Live data from Hacker News

Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

buzzfeednews.com

21–30 of 515 posts

Re: Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you make a moral call, do you not forecast a fork in the road where you might choose the morally superior destiny? Or does one merely move moral words without the corresponding conviction to move moral results?

Lots of "moral" in your comment and it crowds the meaning for me. If you are accusing me that I'm preaching and not following my own words, that is a big assumption on your side.

> 2010 Google left China for those reasons. Much have changed since then.

This is what I'm accusing you of. How has Chinese affairs changed for the better after Google?

Re: Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

#22

Just another reason why you don't want companies like Apple and Google to be the gatekeepers. Technology can set you free, but only if you let it. If you don't, it can easily become a new tool of oppression.

The gatekeeper is Pakistan, it's their sovereign territory. The Internet isn't outside of that reach, it only exists inside of a territory with the permission of the government that controls it.

You might as well be talking about any of a zillion laws within 195 different countries that one might find objectionable, it's exactly the same 'problem.'

What's the premise? Pakistan doesn't get to decide their own laws? That's identical to saying that Pakistan shouldn't get to decide how networks operate in their territory.

And if we're going there, no nations in Europe should be allowed to determine their own speech laws or restrictions because I largely disagree with them, and they also shouldn't be allowed to control or restrict any networks that operate within their borders under any circumstances, and that includes barring them from limiting any content for any reason. Fun game.

Re: Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

#23

I'm worried about the future of computing devices. With Apple and Google going with the walled garden approach, What's to stop any government from telling Apple and Google that an app is illegal?

Nothing to stop any government. This has already happened in a few countries, especially with banning apps of a certain kind or apps from certain countries.

Re: Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

#24
post #19
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such as Switzerland.

Many European countries (like Germany, Italy, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Finland, parts of UK*, Poland, Russia) have blasphemy laws going as far as mandating prison terms, even if they rarely convict or even indict anyone under them. * corrected from "UK".

Formally abolished in England and Wales in 2008. Still on the statute books for Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Although a lot of anti-racist hate speech stuff could be used for the same effect in England and Wales.

Re: Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

#25
post #2

Of course I disagree with religious or any other intolerance, but, if you want to do business in Pakistan, you have to follow their rules. It isn't a case of 'caving to pressure', but of 'complying with the law', since the apps are available in other countries, just not in Pakistan, where they are deemed blasphemous, according to their laws.

Sure, but if the users could side load applications then even if the government would demand the giants to remove X app or book the user could find a way. People were listening to forbidden radio stations in secret and this was possible because DRM did not exist on the radio and TV equipment.

Re: Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

#26

Just another reason why you don't want companies like Apple and Google to be the gatekeepers. Technology can set you free, but only if you let it. If you don't, it can easily become a new tool of oppression.

The gatekeeper is Pakistan, it's their sovereign territory. The Internet isn't outside of that reach, it only exists inside of a territory with the permission of the government that controls it. You might as well be talking about any of a zillion laws within 195 different countries that one might find objectionable, it's exactly the same 'problem.' What's the premise? Pakistan doesn't get to decide their own laws? Th…

Perhaps making it easy to deplatform people at the behest of a central authority is not a good idea? I would rather not be able to deplatform Donald Trump and not have Pakistan chase my friends in the Ahmadiyya community off the internet than accept both of those outcomes

Re: Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

#28

Just another reason why you don't want companies like Apple and Google to be the gatekeepers. Technology can set you free, but only if you let it. If you don't, it can easily become a new tool of oppression.

The gatekeeper is Pakistan, it's their sovereign territory. The Internet isn't outside of that reach, it only exists inside of a territory with the permission of the government that controls it. You might as well be talking about any of a zillion laws within 195 different countries that one might find objectionable, it's exactly the same 'problem.' What's the premise? Pakistan doesn't get to decide their own laws? Th…

That would be nice if phones were open and free, but they aren't. For many, especially in developing nations, the phone is the way to access the internet. If Google/Apple wouldn't have such a stranglehold on the world of mobile phones, people would be free to choose which app repo they use or which apps they sideload. But sadly, they are not.

Re: Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

#29

Just another reason why you don't want companies like Apple and Google to be the gatekeepers. Technology can set you free, but only if you let it. If you don't, it can easily become a new tool of oppression.

Yes, we keep saying this. But the alternative is right in front of us... it is the open Web and related technologies.

If someone was hosting a website outside of Pakistan, it would be much harder to take down than just petitioning Google or Apple.

Wordpress powers 40% of all such websites. But for Web 2.0 where are the open source alternatives? Discourse? We need something that can handle chatrooms, videoconferencing and more, and can be hosted anywhere.

All around the world, we need such web based tools.

Re: Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gatekeeper is Pakistan, it's their sovereign territory. The Internet isn't outside of that reach, it only exists inside of a territory with the permission of the government that controls it. You might as well be talking about any of a zillion laws within 195 different countries that one might find objectionable, it's exactly the same 'problem.' What's the premise? Pakistan doesn't get to decide their own laws? Th…

Perhaps making it easy to deplatform people at the behest of a central authority is not a good idea? I would rather not be able to deplatform Donald Trump and not have Pakistan chase my friends in the Ahmadiyya community off the internet than accept both of those outcomes

I never said it was a good idea. I said Pakistan's territory is their sovereign land, and they get to decide how things work within that territory accordingly. Whether anyone likes it or not.

There are a lot of really bad nations and a lot of really, really bad laws out there. What's the plan for all of that? Because the Internet is a tiny little fraction of that problem and it's tied up in the fact that people outside of a nation generally don't get to dictate what happens inside of that nations, that goes for trade / culture / laws / religion / et al.

Is the problem Pakistan's culture? Government? Religion? What's the plan for dealing with the first order problem there, given the restrictions on the Internet are distant down the line from that. Bar Pakistan from dictating their own culture? Invade Pakistan and re-orient their government?

I don't expect anyone will dare to go anywhere near any of this intellectually. The easy thing is to just say: but Pakistan shouldn't do a thing regarding the Internet. Cool, now what? You've said it, now what do you plan to do about the way the nation of Pakistan operates, because that's actually the central matter here. They are de facto the gatekeeper for the Internet within their sovereign territory, period. See: China and how they operate the Internet within their territory. Would anyone confuse whether China is the gatekeeper there? Of course not.

An extension of all of this is: companies and individuals should never trade with bad nations, because they have to comply with local laws to do so typically (and that can facilitate oppression and tyranny in such nations). That's identical to Google & Co. complying with what Pakistan tells them to, in order to operate within Pakistan's sovereign territory. So, what's a bad nation? Which ones go on the list? What kind of trade is acceptable? Who decides that? More fun.

Post reply on HN