the result of out-sourcing juristic work to private companies: If we treat Android, Window, Twitter, Facebook, as public spaces/goods, then private companies should not have a say in what is allowed/not-allowed on their platforms. This is work for the courts and police to decide and enforce. If we treat those platforms as private. Then we are playing in s/o's backyard. You are totally at their mercy. They hav…

The problem is that they have to act across borders. Examples: In the EU you don't need to filter pornography the same way as in the US. In the US you don't need to filter personal information (eg individuals' faces) the same way as in the EU. Or does Google need to ban insults of the Thai king? Which legislation should apply? Already now China has split the global internet in a China and non-China part...

> they have to act across borders.

They don’t have to, they choose to, in the name of growth.

If New York Times decided to operate in China too, deliver news in chinese about China, they would have the same problem.

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#404

Post by airocker » Mon, May 18, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

Google Anthos is an attempt to do the same with business software? Soon, if you have to list your business software in Anthos store, you will be at mercy of Google.

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#405

Post by fasteddie31003 » Mon, May 18, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

So would they have banned an app that told people to wear masks when the CDC and WHO said they were not effective? I proudly went against government advice then and plan on doing a lot of things against government advice in the future. This pandemic has highlighted the rot in government institutions.

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#406

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 18, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

nelaboras wrote: post #267

heinrichhartman wrote: post #211

This is the result of out-sourcing juristic work to private companies: If we treat Android, Window, Twitter, Facebook, as public spaces/goods, then private companies should not have a say in what is allowed/not-allowed on their platforms. This is work for the courts and police to decide and enforce. If we treat those platforms as private. Then we are playing in s/o's backyard. You are totally at their mercy. They hav…

The problem is that they have to act across borders. Examples: In the EU you don't need to filter pornography the same way as in the US. In the US you don't need to filter personal information (eg individuals' faces) the same way as in the EU. Or does Google need to ban insults of the Thai king? Which legislation should apply? Already now China has split the global internet in a China and non-China part...

[deleted]

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#407

Post by FireBeyond » Mon, May 18, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #240

heinrichhartman wrote: post #211

This is the result of out-sourcing juristic work to private companies: If we treat Android, Window, Twitter, Facebook, as public spaces/goods, then private companies should not have a say in what is allowed/not-allowed on their platforms. This is work for the courts and police to decide and enforce. If we treat those platforms as private. Then we are playing in s/o's backyard. You are totally at their mercy. They hav…

You really trust the US court system to be impartial? Should Apple/Google be forced to carry pornographic apps? White supremacists apps? Apps that invade people’s privacy? Which government should hold this responsibility? Should we have an international committee deciding this?

> Should Apple/Google be forced to carry pornographic apps? White supremacists apps? Apps that invade people’s privacy? Which government should hold this responsibility? Should we have an international committee deciding this?

We already have a situation in which two companies effectively decide what can go on anyone's cellphone (sideloading is not and will not be a meaningful solution for any more than a fraction of a percent of users).

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#408

Post by m-p-3 » Mon, May 18, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

voldacar wrote: post #139

> What Google is asking of Podcast Addict would be comparable to Google asking a web browser app to remove references to all the websites and social media posts that reference the coronavirus unless the reference comes from an official government entity or public health organization. Give it a few years

Or asking reddit to censor content and keywords when displaying user-generated content while using their app on Android.

This is unhealthy behavior towards the open web, which Google seems to work aggressively towards its full control through web browser, ads, and cloud computing.

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#409

Post by tsimionescu » Mon, May 18, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

nelaboras wrote: post #267

heinrichhartman wrote: post #211

This is the result of out-sourcing juristic work to private companies: If we treat Android, Window, Twitter, Facebook, as public spaces/goods, then private companies should not have a say in what is allowed/not-allowed on their platforms. This is work for the courts and police to decide and enforce. If we treat those platforms as private. Then we are playing in s/o's backyard. You are totally at their mercy. They hav…

The problem is that they have to act across borders. Examples: In the EU you don't need to filter pornography the same way as in the US. In the US you don't need to filter personal information (eg individuals' faces) the same way as in the EU. Or does Google need to ban insults of the Thai king? Which legislation should apply? Already now China has split the global internet in a China and non-China part...

This seems very easy: when browsing the AppStore in Thailand, apps that insult the Thai king should be prohibited. Same with Facebook posts when accessed from Thailand, or YouTube videos etc. When accessing the same from the US, they MUST NOT be prohibited, because it would infringe on the rights of the creators.

Every nation should have the right to impose whatever restrictions it sees fit on companies wanting to distribute content to that nation.

Is it a pain to do this for the content distributor? Of course! But national sovereignty is far too important to be traded for ease of content distribution.

Of course, there is a problem (which some may consider a benefit) with the design of the Internet itself: there is no easy way to define what it means to distribute content to a particular country. But probably using national IP blocks is going to generally be good enough for many use cases.

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#410

Post by chipotle_coyote » Mon, May 18, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #305

scarface74 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I’m just amazed that people are willing to give government more power - the same government who would like nothing more than to have more power to intrude on people’s life.

We're advocating moving this power from massive corporations to the government, because at least the government has some accountability, whereas Google has NONE.

Maybe you're advocating that, but -- even as someone who is generally skeptical of corporate power and the presumed wonders of the marketplace, and more amenable to reasonable government regulation (as subjective as that clearly is) -- this sounds like a pretty dubious idea.

The government regulation that might be called for in situations like this is regulation that puts a few limits on corporate control of massive platforms, not regulation that just transfers that control to other entities. Make locking down platforms too tightly illegal: relax laws about reverse engineering, mandate side-loading. I don't think we need to take away Google or Apple's rights to say what they will and won't sell in their own digital storefronts, but I don't think those rights should necessarily extend to control over what users install on their own devices. The problem is when those are the only legal storefront (e.g., Apple's iOS App Store), or other storefronts are highly undiscoverable.