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Google removes ICE-spotting app following Apple's ICEBlock crackdown

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Re: Google removes ICE-spotting app following Apple's ICEBlock crackdown

#111

Post by mindslight »

Zak wrote: post #100
EdiX wrote: post #44

Hopefully this will give people pause the next time they think about linking to https://xkcd.com/1357/ .

XKCD's point stands as long as nobody has a monopoly on an important medium. Apple and Google effectively do have a duopoly on mobile app distribution, and mobile apps are an important medium for speech in 2025.

From the first part of your comment, it directly follows that neither Apple nor Google has a required monopoly on the important medium.

IMO, we need to stop thinking in this broken paradigm of "-opolies" (with its loaded requirement to define what constitutes a given "market") and look at the actual coercive power they wield through market stickiness. Apple and Google both wield much coercive power with regards to software running on mobile devices.

Re: Google removes ICE-spotting app following Apple's ICEBlock crackdown

#112

Post by ranger_danger »

ranger_danger wrote: post #7
Waterluvian wrote: post #4

Is it illegal for Americans to track their authorities or are the corporations all doing this quite voluntarily?

IANAL but I research this stuff quite a bit. Doxxing of federal employees' personal information in certain circumstances is technically illegal (but many people think it isn't): https://www.robertreeveslaw.com/blog/doxing-arrested/ But publishing location information of where authorities happen to be in public at a certain time... I don't think is actually illegal. The Apple app author also believes he is 100% legal…

Another point I forgot to make (can't edit anymore)...

It could possibly be found that the government illegally pressured or "coerced" a company like Apple/Google to remove "speech" (an app) they didn't want.

https://robertslaw.org/1st-amendment-protection-against-usin...

Re: Google removes ICE-spotting app following Apple's ICEBlock crackdown

#113

Post by [deleted] »

mindslight wrote: post #111
Zak wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XKCD's point stands as long as nobody has a monopoly on an important medium. Apple and Google effectively do have a duopoly on mobile app distribution, and mobile apps are an important medium for speech in 2025.

From the first part of your comment, it directly follows that neither Apple nor Google has a required monopoly on the important medium. IMO, we need to stop thinking in this broken paradigm of "-opolies" (with its loaded requirement to define what constitutes a given "market") and look at the actual coercive power they wield through market stickiness. Apple and Google both wield much coercive power with regards to so…

[deleted]

Re: Google removes ICE-spotting app following Apple's ICEBlock crackdown

#114

Post by Zak »

mindslight wrote: post #111
Zak wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XKCD's point stands as long as nobody has a monopoly on an important medium. Apple and Google effectively do have a duopoly on mobile app distribution, and mobile apps are an important medium for speech in 2025.

From the first part of your comment, it directly follows that neither Apple nor Google has a required monopoly on the important medium. IMO, we need to stop thinking in this broken paradigm of "-opolies" (with its loaded requirement to define what constitutes a given "market") and look at the actual coercive power they wield through market stickiness. Apple and Google both wield much coercive power with regards to so…

That does seem to be what the EU is trying to do with its "gatekeeper" classification.

Re: Google removes ICE-spotting app following Apple's ICEBlock crackdown

#115

Post by EdiX »

myko wrote: post #85
EdiX wrote: post #44

Hopefully this will give people pause the next time they think about linking to https://xkcd.com/1357/ .

Why would it? The key difference is businesses / people making choices and the government coercing businesses / people to make choices the government wants. One is a first amendment violation, one is exercising the first amendment.

Ask yourself who is more legitimized to take such enforcement actions: a handful of privately owned corporations acting in concert or a democratically elected government?

No, the "first amendment only applies to government" is cope of the highest degree, it was always a cope.

You accepted that an oligopoly could dictate what you could do with devices you owned because it suited your preferences and now that you are on the other side of the sword you squirm.

The correct answer was neither all along.

Re: Google removes ICE-spotting app following Apple's ICEBlock crackdown

#116

Post by techjamie »

b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #15
antfarm wrote: post #2

I already lost all remaining respect for Tim Cook when he kissed the ring in the oval office. I wonder how Steve Jobs would have handled the current political challenges.

He'd probably be up to his eyeballs in magic crystals and antivax nonsense by now

I will say you have to respect that he would eat his own dog food though. It's one thing to be wrong and contradict it in private, it's another to be wrong and actually live it.

So many powerful people are the former.

Re: Google removes ICE-spotting app following Apple's ICEBlock crackdown

#117

Post by cmxch »

pmdr wrote: post #92

So... we're building the most secure devices ever, so secure that only two megacorps have final say on what we can and can't install on said devices (if we want a usable device). Browsers are heading the same way, we sure enjoy our Manifest V3 security. The CEOs were all there at the inauguration. Is anyone really surprised that they're taking orders from this administration?

Perhaps this should have been thought about when devices started to be secured completely from the user.

Re: Google removes ICE-spotting app following Apple's ICEBlock crackdown

#118

Post by UncleMeat »

nsxwolf wrote: post #14
codedokode wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a free market the consumer always has a choice between companies doing censorship and companies doing censorship.

How many times are we going to re-litigate this? Until there’s a law requiring side loading options, you have the web. Everyone here was totally fine with the “gay cure” apps being pulled.

I have no problem saying that good things are good and bad things are bad. The idea that nobody is allowed to have content preferences is ridiculous and not actually a thing that anybody believes.

Re: Google removes ICE-spotting app following Apple's ICEBlock crackdown

#119

Post by xracy »

blfr wrote: post #101
captainkrtek wrote: post #19

Hmm how different is this fundamentally from the ability to report police locations (speedtraps) in Google Maps?

There were no terrorist attacks on traffic cops lately.

Gosh, was I asleep and missed a new terrorist attack on ICE agents? How did you know they were ICE agents, did they identify themselves?

Re: Google removes ICE-spotting app following Apple's ICEBlock crackdown

#120

Post by financetechbro »

howieburger wrote: post #66
K0balt wrote: post #20

I’d say this is a perfect candidate for a web app / PWA.

Government will just hijack the domain as they have with torrents and other things they don't like Am working on a mobile app that requires in person keygen/sharing via Bluetooth, syncs selected data between devices once keys exchanged and new local IP is shared (over something like Signal; discovery is hard/expensive so I am going with a low tech manual option to notify peers how to reconnect) Flood the field with a…

Would love to learn more about this once it’s ready
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