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Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

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Re: Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

#31

Post by YawningAngel »

adventured wrote: post #30
YawningAngel wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps making it easy to deplatform people at the behest of a central authority is not a good idea? I would rather not be able to deplatform Donald Trump and not have Pakistan chase my friends in the Ahmadiyya community off the internet than accept both of those outcomes

I never said it was a good idea. I said Pakistan's territory is their sovereign land, and they get to decide how things work within that territory accordingly. Whether anyone likes it or not. There are a lot of really bad nations and a lot of really, really bad laws out there. What's the plan for all of that? Because the Internet is a tiny little fraction of that problem and it's tied up in the fact that people outsi…

If internet services in general were less centralised, Pakistan's sovereign power would remain unchanged but its ability to wield that power against its citizens might be reduced. Pakistan might be able to get you kicked off the App Store but I doubt it can get you kicked off F-Droid

Of course, a nation state that's truly committed to the warpath can always escalate and ban more stuff, but that's a costly activity and there's a lot of friction associated with doing so

Re: Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

#32

Post by sateesh »

threatofrain wrote: post #21
gostsamo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of "moral" in your comment and it crowds the meaning for me. If you are accusing me that I'm preaching and not following my own words, that is a big assumption on your side.

> 2010 Google left China for those reasons. Much have changed since then. This is what I'm accusing you of. How has Chinese affairs changed for the better after Google?

Not OP. But are you telling since Google's course of action didn't had any impact of altering actions of Chinese government, they (Google) should have stayed put.

Re: Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

#33

Post by zo1 »

peteri wrote: post #24
buran77 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many European countries (like Germany, Italy, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Finland, parts of UK*, Poland, Russia) have blasphemy laws going as far as mandating prison terms, even if they rarely convict or even indict anyone under them. * corrected from "UK".

Formally abolished in England and Wales in 2008. Still on the statute books for Scotland and Northern Ireland. Although a lot of anti-racist hate speech stuff could be used for the same effect in England and Wales.

Governments are wisening up. Tinfoil hat me says they're replacing "blasphemy laws" with more politically palatable yet more vague "Hate speech" laws that are ridiculously loose and can be applied how they see fit, including prosecuting blasphemy-like criticism of Religion. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_by_country#So...

Re: Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

#34

Post by centimeter »

adventured wrote: post #30
YawningAngel wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps making it easy to deplatform people at the behest of a central authority is not a good idea? I would rather not be able to deplatform Donald Trump and not have Pakistan chase my friends in the Ahmadiyya community off the internet than accept both of those outcomes

I never said it was a good idea. I said Pakistan's territory is their sovereign land, and they get to decide how things work within that territory accordingly. Whether anyone likes it or not. There are a lot of really bad nations and a lot of really, really bad laws out there. What's the plan for all of that? Because the Internet is a tiny little fraction of that problem and it's tied up in the fact that people outsi…

Pakistan only gets to decide what they can practically influence. Apple and Google could design their phones in a way where it’s not possible for Pakistan to wholesale prevent people from using a piece of software.

Re: Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

#35

Post by sanxiyn »

adventured wrote: post #30
YawningAngel wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps making it easy to deplatform people at the behest of a central authority is not a good idea? I would rather not be able to deplatform Donald Trump and not have Pakistan chase my friends in the Ahmadiyya community off the internet than accept both of those outcomes

I never said it was a good idea. I said Pakistan's territory is their sovereign land, and they get to decide how things work within that territory accordingly. Whether anyone likes it or not. There are a lot of really bad nations and a lot of really, really bad laws out there. What's the plan for all of that? Because the Internet is a tiny little fraction of that problem and it's tied up in the fact that people outsi…

AWS and GCP could start by allowing domain fronting again.

Re: Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

#38

Post by matthewaveryusa »

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #37

Pakistan's laws are clearly wrong, but Apple and Google do not and should not have the authority to bypass any country's laws.

Indeed, you cannot solve political problems with technical solutions -- It goes both ways though

Re: Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

#39

Post by levosmetalo »

antihero wrote: post #7
jacknews wrote: post #2

Of course I disagree with religious or any other intolerance, but, if you want to do business in Pakistan, you have to follow their rules. It isn't a case of 'caving to pressure', but of 'complying with the law', since the apps are available in other countries, just not in Pakistan, where they are deemed blasphemous, according to their laws.

Perhaps is more companies refused to do business in a country due to diabolical laws, people would start voting against politicians that create diabolical laws.

So it's up to Google and other international companies to decide which laws are diabolical, which laws are bad and which can be tolerable? Why not going all the way down and let those companies write beautiful laws and also enforce them, everywhere in the world?

Re: Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

#40

Post by wtf_is_up »

sanxiyn wrote: post #11

I am waiting for comments from Alphabet Workers Union. They said they "demand that the tech industry refuse to maintain infrastructures of oppression". This seems like a perfect fit.

Slactivism is fun when you can use it to enhance your social capital, but doing the actual work is a chore.
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