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

Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

iphoneincanada.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 634 posts

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#221

Post by yipbub »

nickpp wrote: post #209

So it was fine when Apple banned Infowars but now it’s different? This is exactly what those free speech advocates meant when talking about slippery slopes: you either support free speech or censure. There is no middle ground. Disclaimer: I think Infowars is pure, evil sh*t.

One difference is that that was an app they banned, while I think that was still bad, it's still an order or two of magnitude better.

In this case, they're policing user generated content on a platform.

The equivalent would be if they asked telegram to block infowars channels, or asked VPN providers to block the infowars website.

I had literally just started to defend/advocate-for apple after trash talking it for a while, but clearly I was extremely wrong.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#222

Post by jlokier »

ffpip wrote: post #194
yossarian1408 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not?

Why?

Because whatever they do, Apple's actions or inactions will have an effect on people in the real world.

In the case of videos which might get people beaten or killed or other things, you can argue that Apple shouldn't act to take those down due to anti-censorship principles, or you can argue that Apple should act due to anti-beating-and-killing-or-other principles.

What you can't correctly argue is that Apple should avoid getting involved.

It's literally impossible for them to not be involved. Whatever they do or don't do has the effect of supporting one outcome or the other.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#223

Post by 1_player »

cwhiz wrote: post #215
echelon wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop worshipping this company. It's not a force for good. They've kicked us out of open computing by locking down the only computer a lot of folks own (iPhone). And now look what kind of shit they can pull because they own the entire stack! This shouldn't be possible! We really have to push against this and hope the DOJ forces all phone providers to allow "side-loading" (what a bizarre term!) The iPhone is a c…

If you don’t like Apple... don’t buy their stuff? It’s that easy. Just go buy a phone running the market leading OS, Android.

Not so easy, there are arguments that the company behind the other OS is not a force of good either.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#224

Post by batrat »

nickpp wrote: post #209

So it was fine when Apple banned Infowars but now it’s different? This is exactly what those free speech advocates meant when talking about slippery slopes: you either support free speech or censure. There is no middle ground. Disclaimer: I think Infowars is pure, evil sh*t.

I want what this guy is smoking because I want to believe the government is using chemicals to turn people and frogs gay.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#225

Post by eru »

skohan wrote: post #211
eru wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even under the current legal framework, I just don't see how it's justified. In general, prices don't need a legal justification. That's a big part of free enterprise. > This is exactly the type of thing it's designed to protect us from. What makes you so optimistic? In practice, complicated laws with lots of reach usually work in favour of the party that can afford more and better lawyers. (Or, sometimes, the part…

> In general, prices don't need a legal justification. That's a big part of free enterprise. Well it would need a legal justification if the alternative is that Apple would be penalized under anti-trust regulation for using its market share to hurt consumers for its own benefit. Even "free enterprise" operates within a legal framework. > In practice, complicated laws with lots of reach usually work in favour of the p…

Oh, I'm just defeatist and cynical when it comes to complicated laws.

I have higher hopes for simple laws. And also for efforts to lower barriers to entry.

See eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_deregulation and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedoms_of_the_air for a legislative efforts that did much good.

Some interesting thoughts on rail freight transport at https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/SurfaceFreightTransporta... If all you did was follow casual online discussions about the state of American rail transport, you'd think it's in shambles. What's interesting is that the deregulated freight part of the industry is actually doing great. It's the transportation of people part that's not so hot.

I have no ready answer for Apple's walled garden. But as I stated earlier, I'm afraid heavy handed interference might do more harm than good, since Apple has so much money to through at lobbyists and lawyers.

For what it's worth, the default historical case people always cite in favour of trust busting, Standard Oil, actually shows the opposite. See eg https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-that-standard-oil-was-a-pr...

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#226

Post by mpol »

cwhiz wrote: post #215
echelon wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop worshipping this company. It's not a force for good. They've kicked us out of open computing by locking down the only computer a lot of folks own (iPhone). And now look what kind of shit they can pull because they own the entire stack! This shouldn't be possible! We really have to push against this and hope the DOJ forces all phone providers to allow "side-loading" (what a bizarre term!) The iPhone is a c…

If you don’t like Apple... don’t buy their stuff? It’s that easy. Just go buy a phone running the market leading OS, Android.

The market for smartphones is broken, period. You can choose for Apple, which is all about power politics like this news article is demonstrating, they are not here for you. Or you can choose for Android, which is one big privacy invading monster, they are not here for you either. It is a duopoly, which should (and probably does) fall under the same rules as a monopoly: the governments should fix this, the market cannot fix this.

It is not possible for other parties to break this market open. Other parties are relegated to niche markets without any power. Using a smartphone from a niche party will give you a very reduced experience and is for most people not a viable option.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#227

Post by boffinism »

afwe wrote: post #132
eitland wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoken like a problematic ux-er ;-) Visible but disabled items can be important for discoverability. Knowing when and where to apply which ux rules is probably more important than knowing all the rules. FTR: I'm happy to work with what I think are good ux-ers so they certainly do exist.

Visible but disabled items are only useful if they can be enabled in a more-or-less obvious way. Showing a disabled item that you can't enable in any way is bad UX. Am I wrong?

A notice is not a disabled item. It's information. It would only be disabled if it was visible but the text was obscured. 'Enabledness' in the context of a notice is legibility. The intended user experience is reading the notice and understanding more about the world.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#228

Post by jacquesm »

And this is why walled gardens are structurally wrong. As soon as you have one you take implicit responsibility for what goes on in there and you will be forced to take sides in large scale disputes.

What serves the people of Belarus at the moment (and I know some people on the ground there that have had terrible things done to them at the hands of the governments goons) does not serve Apple because their terms of service did not in any way foresee the kind of situation that Belarus finds itself in.

As soon as you step in to an argument like that you may find that your precious principles are going to be tested like they have never been tested before. And Apple just came up wanting, the Belarus authorities are a criminal bunch and do not deserve the protections normally afforded to individuals acting on behalf of the state. They are facing off with the population from the comfort of anonymity, beat them, rape them and sometimes even kill them. Having them identified makes them at least moderately responsible for their actions, and Apple has absolutely no business interfering in this.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#229

Post by rzwitserloot »

This keeps being posted and keeps disappearing, so I'm going to not link to it, but when you search around, a post on telegram by Pavel Durov explains that apple has in fact made 2 demands: Take down the private information __and__ in addition to that, do so silently: Do not replace it with a notice explaining which part of apple's guidelines were breached, because that would be 'irrelevant' info.

Apparently, whilst the quandary is real, apple is either living on a different planet than I am, or doesn't care, and decided to pepper in something that the vast majority (I would assume) find distasteful 1984 stuff.

Re: Apple tells Telegram to take down protestor channels in Belarus

#230

Post by jacquesm »

john_minsk wrote: post #10

I'm from Belarus. Honestly, I'm surprised Apple gives a shit. Now I'm worried that Apple can cooperate with local police in case they make inquiry. Am I safe? Here is the link to one group that uses ML to de-anonymize people: https://youtu.be/FAJIrnphTFg

Strength to you, these are very difficult times and the same tech that can help you can just as easily be used against you. Apple is very much in the wrong here but dollars tend to be more important than principles so I hope that this will end well. Be careful!
Post reply on HN