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Apple, Google criticised for Saudi Absher app that tracks women

businessinsider.com

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

#181

Post by endymi0n »

stickfigure wrote: post #158
xyzzy123 wrote: post #102

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…

Serious question: Would you be willing to make this same argument for a (hypothetical) Apartheid-era app that enabled whites to manage blacks? I think it's pretty reasonable for the court of modern political opinion to pass judgement on the more egregious examples of injustice in the world. Yes, morality is relative, but there's a strong majority opinion on this - especially in the countries that build the technology…

Serious question: Where do you start and where do you end then with majority opinions? If this app is a clear case, how about Erdogan‘s secret police app? So if Islamism isn‘t okay, what about Zionism? Just Israel’s right to defend itself or not so sure anymore?

Who holds Googles and Facebooks feet to the fire for collaborating with PRISM, giving your nude selfies to NSA personnel? [1]

Is there a majority opinion this is okay if some amount of terrorism or "terrorism" (depending who you ask) is thwarted?

IMHO, the answer here is there‘s simply no easy answers here, and if there‘s just one thing to learn, it‘s that the world is a place with a lit of different opinions and values.

[1] https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/snowden-nude-sexually-compro...

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

#182

Post by megaremote »

sschueller wrote: post #157
xyzzy123 wrote: post #102

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…

Pornographie is legal in the US, yet you won't find any of those apps in the app stores. Either you are neutral or you take full responsibility of what you offer in your walled garden. You can't have it both ways.

No, it is not full or none, that is ridiculous. You are allowed to have a line that you will not cross.

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

#183

Post by vkazanov »

stickfigure wrote: post #158
xyzzy123 wrote: post #102

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…

Serious question: Would you be willing to make this same argument for a (hypothetical) Apartheid-era app that enabled whites to manage blacks? I think it's pretty reasonable for the court of modern political opinion to pass judgement on the more egregious examples of injustice in the world. Yes, morality is relative, but there's a strong majority opinion on this - especially in the countries that build the technology…

I think the more important question is: whose "modern political opinion" is the decisive one. Notice that even relatively politically close countries have diverting understanding of important cultural issues.

Think about sex-related subcultures in Japan and, say, US.

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

#184

Post by vr46 »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #102

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…

This appears to be an ethical issue, not a moral one.

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

#185

Post by mk89 »

thanatos_dem wrote: post #173
mk89 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Under Saudi law, every woman has a legal "guardian" who can restrict her travel to specific airports and routes, and get automated alerts when they cross borders. What neutral argument do you really wish to have? The fact that their legal system is messed up won't make me say "oh, but by law you are not allowed...".

I think the parent poster’s point is that that’s a very western perspective of morality. Imagine if the tables were turned, and the apprent promiscuity promoted by apps like Tinder was deemed immoral by a country that’s more conservative. Should that app be pulled globally as a result? To them the fact that we allow so much casually dating could be (and in middle eastern cultures often is) viewed as “wrong”.

I understand completely the parent's point of view, because I am confronted with hundreds of people like that on a daily basis. To be honest? I am tired of justifying insanity, despite the legal point of view, and despite the fact that tables are not turned. I am not a lawyer and I am not sitting at a round table, and I have opinions. And my opinion is that due to this "oh, by law, or by religion" we are throwing away every sort of freedom and respect our parents and grandparents fought so hard so that we could today give them for granted.

Tell me one woman in this world that likes to be treated less than a car to rent (take a look at the website, you even have to justify where to go and for how long. Basically with car2go a car is treated with more respect than a human being). But as someone might argue, it's not up to me to judge. Thankfully I live in a country that treats everyone with respect.

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

#186

Post by dgzl »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #102

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…

I generally like to assume that other people have the same rights that I do.

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

#187

Post by aaron695 »

It's just an app version of the website of MOI eServices, including things like banking and the stated guardianship services, you could just go to the website on your phone and do the same thing. The app doesn't SMS you anything.

So it's not a "Apple and Google hosted" app that "tracks women", but given the racism here this title seems to keep people happy.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sa.gov.moi&hl=... https://www.moi.gov.sa

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

#188

Post by AnthonyMouse »

int_19h wrote: post #143
xyzzy123 wrote: post #102

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…

US public opinion. Why? Because Apple and Google are both American companies, and their respective stores are hosted in US. If Saudis don't like it, they can roll their own, without our assistance, and without us profiting from any of it.

> If Saudis don't like it, they can roll their own, without our assistance, and without us profiting from any of it.

Be careful what you wish for. They have the money to do it. Cornering a market isn't that hard if you're doing it for strategic reasons rather than to turn a profit. And then what? We have to petition the Saudis to approve our apps?

Maybe it would be better if we didn't have a central party that controls everything for everybody, regardless of who it is.

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

#189

Post by sschueller »

megaremote wrote: post #182
sschueller wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pornographie is legal in the US, yet you won't find any of those apps in the app stores. Either you are neutral or you take full responsibility of what you offer in your walled garden. You can't have it both ways.

No, it is not full or none, that is ridiculous. You are allowed to have a line that you will not cross.

Not if you want neutral carrier protection under the law. As soon as you start to pick and choose you loose that protection and you are liable for illegal content on your service.

What would phone service be like if the carrier could decide who gets to use it and who doesn't? They are not held responsible for criminals using phones but if they decided who gets to use it they would be liable.

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

#190

Post by michaelmrose »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #102

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…

Just because you can't define an objective standard doesn't mean all ethical systems are equally good. Personally I would take what is acceptable in the US/Europe over what's acceptable in the middle east.
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