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Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

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Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#411

Post by loceng »

robertlagrant wrote: post #125
loceng wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed there's the nuance that it's a war of the people against an oppressive regime - and Apple is ignoring this nuance and taking sides.

I don't think this is accurate if Apple are purely objecting to posts that try and identify individuals, opening them up to violence. I don't know if that is the case, but if it is then they aren't taking sides.

So allow the UN to be on the ground to make sure there's a safe and legitimate elections and transition of power, if indeed if the oppressive regime is somehow being genuine that they truly did win the election.

"Taking no action is action too" - not quite accurate here, but ignoring the nuance that this situation is similar to the Nazi resistance trying to organize, how would we respond if Apple was wanting the removing of communications sharing Nazi command and personnel "secrets"?

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#412

Post by foepys »

sawjet wrote: post #396
foepys wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if an app shows an image of two men kissing, Apple should order the app makers to take it down worldwide because it's illegal in Uganda?

Yes, if it breaks the laws of Uganda

It does. Homosexual activities like kissing will land you in prison for life. Between late-2013 and mid-2014 people could even be sentenced to death. LGBTQ+ would be censored worldwide because of a single country.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#413

Post by lern_too_spel »

zepto wrote: post #379

Why doesn’t telegram just ignore the request? Saying “we don’t feel like we have much choice” is a cop out. For those that say Apple is morally compromised for collaborating with the oppressors, why is the same not true for Telegram complying with Apple (the oppressor in this case)? Yes, Apple could remove Telegram from the store in Belarus, but that would definitely be a disproportionate response, and would have muc…

Exactly. I doubt Apple would go so far as removing Telegram from the phones of people who already have it, and people who want it after Telegram has been blocked can just get an Android phone.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#414

Post by takeda »

abledon wrote: post #408
rmtech wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's unfair to Tim. He's a great help to the world's authoritarian regimes. He's doing plenty for them.

Its his fiduciary duty, the obligation to maximize profits for the shareholders.

Yep, and that completly frees him from a human decency and we can't criticize his actions of putting money in front of ethics.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#415

Post by qPM9l3XJrF »

extropy wrote: post #398
qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read my last paragraph. The point is that you can't jailbreak one without jailbreaking the other.

Should it be Apple's business to police terrorists? Governments have found it convenient to offload policing to communication companies, via putting liability on them unless they do. I don't think this is the way to go.

I'm a moderate, I didn't say it should be Apple's business, I'm saying maybe it's a good thing if our comms infrastructure affords Apple the flexibility to do this.

If Apple wants to change their TOS and say "publishing personal information is now OK", that is one thing. Maybe publishing personal information should be allowed. The point is that there is an intelligent human being weighing tradeoffs and trying to make a good decision as we muddle our way through the 21st century.

Infrastructural changes, on the other hand, aren't as reversible. Screwups are more likely to be permanent. You're flipping a switch that can't be flipped back. That is the point I was trying to make by mentioning terrorism--there can be unintended consequences which you don't necessarily anticipate, so retaining flexibility is good.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#416

Post by eecc »

Kelamir wrote: post #378
eecc wrote: post #250

Hold on... it’s not quite as clear-cut as the Apple-haters that joyously jumped in put it. These channels are not about a platform for freedom of speech and rallying for peaceful demonstrations. Nope. It’s about exposing PII of public officials; names and home addresses? Take pause to appreciate the possible consequences of this. What could possibly go wrong? Now I agree that Belarus officials are complicit or active…

Quoting https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/17/the-only-way-t... : “The only way to stop violence is to pull off the masks, in both the literal and metaphorical sense. An officer who is no longer anonymous will think twice before he grabs, beats or kidnaps someone,"

That’s true, and I’m all for mandatory identification badges when doing crowd control, but you have to realize the context in which the identity is revealed: in a democratic country it’s meant as a mechanism to correct violent (hopefully) outliers.

But unmasking violent agents of a violent state won’t do anything except provide the excuse to repress even harder... you’ll just end up with riot police firing live ammo (a bit like in the US, where police will always claim the victim appeared to reach for a weapon before they start hailing bullets.)

