Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by nomoreusernames » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 8:37 PM UTC

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.

french secularism is beautiful. all are equal under law. and freedom FROM religion. if your friend and his friends had this thing where they chopped of skin from their babies genitals. would you be ok with that? why is it ok when religious people do it? clearly following dogma in this case over reason is the symptom of mental illness or damage. religions are much more oppressive if you ask me. they function without a state or government. they are a low evolved form of government used to gain power.

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

#282

Post by pas » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 8:39 PM UTC

snoshy wrote: post #266

pas wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is oppression additive/cumulative/composable/transitive? When someone has the power to do "fix" things but chooses not to, then that someone is partially responsible. Can A or G (or together) fix this?

It sure seems additive in this case. Google & Apple can choose not to do business in regulatory regimes that are oppressive in nature. That obviously comes at a direct cost of lost revenue from abstinence. It is a deliberate choice to do business anywhere at all. The simple fix here as you say, would be to stop doing business when forced to enact business practices that further oppression. Make no mistake, it is mone…

If they choose not to do business will that fix the problem? Will that make these oppressive regimes go away?

Monetary greed might be good or bad, they might or might not be doing business there for greed, but it's not the question.

The question is how does oppression algebra works. An oppressive regime is oppressive, by definition, nomen es omen. In this instance we likely agree that forcing private companies to selectively deny service to a minority/vulnerable group of the population is textbook oppression.

How withdrawing from that country/jurisdiction decreases sum-total-oppression?

(I mean the usual argument is that a trade embargo helps people realize that things are bad! Plus it prepares the economy for war, so no one will be surprised when their supplier/distributor/buyers become unavailable due to blockade/bombardment/etc.

In case of selling weapons and surveillance systems the math seems to be simple. But it seems in that case the oppression is again in the name of the game. Rarely oppressed people buy tanks to stand up to that same oppression.

So if a service provider is coerced to provide data about vulnerable/minority groups, that again seems a very textbook case.

In this case maybe the analogy is that Apple/Google is supplying water - for money - but this oppressive regime uses it to waterboard people. Does shutting down the service helps?)

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

#283

Post by shadowgovt » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 8:40 PM UTC

fakedang wrote: post #232

shadowgovt wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those open platforms exist. Can the apps in question be downloaded in Pakistan via F-Droid?

What about the iOS users? AFAIK, it's more likely the Ahmadiyyas have iPhones since they are a relatively well-off community compared to the rest of Pakistan (or the Muslim world in general).

Very good point. I had my viewpoint focused on Android and forgot that the side-loading question on Apple is very different.

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

#284

Post by shadowgovt » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 8:44 PM UTC

babesh wrote: post #215

shadowgovt wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's more that their morality includes compliance with the laws of the states they operate in. It always has, and they will buck those laws on extremely rare occasions, usually when they believe they are seeing a mis-implementation of the laws, and (when outside the US) usually by ceasing to do business in the territory (see: Google's pullback from China). None of what we're seeing in Pakistan right now is new for te…

That is a load of bullshit. Google tried to get back into China (see Project Dragonfly). Did China change the offending laws in the meantime? How are those Tianamen Square searches doing in China on those Apple phones? What kind of person or entity hides under the pretense that it’s the law and you have to always follow it? Nuremberg trials defense? Separate but equal? South Africa anyone? All I have to do is to do i…

It's important not to run so fast from 1984 that one runs into Snow Crash.

If corporations are setting morality apart from the law, they become another authority. Then we have a different set of problems; at least in some countries, the government authority is elected. CEOs aren't elected by the people, and the emperor has nothing on the whims of Jeff Bezos or Jack Dorsey.

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

#285

Post by neil_s » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 8:44 PM UTC

Since the underlying issue here is clearly with Pakistan's laws, I tried looking up how effective a democracy Pakistan is, so that its people would be able to push for freedom of speech laws (or overturning the blasphemy laws) if they so wanted.

Hard to find unbiased sources on this, but it seems like while Pakistan has technically had democratic elections for a while, they have been mired with issues until fairly recently. From wikipedia: "The democratic elections held in 2008 were the first to conclude a complete 5-year term in the nations' political history."

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

#286

Post by stale2002 » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 8:45 PM UTC

passivate wrote: post #187

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.

>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. In this particular case, what problem would open platforms solve? The laws in Pakistan still exist and the social problem is not addressed. Or are you implying that Apple and Google should be on the hook for solving religious prob…

> what problem would open platforms solve?

If it was easier for people to sideload apps, or there were many competing app stores, then people could get around theses bans more easily.

For example, if I could go to any website, on an iphone, and install an app very easily (Assume I choose to do so, via some setting), then it wouldn't matter as much if Apple banned the app from the app store.

> whats stopping a country from simply blocking their hosting servers?

They could do that, but if it was easy to install apps on a phone, then it would be very difficult for a country to block every website that hosts the app.

> . Okay, so then you move to a P2P system, so then the get their ISPs to block that

Governments are not infinitely powerful. An efforts to get around government internet censorship, sometimes work.

And the more methods there are of circumventing government censorship, the easier it is to do so.

Censorship has an effect. But it is not perfect. There is a spectrum of behavior, where it can be easier or harder to get around censorship.

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

#287

Post by LiberatedLlama » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 8:45 PM UTC

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…

Does Pakistan force Microsoft to bar the installation of Ahmadiyya software on Windows? I expect not. Windows, closed source as it is, is open relative to iOS and consequently is less vulnerable to this sort of pressure.

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

#288

Post by jmull » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 8:45 PM UTC

rcoveson wrote: post #259

jmull wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately "refusing to comply" means exiting the Pakistan market (and accepting arbitrarily harsh fines and criminal punishments for their employees until they do). > One certainly shouldn't help enforce an unjust law. The law is being enforce on them. Your moral responsibility for a situation is proportionate to your power over that situation. Apple and Google have some sway due to their size, but it seems to me it…

I'm confident we only disagree on the threshold of injustice. Surely there is a point where exiting the market is the only moral thing to do? Or does the responsibility-proportional-to-power argument justify subjecting your business to literally any law? To me, this law is past the threshold where it is morally acceptable to continue to do business in that nation. For you, that threshold is somewhere else, but I'm co…

> Surely there is a point where exiting the market is the only moral thing to do?

Agreed.

But I don't think this case is it. Mainly because exiting does pretty much nothing to prevent Pakistani persecution of Ahmadiyya Muslims. It's like you see a bully picking on a kid every day at the park and you just decide to go to a different park. Maybe you feel a little better about it yourself, but it doesn't help the kid.

This can be done on a larger scale, which will have a strong impact. I'm talking about economic sanctions via the UN or at least the US, where certain kinds of business are not allowed or restricted. In theory these kinds of sanctions could force countries to liberalize. But the reality isn't always that great. The general population ends up bearing the economic misery while the people in power, who make the decisions, do not. The general population tends to get resentful of the west, not adopt its values, and the people in power keep enjoying their power anyway. It seems these sanctions can turn countries inward, not outward, becoming more extreme and less liberal. North Korea, Iran, Russia.

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

#289

Post by babesh » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 8:49 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #273

babesh wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was referring to the companies that were against the sanctions.

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

#290

Post by loveistheanswer » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 8:50 PM UTC

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #241

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'…

Here's some historical precedent of how that can be a problem:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust