Do they have a PWA option? Or an ordinary web site?
The world needs to get away from closed stores and back to open systems.
Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
151–160 of 673 posts
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a totally different thing. App store apps are localized, Youtube is currently global.
Not all videos are available everywhere, probably for copyright reasons. It does mean that their system is capable of region blocking though.
There is a difference on availability and removal.
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#153The thing is, that it's all very time-sensitive. And I expect pressure was unreasonably high. We have elections in Russia this weekend and Navalny app was used as a tool to coordinate protest voting. It is called "Smart Voting" by Navalny team and it is getting a lot of attention for upcomping elections. If Apple and Google would just be a little bit slower and complied next Monday :) Still there are more ways to coo…
It's not clear what does the app do? What is protest voting and how do you coordinate it ?
Given an address, the app provides the name of the suggested candidate in the corresponding voting district. The idea is to consolidate votes around only one candidate who does not belong to Putin's party.
In Russia, many potentially popular candidates are not allowed to run, were imprisoned, or otherwise persecuted, and in some cases killed. Those who remained are often spoilers or people you would not willfully vote for. So usually, people unhappy with the regime either did not show up for the election or spread their votes between many unpopular candidates. That is how Putin's party has support from 20-25% of the population according to various polls but commands 75% of the seats in the parliament. This, and election being rigged. So, the idea is to consolidate the votes of the people who are not happy with Putin's regime. If anything, just to send the message. And that's "protest voting".
The list of the candidates to support was published at the last moment to avoid the risk that they will be removed from the election. The app is the main channel to publish this list because it can auto-update and bypass Internet censorship. Normal websites are often inaccessible without a VPN. Google and Apple shut off this channel.
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
it is possible, but it's also true that telegram bot is the only platform of Navalny smart vote service that keeps working(aside text file circulating all over the internet)
I wonder why all modern hipsters ignore email as a platform. Like, Telegram on behest of Apple and Google repeatedly bans flibusta bots (a site with a great collection of pirated books), why don't they make an email bot? What would Apple do, ban their own mail app? Start censoring emails?
Votesmart started out with mailing lists. Then somehow lists got leaked, and some of the people who subscribed using the same mail they used in government services got visited by police. You also need phone number to register in most emails btw, and the legal requirement for having a sim card is to register it to your passport.
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a totally different thing. App store apps are localized, Youtube is currently global.
Not really; Youtube has a mechanism for geographically restricting videos. Germans could talk for hours about it ;)
Two different things; removing something from everyone versus blocking something from specific userbase.
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#156Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#157There'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…
It really is a lowest common denominator. American companies would never impose American values, but they'll bend the knee to any authoritarian country with a juicy market.
They are not supposed to impose American values abroad. How would you like, if Chinese companies would be imposing Chinese values in US?
Exactly.
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#158Very sad when not even the massively rich will bother to do the right thing. "Sorry, need a few more billion, so we're going to side with an oppressive regime against Democracy." Reminds me of a Dylan line "Will all the money you made buy back your soul?"
> Very sad when not even the massively rich will bother to do the right thing. The issue is Google and Apple isn't owned by one massively rich person. They are owned by tens of thousands of shareholders, many extremely wealthy but most small, including both individual investors but also pension funds and hedge funds, and the CEO & Board are legally obligated to act in their fiduciary interest.
> legally obligated to act in their fiduciary interest.
Can you provide a citation of which law requires this?
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even Navalny and his supporters are not calling for foreign companies to all pull out of Russia. What makes you think you know better what is good for the Russian people and the opposition groups than Russians and the opposition groups themselves? How many of Russia's Apple employees think Apple is "participating in dictatorship" by employing them? How many Russian citizens, including the political opposition, do you…
> What makes you think you know better what is good for the Russian people and the opposition groups than Russians and the opposition groups themselves? Because if regime's economy collapses, the regime will collapse sooner.
And then we likely have a pure dictatorship with the worlds second biggest nuclear arsenal and thousands of Russians will likely die from things like starvation and being killed by the new regime (or the old while it dies). No-one wins by killing off a regime. That is "let's bomb this country into democracy" thinking.
Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
it is possible, but it's also true that telegram bot is the only platform of Navalny smart vote service that keeps working(aside text file circulating all over the internet)
I wonder why all modern hipsters ignore email as a platform. Like, Telegram on behest of Apple and Google repeatedly bans flibusta bots (a site with a great collection of pirated books), why don't they make an email bot? What would Apple do, ban their own mail app? Start censoring emails?
I teach to university kids, and I know for sure: for many of them email is too complicated and they don't know how to use it.
it's sad, but it's like this.