Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 673 posts

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#461

Post by baybal2 »

sannysanoff wrote: post #432
baybal2 wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> huge disruption it was not an unequivocal good thing for every single person. I think even in the Central Asian North Korea — Uzbekistan, a person now lives more freely, and richer than the wealthiest USSR citizens did.

Have you ever googled, bro? >> After the collapse of the USSR, economic reforms were not fully implemented in Uzbekistan, conditions for the development of medium and small businesses were not created, corruption took root, and unemployment increased. Many wonder: if it is better now than in the past, why have about two to five million Uzbek citizens left their country in search of work? via bbs.com (!!!) https://www…

> Have you ever googled, bro?

I didn't, but I know this better than you.

Uzbekistan, a North Korea redux it be, but you can

1. now get a coca cola there.

2. food is on the shelves, including meat

3. buy property, instead of being shot for doing so

4. leave the country, back in USSR there were no option to go work anywhere as a construction worker to earn real cash.

If you really like your USSR wonderland communist paradise, please go. The immigration route to North Korea, or Cuba is open for you.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#462

Post by fsflover »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #458
fsflover wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The web is already decentralized, by design. App stores and Youtube are not decentralized. See: Peertube and Linux repositories.

App stores and Youtube are not the web.

They are important parts of the web, which are used by millions. Technically, web is decentralized, but in practice large parts of it aren't. Same for email, which is owned by Google to a large degree.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#463

Post by skinkestek »

Angostura wrote: post #460
tablespoon wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they do want to put profit ahead of everything else, then whatever, but you don't get to defend them as doing the right thing for their employees. They're enabling the whole situation. IMHO, cooperating with an authoritarian regime in this way should be illegal, sort of like a sanctions violation. Cook and Pachai should go to jail for this. That consequence might clarify their thinking a little.

Hmmm. Withdraw the app and you go to jail. Don’t withdraw the app and your Russian employees go to jail

Fire your Russian employees.

Then withdraw.

Hurts but if history should learn us a thing or two one of them should be not to give in to dictators.

The younger ones here are allowed to take a few minutes off to use their favorite search engine to look up the quote "peace in our time" by Chamberlain.

Edit:

It looks so simple the way I wrote it above. Please note that doing the right thing isn't easy. Telling lots of people their job is gone. Telling investors the money invested in one of the most promising markets is gone etc etc.

But I am afraid that sooner or later the alternative will be worse.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#464

Post by Diesel555 »

nnnnnande wrote: post #126
throw_m239339 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pull out of the countries then. Then why Apple hasn't pulled out of China? Like 2 decades ago? China was always a brutal dictatorship. Why would they pull out of anything? These company profit from bloody dictatorships, like the rest of the western economy. But somehow when it's about Russia it's a problem? The hypocrisy in the west must stop. The west and it's industry never stood for freedom abroad since it decid…

> But Russia is where people here start being outraged? It's entirely possible that the same people are _also_ outraged by Apple's business in China.

I agree. And if they weren't, I get tired of arguments on the merits of argument "B" that states because "A" is wrong, you cannot point out that "B" is wrong too.

The danger is the mentality that we should not solve any single problem unless we can solve all of the problems. Pointing out the hypocrisy to invalidate the argument can lead to inaction.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#465

Post by adventured »

nzmsv wrote: post #363
jacquesm wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes. But for Russia's former satellite states things definitely improved.

I think you cherry-picked here. You are thinking about the Baltics and forgetting about places like Uzbekistan (now broke) and Kazakhstan (rich but authoritarian). And even if you say these are former republics rather than satellites, think of the mess that is Serbia. The fall of the USSR may have been overall a good thing and even inevitable, as with any huge disruption it was not an unequivocal good thing for every…

> I think you cherry-picked here. You are thinking about the Baltics and forgetting about places like Uzbekistan

The parent did not cherry pick, they didn't go far enough. It was overwhelmingly positive regardless of Kazakhstan or Serbia.

East Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#466

Post by oliwarner »

Aunche wrote: post #424
oliwarner wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that by this point, all this is expected behaviour. If companies don't want to be complicit in these crimes, they need to extricate themselves from the country and cut all ties. If they do want to put profit ahead of everything else, then whatever, but you don't get to defend them as doing the right thing for their employees. They're enabling the whole situation. [Edit to bring in a sister question] "Why don't…

This is the kind of moral framework that creates cancel culture. Pulling out from Russia will decrease many Russian's standard of living, but will have zero impact in stopping them from rigging elections. If everyone cuts trade for moral reasons, then there's no incentive for us not to point nukes at each other again.

Yes. Yes. Maybe. Similarly unknown.

In this case we're talking about propping up the existing Russian government who actively interfere in democracy around the world, assassinate political enemies and draw immense influence from the fear it spreads around it. Yeah, sure, why wouldn't we want to keep that going as long as we can?

Because it will end one day. Putin isn't Russia's greatest love machine. When that day comes, all the instability you'd blame on me and my ideals will rain down on us all anyway.

If you want to reduce my reasoned moral objections to "cancel culture", I'm sure you're somebody's hero, but yes, I think we should demand better from the companies we fund. Russia's instability is inevitable, either way.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#467

Post by whimsicalism »

michaelt wrote: post #438
a123b456c wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "authoritarian regime"

Just because there are shades of grey, doesn’t mean we can’t tell black from white.

I am not convinced that we can tell black from white.

I also think that there ought to be a certain level of relativism when it comes to judging political systems.

Is it democratic that an unelected group of 9 people can unilaterally essentially decide the law of the land in the US?

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#468

Post by tailspin2019 »

saurik wrote: post #448
tailspin2019 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I like a lot of the benefits of the walled garden (from a consumer perspective, not necessarily as a developer), this is actually a very good argument for side-loading and one that I hadn't thought about before.

~4 years ago I gave a talk at Mozilla Privacy Lab (perfected from a talk I gave at 360|iDev) that focused on these moral reasons for not having centralized systems, looking at everything from government control to the tyranny of the majority, that I called "That's How you Get a Dystopia". https://youtu.be/vsazo-Gs7ms As far as I am concerned, you absolutely cannot have centralized control over something like "all sof…

> As far as I am concerned, you absolutely cannot have centralized control over something like "all software distribution" without being actively complicit with such regimes

Yeah that seems to distil the problem down to the fundamentals. Will watch your talk, thanks!

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#469

Post by soheil »

"Specifically, officials say the four American firms named in the letter are supporting users to access the Smart Voting website set up by supporters of jailed opposition figure Alexey Navalny, as well as a mobile phone application used by campaigners. Navalny’s operations were branded a ‘foreign agent’ by the country’s Ministry of Justice over links to foreign funding, and his organizations were later deemed to be ‘extremist’ and banned by a court in Moscow." [0]

You can say whatever you want about how evil Google is or isn't, but this article is super misleading when Google simply following the law of the land it's operating in. It's doomed if it pulls the app and doomed if it doesn't.

[0] http://web.archive.org/web/20210913070717/https://www.rt.com...

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#470

Post by madeofpalk »

tablespoon wrote: post #408
oliwarner wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that by this point, all this is expected behaviour. If companies don't want to be complicit in these crimes, they need to extricate themselves from the country and cut all ties. If they do want to put profit ahead of everything else, then whatever, but you don't get to defend them as doing the right thing for their employees. They're enabling the whole situation. [Edit to bring in a sister question] "Why don't…

> If they do want to put profit ahead of everything else, then whatever, but you don't get to defend them as doing the right thing for their employees. They're enabling the whole situation. IMHO, cooperating with an authoritarian regime in this way should be illegal, sort of like a sanctions violation. Cook and Pachai should go to jail for this. That consequence might clarify their thinking a little.

The irony here is that your idea sounds pretty authoritarian!
Post reply on HN