Live data from Hacker News

Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

chaos.social

41–50 of 255 posts

Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#41
post #2

You know what I am going to say... Google Play is owned by Google and is a private platform. They can remove, ban, suspend any app or app update they want when it breaks their policies. That is tough.

This is quickly becoming the "cant yell fire" meme of the 2020's. hell I bet you even believe that meme dont you even though it is been rebutted for decades and universally cited as bad case law?

The "Mah private company" defense is flawed on many levels and you should really stop using

1. Just because they have the right to do it, does not mean people should not criticize them for it. Simply stating they "have the right" is meaningless and does not add anything of value to the conversation

2. There is a overlapping and complex set of principles and laws at play here. There are many avenues that can be explored from a legal front when they ban a company from selling their product on their walled garden, even outside of the Anti-Trust issues there is also contract laws that can be used, and even Deceptive Trade regulations given the uneven standard that their policies are applied.

So it is not as simple as say "Well there are a private company they can do what they want" The law, and society is far more complex than that, and it is time for people to stop using this useless platitude as a defense of bad actions

Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#42
post #2

You know what I am going to say... Google Play is owned by Google and is a private platform. They can remove, ban, suspend any app or app update they want when it breaks their policies. That is tough.

You know you're wrong yet you still write this.

Imagine you buy a car and use it legally then randomly all the Gas stations ban you. This is a similar situation.

You purchased a phone, so should be able to install any app you like, easily. This needs fixing.

Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#43

Seems pretty obvious what the problem is to me... The privacy policy should have a button saying "I accept and understand the privacy policy, now sign me up". Instead the actual button is just "Sign up". That language doesn't meet the store policy. Simple issue with a simple solution.

I mean, in practice that would probably work. But an interesting caveat is that apps for federated networks don't typically have one singular privacy policy. It varies server by server. Architecturally, this is a different beast than having a client for a specific service, like Twitter. I guess they could probably get around it by showing an instance's policies prior to user registration, but not every server actuall…

There's the privacy policy of the app and then there's separate privacy policies of the servers. The app sees your data and has access to it independently of the servers so it needs a policy.

Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#44
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a relevant blog post f-droid published in 2019 on Tusky and Fedilab: https://f-droid.org/en/2019/07/16/statement.html They do seem to ague in favor of free software. .. at least as long as app developers do not advertise shunned instances. Power-statements like "sometimes, staying neutral isn’t an option" suggest that they are probably not an ally of those wanting to leave it to the user to decide what hosts…

f-droid banned Gab. So they cannot be trusted to run an impartial service.

Downvote if you're a demon tranny hacker.

Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#46
Sadly I am quite sure my app [1] will eventually be removed from the play store as well if it ever becomes popular with the "wrong crowd". All it does is provide a way to connect to peertube (also fediverse like Mastodon) instances and watch videos. Which instance you follow is up to you not me. Content is moderated by the peertube instance owners not me and I am not going to bother adding an instance blacklist for something I don't make any money from. Especially since you can reach any instance just using chrome.

[1] https://github.com/sschueller/peertube-android

Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#47
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a relevant blog post f-droid published in 2019 on Tusky and Fedilab: https://f-droid.org/en/2019/07/16/statement.html They do seem to ague in favor of free software. .. at least as long as app developers do not advertise shunned instances. Power-statements like "sometimes, staying neutral isn’t an option" suggest that they are probably not an ally of those wanting to leave it to the user to decide what hosts…

f-droid banned Gab. So they cannot be trusted to run an impartial service.

Not tolerating xenophobia, racism and bigots in general is a big point for a lot of people. The paradox of tolerance is something that many people should consider.

Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#48
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

f-droid banned Gab. So they cannot be trusted to run an impartial service.

Not tolerating xenophobia, racism and bigots in general is a big point for a lot of people. The paradox of tolerance is something that many people should consider.

All of the above is legal, bigot.

Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#49
Slowly but surely, the trend of dissatisfaction with Google and Apple is increasing and I welcome it.

The status regarding App Stores are reaching the boiling point and once they do, there is no going back.

This decade is really going to an opposite of the last. The last decade saw the rise of Big Tech and their absolute domination in their sphere of influence. This decade is going to see the regulation of Big Tech, where Apple and Google (and I hope Twitter and Facebook) are going to painfully realise they are not the government, nor are they lawmakers. So their "terms of use" are not laws, and finally we won't see anymore comments on HN regarding "their platform, they can do whatever they want".

Re: Tusky has been removed from the Play Store

#50
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, in practice that would probably work. But an interesting caveat is that apps for federated networks don't typically have one singular privacy policy. It varies server by server. Architecturally, this is a different beast than having a client for a specific service, like Twitter. I guess they could probably get around it by showing an instance's policies prior to user registration, but not every server actuall…

So, when signing up for the app, how do I know what's being done with any personal information that's being collected?

You don't sign up "for the app." The app speaks a standard protocol and you sign up on an external service (like qoto.org or mstdn.social.)
Post reply on HN