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

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

buzzfeednews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 515 posts

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

#241

Post by tenebrisalietum »

zupreme wrote: post #51

For those defending this practice, consider carefully the implications of what you are advocating. On one hand you have a government deciding who can and cannot refer to themselves as adherents of a particular religion (by declaring that Ahamadis cannot call themselves Muslim). On another hand you have Google and Apple, yet again, being the complicit chokepoints of “free speech”, with regard to app developers. These…

This is why separation of religion and state is a good idea, but not all state-level entities do this for various reasons.

Anyway ... if

- a home entity is operating in a foreign realm,

- obeys the laws of the foreign realm,

- brings back money to the home realm,

- doesn't try to turn the home realm into the foreign realm.

what is the problem?

Just because a company operates in a foreign realm under their laws doesn't mean it's trying to turn its home realm into the foreign realm.

Now, if the entity is partially owned by the foreign realm ... then we can question motives, of course.

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

#242

Post by AnimalMuppet »

jmull wrote: post #214
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple and Google can't fix Pakistan. They can control how they respond, though. And how they responded looks pretty spineless.

What do you think they should do?

Me? I think they should close any facilities they have in Pakistan, tell Pakistan plainly that they're not going to do that, and keep making the app available. (Of course, I don't own any stock, so it's kind of painless for me to have that opinion.)

The thing is, neither Apple nor Google wants a future where the only apps available are those that lie in the intersection of what is legal in 180 different jurisdictions. (I mean, Myanmar just blocked Facebook. What if they demanded that Google and Apple remove the Facebook app from their stores?) The alternatives are to have a different store for each country (do-able technically, but a lot of work, and I don't like it on freedom grounds), or to just say no to some countries' demands that some apps be removed.

Specifically Apple: You had the "1984" Super Bowl commercial. Are you now going to be on the side of the censors? Or are you still on the side of freedom?

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

#243

Post by mindslight »

djrogers wrote: post #213
zupreme wrote: post #51

For those defending this practice, consider carefully the implications of what you are advocating. On one hand you have a government deciding who can and cannot refer to themselves as adherents of a particular religion (by declaring that Ahamadis cannot call themselves Muslim). On another hand you have Google and Apple, yet again, being the complicit chokepoints of “free speech”, with regard to app developers. These…

You make a great argument for Governments that support religious freedom. Not sure I follow your logic to a conclusion that makes Apple and Google the villains here though. A&G have a binary choice - serve users in (Oppressive Country X) or not. There is no choice that involves serving those users but not following the oppressive laws of said country.

Actually there is. Don't set up physical presences in oppressive countries. Architect your software to not rely on singular chokepoints like centralized servers.

We've seem to have forgotten this, because it's not economically expedient. But we shouldn't give these companies a pass for having set themselves up to be instruments of totalitarianism.

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

#244

Post by babesh »

babesh wrote: post #211
zepto wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might think that it’s better for people to have access to their technology than not to, even if certain apps are unavailable. Would it be ethical for them to abandon all of their customers in Pakistan over this?

Yes it would be ethical to abandon their customers over this. Apparently religious freedom isn’t where you draw the line. What other rights are you willing to abandon?

Also those mostly aren’t their customers in Google’s case. Their customers are mostly the advertisers.

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

#246

Post by babesh »

babesh wrote: post #235
Bud wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please cite sources showing Apple "loudly proclaiming how moral" it is.

https://www.cnet.com/news/tim-cook-says-privacy-is-an-issue-... Tim Cook says privacy is an issue of morality

Cook, though, presented the issue in deeply political terms. He said: "We believe that people have a fundamental right to privacy. The American people demand it, the constitution demands it, morality demands it."

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

#247

Post by babesh »

Bud wrote: post #224
babesh wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are hypocrites. They loudly proclaim how moral they are but when it is inconvenient/unprofitable their morality disappears.

Please cite sources showing Apple "loudly proclaiming how moral" it is.

Apparently for Apple, privacy is moral in the US but not in China. Hahahahahahaha!

Also not really privacy since your device is backed up to Apple’s servers where they can conveniently hand them over to the US government. That’s right. If you are a citizen of say Germany, does the US government have access to your data?

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

#248

Post by notyourday »

djrogers wrote: post #228
II2II wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, but this also raises the question: what should their course of action be? The course of action they followed implicitly supports human rights violations, in order to continue operating within a given country. Note that I am not saying the action itself is a human rights violation. They certainly have the right to choose what to publish and they are limiting the scope of their actions to the laws of the countr…

> They certainly have the right to choose what to publish No, they really don't. If they 'chose' to publish an app that is banned by Pakistan, the ultimate end-move would be for Pakistan to simply disable the app stores completely.

Nah. The Pakistan's ruling class would not want their phones not to function because it may rule over a country with goat herders that pray multiple times a day, but it lives like the top 1% of the West.

If Google or Apple wanted to squeeze Pakistan or any other country such that they would simply stop providing any services there or to any phone that has been located in Pakistan at any point. Within weeks, the app stores would be restored.

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

#249

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

I keep thinking about infamous Telegram 'war' with russian cenrosship agency, RosKomNadzor. Telegram was blocked via russian ISPs, but was never removed from Russian sections of Google Play and Apple Appstore.

We now see that Apple and Google, time after time, easily submit to the will of local governments and remove questionable apps. Yet, Telegram was NOT removed. Russian media agencies claim that RosKomNadzor asked Google&Apple to suspend the app, but the source for all media publications was always the same press-release by RKN. So it keeps me thinking: what if the world was played and all this 'blocking' scandal was just a publicity stunt to raise Telegram's profile as a service that does not give up data to authorities?

Does anyone know if we can confirm via Google & Apple that they were asked to remove Telegram from play stores (and refused), or... they weren't really asked at all?

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

#250

Post by stanislavb »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #249

I keep thinking about infamous Telegram 'war' with russian cenrosship agency, RosKomNadzor. Telegram was blocked via russian ISPs, but was never removed from Russian sections of Google Play and Apple Appstore. We now see that Apple and Google, time after time, easily submit to the will of local governments and remove questionable apps. Yet, Telegram was NOT removed. Russian media agencies claim that RosKomNadzor aske…

This is an interesting point of view...
Post reply on HN