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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

#271

Post by dalmo3 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #242
jmull wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> the only apps available are those that lie in the intersection of what is legal in 180 different jurisdictions.

On Android at least, apps can be region-locked.

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

#272

Post by jjav »

d1zzy wrote: post #207
username90 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple and Google put themselves in a position where they became a part of the problem. If they ran open platforms where they don't have to power to ban apps this would never have happened.

How come would that not happen? Apps come from somewhere and they are installed on someone's platform. The government can simply ask the provider of those apps to stop providing them and/or the provider of the platform to stop allowing for them to be installed. Your only choice then is to comply or stop doing business in that country. So the only reasonable complaint I could see against these companies now is "maybe…

> provider of the platform to stop allowing for them to be installed

The fact that this is possible (worse on iOS) is the architectural and political tragedy of these app stores. A "provider of the platform" should have no power to have any say in what apps are installed on a user-owned device, in which case it would be impossible to coerce them into banning this or that.

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

#273

Post by zepto »

babesh wrote: post #220
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?

This is the same exact argument made roughly 30 years ago with South Africa and apartheid.

Not in the least. South Africa ultimately was pressured by wide ranging sanctions from nation states. That would be a good way to proceed in this case too.

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

#274

Post by ben509 »

tzs wrote: post #260
Layke1123 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not operate in those spaces?

Suppose I've got a search engine. It's the best there is for searches in politics, sports, health, education, shopping, entertainment, and nearly everything else. Country X passes a law that says search engines cannot return politics results. If I stay in country X and filter out politics then the people in country X end up with no politics search and the best search in the world in all the other categories. If I dec…

The people can live without your search engine, because there are other ways to find content.

It's hard enough to mount resistance against a repressive regime when it is blanketed with propaganda.

When companies like Google and Apple operate in those nations, they help legitimize and normalize that regime, confirming all the propaganda.

After all, the Google brand didn't come from the regime, they are a foreign firm that decided it was ethical to do business there.

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

#275

Post by zepto »

jariel wrote: post #202
zepto wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple's 30% cut is a pretty obvious harm once you do the economic calculation. Not really. You have to compare it to a counter-factual, and those are generally made up to support whatever position you already hold. Also, it’s not 30%. It’s 15% for almost all developers.

Evidence of Apple's monopoly are actually baked right into that rate. They are price-setters, not subject to the whims of the market, and adjust their prices given non-market forces (press, threat of regulation etc.) It's a high enough number that it absolutely changes outcomes, meaning at minimum less choice for consumers and higher cost, and implicitly, a whole host of lost opportunity. In particular, there are ton…

> In particular, there are tons of Enterprise apps that can't feasibly operate on Apple due to issues concerning Apple wanting to take the entirety of their profit.

False. Apple doesn’t take a percentage from enterprise distribution.

Also, you didn’t provide a counterfactual, which is exactly my point. The 15% on its own is indicative of nothing.

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

#276

Post by nvrspyx »

d1zzy wrote: post #205
jmull wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The (rather massive) flaw in your reasoning is the idea that Google and Apple are the solution to the problem. If you live in a society without religious freedom, that's a big problem, but Apple and Google can't fix it. If you care about the problem, it's important to understand this. If you succeed in getting people to focus on symptom of the problem and not the cause, you will help prevent it from being addressed.

> The (rather massive) flaw in your reasoning is the idea that Google and Apple are the solution to the problem. Nor should they even attempt to, because the moment they get involved in policy making you have an army of HNs complaining how large corporations influence politics.

No one asked for them to get involved in policy making. They're referring to making their platforms more open such that neither Apple nor Google have complete dictation of what is downloaded and installed.

Especially in Apple's case, this would be a useless ban if they let people download apps outside of the App Store.

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

#277

Post by unethical_ban »

babesh wrote: post #117
unethical_ban wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me know when Republicans start getting blocked for their political philosophy rooted in evidence and opinion, and I'll start being concerned. As long as people of any party regurgitate lies about election results against all evidence, and those lies seem to be fomenting violence, I'm leaning towards "it's okay" to remove them from certain sites. I disagree the big platforms should be common carriers. I think ISPs…

Your logic is shit. Who decides on what are lies? Are they perfect and unbiased? It’s far more than election results deniers that are being banned nowadays. If you ban lies then you should ban astrologists, most politicians, flat earthers, indeed most people. This isn’t a thought experiment. This has been happened throughout history. The Church imprisoned Galileo for saying that the Earth goes around the Sun. McCarth…

Watch that slope, it's slippery!

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

#278

Post by jmull »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #242
jmull wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> keep making the app available

Leaving Pakistan means shutting down their Pakistani App Store, so the app still won't be available.

(Someone could, say, put the app on the US store and Pakistanis might be able to figure out a way to get it from there... but they can do that either way.)

> ...The alternatives are to have a different store for each country

OK, I guess you don't know this yet, but that's the way it is and has been the whole time. Different laws, different stores. We already aren't stuck with the intersection of what's allowed in 180 different jurisdictions.

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

#279

Post by loveistheanswer »

jmull wrote: post #128
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…

The (rather massive) flaw in your reasoning is the idea that Google and Apple are the solution to the problem. If you live in a society without religious freedom, that's a big problem, but Apple and Google can't fix it. If you care about the problem, it's important to understand this. If you succeed in getting people to focus on symptom of the problem and not the cause, you will help prevent it from being addressed.

>The (rather massive) flaw in your reasoning is the idea that Google and Apple are the solution to the problem.

What makes you say that?

I see nothing in their comment which implies Google and Apple could or should solve the problems of oppressive countries.

If a criminal who wants to commit murder asks me to sell them a gun and I decline, it would be absurd to think that implied I thought I could solve the problem of murder.

Rather, I would simply be refusing to be a conscious, direct enabler of murder. It would be nakedly malicious for me to reason "well, if I don't sell them this gun, someone else will, so I might as well make some money."

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

#280

Post by mabbo »

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.

> A&G have a binary choice - serve users in (Oppressive Country X) or not

I've said this before, but if you only do the ethical thing when it doesn't cost you anything, you aren't actually an ethical person. You're just an opportunist.

Companies that say they have to do the unethical thing because otherwise shareholders will get mad or fire them, well they're doing the same thing, but it's avoiding personal costs (risking their cushy job) by doing the unethical thing. Doing the wrong thing because your boss will fire you if you don't doesn't mean you didn't do the wrong thing.

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