It’s simple power game: if you challenge a bully that is much stronger than you, you will be crushed. If you really want to make a dent, you collect the evidence and plea for help from a stronger one. (EU, UN, ICJ...)

Unless the objective is to provoke a violent reaction and use the bruises to mobilize help in sympathy (problem is who “gets to suffer the bruise”... you, or a random protestor caught in a retaliatory strike)

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#417

Post by tolbish »

eplanit wrote: post #319
latexr wrote: post #259

Tim Cook’s twitter bio[1] has the following: > “Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'” - MLK Considering this and the HKmap.live[2] situations, I’d say that in his case the answer to that question is “not much”. [1]: https://twitter.com/tim_cook [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HKmap.live

Maybe Tim Cook uses that quote to signal virtue and gain popularity for his own and the company brand. Haven't Apple ads used MLK before?

Using MLK is particularly Machiavellian since it gives the impression that the leader of one of the largest corporations in the world primarily selling luxury goods, is meekly fighting for the little guy and the underserved.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#418

Post by gamblor956 »

abledon wrote: post #408
rmtech wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's unfair to Tim. He's a great help to the world's authoritarian regimes. He's doing plenty for them.

Its his fiduciary duty, the obligation to maximize profits for the shareholders.

No it's not. He has a duty (not a fiduciary duty) to protect their investments, not to maximize profits.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#419

Post by dividedbyzero »

bsaul wrote: post #260
dividedbyzero wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, don't worship any company or organisation, not Apple, not SpaceX, not Bell Labs, not the United States of America, none at all. Even if they do the right things now, future leadership may decide to do the opposite and lie about it, values may change, goals shift. Try to treat them as groups of strangers that change every few years, not as individuals with a personality that you somehow feel like you really reall…

You're framing this debate as if apple PR statements "we're doing all of this for our user's best interests" were true. They're not. They're doing this for maximizing the companie's profit. Which they absolutely don't need to (it's not like if apple was struggling financially, or trying to find an subtle business model that works).

> You're framing this debate as if apple PR statements "we're doing all of this for our user's best interests" were true.

I thought I'd made a pretty strong case to not trust Apple's PR in my first paragraph. To clarify, no, I don't think that is the case, and people should be very miserly with their trust towards orgs like Apple in general.

The thing is, no matter their rationale, their product decisions have far-reaching real-world consequences. This particular decision has obvious real-world consequences to protesters in Belarus, and it is a disgusting decision, and definitely makes for a strong argument against leaving them with that much control.

On the other hand, however, their security stance works really, really well, as far as I can tell, and it keeps their users quite safe from lots of harm, and that's something I keep giving them money for, because I value security highly.

Forcing their walled garden free-as-in-freedom wide open will amend #1, but what about #2? Literally hundreds of millions of iPhone users around the world depend on the ecosystem being safe – my mom has an iPhone mostly because they keep their walled garden clean, so she doesn't have to get a CS degree to do that herself, and also because it's a very nice product that she enjoys a lot, but I'd advise her very strongly to get something else if Apple's security was shoddy. As I've argued, I have very strong doubts that this could be done without breaking much of what makes iPhones so secure.

I'm definitely not arguing that this makes Apple's ability and growing propensity to abuse their power a great thing – I think it's absolutely creepy in a deeply dystopian way – but right now the only way to build such a safe environment that I know of relies on strict centralized control, and having such an environment is one of the prime things that make this technology manageable for everyone and their mother.

If someone comes up with a free-as-in-freedom smartphone that's secure, easy to use, has the necessary polish and all the important apps and isn't laser-focused on people who live inside emacs, I'll be happy to part with a bunch of money for that.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#420

Post by Klinky »

abledon wrote: post #408
rmtech wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's unfair to Tim. He's a great help to the world's authoritarian regimes. He's doing plenty for them.

Its his fiduciary duty, the obligation to maximize profits for the shareholders.

Odd how the markets optimize for colluding with dictators and human-rights violating regimes. Such prosperity they bring the world.
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