Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

techjaja.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 394 posts

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#51

Post by jimkleiber »

mimikatz wrote: post #35
andrewzah wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe you could do some introspection and think about what would have to lead up to you being banned? Every politician on twitter has been fine except for 1 particular individual. Nevermind that 1 individual -chose- to use twitter as their primary base of operations, instead of the usual channels.

Why would you as a leader of the country leave it up to chance? What if your country was in conflict with America whose side do you think Google and Apple would side with?

I appreciate this point and it makes me think more and more about how we try to govern global businesses with national governments and how I wonder if we'll ever get a more powerful global body to balance the power of global organizations.

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#52

Post by bilbo0s »

laurent92 wrote: post #31

> foreign values Not even foreign values. Only subset of foreign values which are only shared by the Silicon Valley. Beyond that, half the US people disagree with Google/Apple/Twitter/Facebook’s non-neutral stance on politics, who weighed their full weight in censoring 50% of the political spectrum. I will not call it the pied piper because Uganda weighs nothing, but the GAFA’s politics are now visible as directly ha…

A bit off topic, but I think one thing this week should have taught us all is that this whole liberal-conservative dichotomy does not encompass the entirety of the US population. There are an enormous number of people out there who don't really subscribe to either view. The assumption that if you're liberal you make up 50% of the population, or that if you're conservative you make up 50% of the population, can lead you to overestimate your strength and take woefully ill considered actions.

Just putting that out there.

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#53

Post by stale2002 »

dleslie wrote: post #45
jedimastert wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not arguing for or against anything, but those views seem opposed to each other. Can you talk more about how you can allow for any form of de-platforming while also feeling strongly against censorship?

Censorship is the Government stating that person A must not communicate with person B. Deplatforming/cancelling is person C _asking_ person A not to communicate with person B, under threat of person C no longer communicating with person A.

> Censorship is the Government stating that person A must not communicate with person B.

Your statement is not true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship

"Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies."

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#54

Post by mc32 »

mimikatz wrote: post #35
andrewzah wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe you could do some introspection and think about what would have to lead up to you being banned? Every politician on twitter has been fine except for 1 particular individual. Nevermind that 1 individual -chose- to use twitter as their primary base of operations, instead of the usual channels.

Why would you as a leader of the country leave it up to chance? What if your country was in conflict with America whose side do you think Google and Apple would side with?

Exactly this. If these media have favorites and push a particular agenda that isn’t quite aligned with these corps’s agenda then it would make sense for them, out of their own interest, to pre-emptively ban these orgs who now have proven to not be neutral parties.

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#55

Post by mimikatz »

tedunangst wrote: post #36
mimikatz wrote: post #9

If I ran was in charge of a government after watching them all ban Trump's ability to communicate at the same time, I too would think about banning them to protect myself.

Unclear how banning the App Store prevents Twitter from banning you.

You go full China and ban those as well.

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#56

Post by dleslie »

stale2002 wrote: post #53
dleslie wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Censorship is the Government stating that person A must not communicate with person B. Deplatforming/cancelling is person C _asking_ person A not to communicate with person B, under threat of person C no longer communicating with person A.

> Censorship is the Government stating that person A must not communicate with person B. Your statement is not true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship "Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other…

The key, in the wiki definition, is:

> controlling bodies

My point still holds. Asking a company to deplatform someone under threat of boycott is not censorship; because no individual user is in control of the platform.

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#57

Post by ajconway »

baybal2 wrote: post #43
ajconway wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning (or, more precisely, disturbing operation of) a decentralized service is much easier than a big, important centralized one. You just need to obtain the DNS names or IP addresses of the nodes the same way everyone else does — by participating in the network. This way you can even selectively ban the "bad" nodes. Banning a centralized service like gmail is easier, but then you lose in productivity as 90% of you…

> You just need to obtain the DNS names or IP addresses of the nodes the same way everyone else does — by participating in the network. Not if such network was made purposefully to minimize transparency.

I don't see how this can be done without anonymization techniques like the onion routing. If you can think of one, please share.

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#58

Post by zepto »

zxspectrum1982 wrote: post #20
meibo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What can you do on your Apple iPhone without Apple servers? Hint: it's nothing.

Meaning Epic is right: the Apple Store dependency and monopoly is abusive.

If you choose to buy something like that, how is it ‘abuse’?

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#59

Post by tehwebguy »

lallysingh wrote: post #44
laurent92 wrote: post #31

> foreign values Not even foreign values. Only subset of foreign values which are only shared by the Silicon Valley. Beyond that, half the US people disagree with Google/Apple/Twitter/Facebook’s non-neutral stance on politics, who weighed their full weight in censoring 50% of the political spectrum. I will not call it the pied piper because Uganda weighs nothing, but the GAFA’s politics are now visible as directly ha…

50% isn't really the right number, is it? Where did you get it? If you're counting people's political beliefs, the popular vote is a good estimator.

It’s a guess, and it’s certainly not split R/D in the US.

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#60

Post by YarickR2 »

erentz wrote: post #26
madhadron wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump has a press office and a whole press corps that shows up to listen to what he might want to say to them daily.

Right. A serious percentage of people think the only way the president can communicate is via Twitter and there’s been this right wing persecution complex building for a few years now that they believe they are constantly being censored. Despite the fact that right wing news and pundits get a lot more shares on social media. It’s all part of the weird twisted mass delusion that we find ourselves dealing with.

Any numbers to support the "lot more shares for right wing media" claim ?
Post reply on HN