China's too big of a market - companies have to comply with local authoritarian regime demands.
Russia's too big of a market - companies have to comply with local authoritarian regime demands.
It really helps that North Korea and Afghanistan are dirt poor.
Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
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Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#42Apple’s acquiescence to the Russian government’s demand to remove this app was predicted when it first came to light. Exactly at the same time as Apple was assuring world+dog that it would never acquiesce to governmental pressure to extend and expand the scope of its CSAM scanning tool on user’s devices.
Have they ever explained why the csam would be implemented?
Apple bends just fine if the government is powerful enough and the marketplace is big enough, see China.
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, if (and only if) your Google Play region is set to Russia, the app isn’t accessible, not even via a direct link. This is how a local ban works: while it isn’t strictly speaking deletion as the files are manifestly still on Google’s servers, the users from the relevant country are locked out.
So the circumvention is as easy as changing region, installing the app, changing region back?
Sorry, are you asking a clarifying question or trying to suggest that makes it OK?
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you please describe what it means to "bend a knee"? It sounds like following the local laws to me. Do you mean something else? What else they are supposed to do? Act as a rough agent? Be the East India Company of the century, recruit mercenaries and compel foreign nations to work they see fit?
There is no law in Russia that prevents Apple from hosting an app called Navalny published by Roman Rubanov. The content of the app is also legal even by Russian standards: it is basically a list of officially registered candidates supported by Navalny.
Maybe you should e-mail Apple and tell them. Give them a law and a business lesson.
Anyway, the idea is that legal or not, it's up to the Russian people to create the environment. Maybe it's legal according to the text(I wouldn't know, not a Russian lawyer) but due to the corruption and power distribution maybe Putin can simply do whatever he wants. A gadget company cannot fix this, if you like to fix it you need to fix it yourself and then you can have companies publishing the Apps you like.
You cannot delegate the job of creating a government and juridical system that has integrity to an American company. It's unreasonable to expect such a thing.
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#45There's no way Apple or any company to act as an extralegal entity in another country. Every time something like that comes up, I'm baffled by the expectation that an American company will impose the American values or American laws in another country. Back in the day when the internet felt like international thing not bound by any local laws, that was possible to some degrees but legislators caught up with it. It is…
They could not do business there.
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, if (and only if) your Google Play region is set to Russia, the app isn’t accessible, not even via a direct link. This is how a local ban works: while it isn’t strictly speaking deletion as the files are manifestly still on Google’s servers, the users from the relevant country are locked out.
So the circumvention is as easy as changing region, installing the app, changing region back?
You can just have multiple Google accounts on the same phone for different countries and switch to a different store this way.
Or people could sideload the app on their phone.
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are comparing ”apples” to oranges. App store apps are built by third parties whereas CSAM is Apple’s own code and design on OS level, applying on global level. App store apps have been under removal threat in every country for many years if they can be considered as illegal.
So, same for Apple then, which would be under a threat from a government if they do not submit to whatever CSAM requirements, regardless of “pinky swear” promises?
People should start realisizing that they don’t have much control over for their iPhones, never hard. User interfaces are just an illusion. Reversing their black box code is too much work in real time.
We have always had to trust Apple and their word on what they do. There isn’t evidence that they have broken the trust yet, so what gives reason for even more speculation than before?
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#48There's no way Apple or any company to act as an extralegal entity in another country. Every time something like that comes up, I'm baffled by the expectation that an American company will impose the American values or American laws in another country. Back in the day when the internet felt like international thing not bound by any local laws, that was possible to some degrees but legislators caught up with it. It is…
They could not do business there.
How this helps Russians? What Apple gets from it?
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are comparing ”apples” to oranges. App store apps are built by third parties whereas CSAM is Apple’s own code and design on OS level, applying on global level. App store apps have been under removal threat in every country for many years if they can be considered as illegal.
Apple has to comply with local laws, regardless of who authored the code.
That's not entirely true. Apple is big enough that they can ignore, bend, or even change local laws when it suits them, especially as it pertains to their operations outside the U.S.
It makes one wonder who or what made this demand worth fulfilling for Apple, but it could just as easily be someone incompetent at Apple blindly fulfilling a takedown request from the Russian government because it's in their job description to follow such demands and they didn't realize that a simple app takedown request had significant geopolitical implications. Who knows. Either way, Apple has definitely strayed far from the vision of their 1984-themed commercial back in the day where they shattered big brother with a hammer...
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#50It is time to ask Google and Apple if they were asked to actually remove Telegram from stores, when russian government was trying to ban it.
It wasn't removed at the time, and all sources that Apple and Google were demanded to block it in Russia pointed to press-release on RosKomNadzor itself.
I suspect that it is possible that all this Telegram block in Russia was a PR campaign coordinated with Russian government to give Telegram a reputation of a messenger that doesn't abide to tyrannical governments.