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Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

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Re: Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

#131
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s basically up to the person running passport control that day but first of all they also need their other travel documents like their passport if they are flying internationally. They are often not allowed access to them (Not denied access in any legal sense, but their families will “look after” the documents making it hard to gain access to such documents). But if it’s the case of a foreign national returning ho…

Holy shit, I can't believe this is happening in the 21st century.

There's far more egregious things. For instance in Western Africa there remains massive child slavery. The reason this is relevant, as if it wasn't by itself, is that that slavery is then facilitated in bringing you your tasty chocolate treats from companies such as Nestle, Hersheys, Mars, and more. This has been going on for decades and has been brought to court multiple times - the companies always win with generally negligible media coverage. Lack of media coverage notwithstanding, AP did run a new piece on it... 3 days ago. [1] Seafood is another huge industry where you see lots of slavery in its harvesting and production. Incidentally, Nestle also shows up there with their Purina brand.

This is not a 'what about chocolate or seafood' but a general frustration I have with people today. They (and this is not directed at you) are grossly misinformed on the state of the world, even though the information is more readily available than ever before. They protest completely inane stuff like it's the end of the world, while completely ignoring the tremendous human rights abuses throughout the world that continue to this very day. If people shined a light on these 24/7 it's possible that something could happen. Even back to Saudi Arabia, not only is there their treatment of women but they still literally crucify people, still literally execute people for "witchcraft and sorcery", and much more. These stories do receive one off coverage, but nothing compared to e.g. a scientist who wore a shirt with some scantily clad girls. Makes all of 'social media justice' look like little more than a bunch of useful idiots. [2]

[1] - https://www.apnews.com/571f1acc466f4f89866d31ae094f1601

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

Re: Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

#132

I am surprised that no-one has brought up a neutrality argument yet. The app is legal within Saudi Arabia and in fact published by their government. Are we to take down any app which violates anyone’s morals? Or just the morals of particular countries? If an app is blasphemous by the standards of say Mormonism or Islam, should we take it down? After everyone is done, how many apps will be left? If we enforce some mor…

Instead of Hooli someone is going to launch Halali ... Cloud hosting according to the laws or the Koran.

It exists, sort of. There's a "halal search engine"[1]. Iran has something like the Great Firewall of China.[2] Saudi Arabia has official censorship, and they're open about it; there's a web form for requesting that something be censored, and blocked sites divert to a page saying it's blocked.[3] It seems that Iran's system is fairly tight, but the Saudi system isn't really that strict.

On the other side, there are multiple "kosher ISPs" with cloud-based filtering. There are even "glatt kosher" ISPs.[4] "The Secured program will block pornography and violence; Secured Plus will also block women wearing intimate apparel; Secured Squared and Protected will filter out any immodest clothing; and Sealed will enable access only to sites with religious and modest content." In Israel, there are "kosher phones", which are either voice only or can't access the web at all. They just run rabbi-approved apps.[5]

[1] https://www.rferl.org/a/internet-searching-islam-halalgoogli...

[2] https://www.dailydot.com/news/hewlett-packard-iran-censorshi...

[3] https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2017/saudi-arabi...

[4] https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3446129,00.html

[5] https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-israel-unveils-koshe...

Re: Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

#133
post #128
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neutrality is a moral viewpoint in itself. It's the viewpoint that nobody is actually wrong, that simply by being a country you have a right to have your moral views respected. In the specific case of app stores, it's the viewpoint that everyone deserves to have the things they're doing made more efficient, and that helping anyone speed up their work is virtuous. (Neutrality, by the way, is IBM's present defense of D…

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality." ~Desmond Tutu

I love this quote. Neutrality has enabled some of the greatest evils in history. I think it is impossible to be neutral and also be a force for good.

Re: Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

#134
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outcome 3- Google ban Absher and automatically remove it from device using Google Play Protect on the basis that it's a spyware.

Outcome 4 - Saudi mobile phone carriers partner with Chinese device manufacturer to deploy custom built versions of Android with 'play protect' ripped out, and Absher app as a non-removable default install. Basically think of what you could do if OnePlus went fully evil and built an 'evil' version of OxygenOS, their custom android variant.

Outcome 5 - After the custom evil Android is a success, Saudi men decide that the default government app isn't enough. They decide to have all their wives chipped/tagged when they take them in for their vaccinations.

A Saudi startup that basically is the 'Google Nest of oppression' becomes a unicorn company by plugging into the GPS from the chip which enables new forms of tracking. They'll get live video feeds, sentiment analysis and child rearing effectiveness scores all rolled into one app. Multiple wives? No problem - you can compare and contrast all of them in the app.

So glad everyone got Google to remove the original app, instead of thinking of ways to combat the root cause of the problem. At least there's another unicorn startup because of it. /s

Re: Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

#136
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality." ~Desmond Tutu

I love this quote. Neutrality has enabled some of the greatest evils in history. I think it is impossible to be neutral and also be a force for good.

What if it’s not mice you’re talking about?

Re: Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of Hooli someone is going to launch Halali ... Cloud hosting according to the laws or the Koran.

It exists, sort of. There's a "halal search engine"[1]. Iran has something like the Great Firewall of China.[2] Saudi Arabia has official censorship, and they're open about it; there's a web form for requesting that something be censored, and blocked sites divert to a page saying it's blocked.[3] It seems that Iran's system is fairly tight, but the Saudi system isn't really that strict. On the other side, there are m…

Anecdotally, VPNs are incredibly popular in Iran and the government hasn't had a great deal of success in blocking their usage. Unlike the Chinese GFW, the government entities in Iran that want to run a nationwide firewall are not able to attract the 'best and brightest' network engineers. The sort of Iranians who might be qualified to implement such are not living in Iran, they're living in Los Angeles and working for six-figure salaries in US dollars.

Re: Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

#139

There's a lot of discussion here, but I don't see the important question being asked: How (and whether) the removal of this app will help the women in Saudi Arabia: 1)In the short term 2)In the long term I.e. if the alternative to using the tracking app is not being able to travel (in the realities of that horrible state), then removal will make life of many women worse in the short term. Calls for bans and removals…

It's certainly a question worth pondering. I don't see why the default assumption should be that this app is a net good though.

I wonder too, if this app didn't exist, and they didn't let women travel at all, if their society would pay a cost that would eventually become untenable. Thus, while it's possible this would be bad in the short term (not demonstrated though) it's possible that it would also be good in the long term (also not demonstrated).

In my opinion, without really compelling evidence, we should opt not to participate in the subjegation of women.

Re: Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retaliatory unprovoked attacks are not acceptable either.

>unprovoked I think you could argue the existence of a platform for managing women as chattel is provocation enough.

I'm pretty sure you can find a group seeing the existence of a platform for managing X (replace with something you disagree with) the same provocation. Does that give them an licence to retaliate ?

How far do you go through the rabbit-hole of so called "provocation" before it's deemed "too much" ?

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