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Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

reuters.com

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Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#221

Post by wwtrv »

joconde wrote: post #101
Klaster_1 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do you expect Google to go partisan war against Russian government? Expect? To some degree, yes, for example they do not remove "illegal" YouTube videos yet. Would like to? Absolutely.

Then Google employees would start getting arrested, and whatever would be left of Google in the country would comply anyway, achieving nothing but the imprisonment of more people. Google Russia's employees don't have diplomatic immunity.

How long would other western companies continue doing business in Russia if that started happening?

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#222

Post by gman83 »

hnlmorg wrote: post #122
throw_m239339 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pull out of the countries then. Then why Apple hasn't pulled out of China? Like 2 decades ago? China was always a brutal dictatorship. Why would they pull out of anything? These company profit from bloody dictatorships, like the rest of the western economy. But somehow when it's about Russia it's a problem? The hypocrisy in the west must stop. The west and it's industry never stood for freedom abroad since it decid…

In fairness, people have been asking Apple and Google (plus many other western businesses) to pull out of China for a long time. The point your making isn't something new nor overlooked.

But Google did pull out of China, did that improve the situation in China? Meanwhile Apple makes billions in China and barely anyone says anything. If you're Google you're looking at that like a raw deal.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#223

Post by moogly »

Grustaf wrote: post #134
kurokikaze wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the main party line right now - "Navalny is Soros' agent and Smart Voting is election interference".

I don't know about Soros, but e.g. the Swedish government is supporting him quite heavily. Would you consider Smart Voting to be "interference" if Chinese backed activists promoted it in the US?

> the Swedish government is supporting him quite heavily

In what way? The Nordic countries basically made a joint press release calling upon Putin to release him back in 2020, but that's about it? That's not much more than lip service.

Also, one of the labs that verified that he was poisoned with Novichok is located in Sweden, I suppose (the other one in France).

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#224

Post by fsflover »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #144
ethanbond wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple gets lambasted for activities in China all the time by many of the same people

> Apple gets lambasted for activities in China all the time by many of the same people Apple released new iPhones a few days ago, can you point me to the comments on HN on the new iPhone threads talking about their relationship with China?

It's not in every single thread but it's frequently mentioned.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#225

Post by Dah00n »

slim wrote: post #94
Grustaf wrote: post #78

How would people would feel if there were Chinese backed apps in the AppStore that were used for tactical voting in the US presidential elections? With the express purpose to aid a specific candidate.

Is navalny's app backed by a foreign entity ?

He is, by more than one. This is no different than the "Russian meddling in our election" BS.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#226

Post by hnlmorg »

Dah00n wrote: post #172
hnlmorg wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every country does exactly the same thing. They don't though. Sure, there is some level of corruption and media bias in every country but few countries have dictatorships which will threaten imprisonment (or worse) of anyone who speaks out against the current government. However I do agree with your secondary point that the solution isn't to create a tech vacuum, it's to create technology that can't be controlled b…

Now you are moving the discussion into Which country have actual free people though. Sure a dictatorship is worse than a "free" country where decades of propaganda has set the tone so people think they are free while they do what the government wants them to but are they really that much better off? That people chant USA! USA! USA! while doing something doesn't mean they are free. They are more free but way more indo…

> Now you are moving the discussion into Which country have actual free people though.

I'm not moving the topic, that is an integral part of the existing discussion: Apple and Google employees were threatened with imprisonment if they didn't remove the app.

> but are they really that much better off?

Now who's moving the discussion away from topic? It certainly isn't me lol

I'll entertain your question though: some will be better off, some will be worse off, and some will not be affected at all. When you deal with any large dataset, such as the entire population of a country, there will always be individual samples which demonstrate the benefits of most outcomes.

HOWEVER I do not believe the instances of those who are better off under a dictatorship equal out the atrocities that dictators use to retain their control. And that is the real crux of the problem.

> That people chant USA! USA! USA! while doing something doesn't mean they are free.

I'm not American and don't have a particularly high opinion of American politics either but it's still better than a dictatorship.

I also suspect you're now drifting into a philosophical argument about what it means to be "free".

> It does feel better, sure, but it doesn't give any less media bias at all.

Finally you're back on topic! As I stated in my previous post, every country will have bias in the media. That's unavoidable. However what is important is that the media have freedom to choose their political biases. In "free" countries you'd typically get new outlets which will favour the current government but also outlets that will be highly critical of the government. And that is the difference between Russia and most of the rest of the world. It might seem like a really small point if you're used to Russian (or any other state-controlled) media but I promise you that it really is a significant difference!

> If anything US media is more biased than Russian or at least as bad

No, it really is not. You have platforms that can offer opposing arguments and full press freedom to use them. America even has rules stating that one should have the freedom to speak out against the government (and this was upheld in court when Trump tried to block people he didn't like on Twitter). Compare that with most dictatorships where vocal opponents often end up exiled (or worse!) and you'll see my point that you cannot argue the two to be equivalent.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#227

Post by smokey_circles »

wwtrv wrote: post #203
viktorcode wrote: post #85

Reuters doesn't report this, but the government officials threatened the companies (Apple and Google) with jail time for their employees yesterday. After that the companies finally conceded. There's a short video fragment from the meeting of the government officials and the companies representatives. It's worth watching, especially if you come from a democratic nation. Letting your Russian employees be persecuted don…

Arbitrary imprisoning or harming the employees of Google or Apple would likely result in many other western IT firms closing their offices and leaving, that would be a very stupid thing to do for the Russian government. So I don’t think such threats could have been real (but I guess you can’t really count on authoritarian regimes not doing something completely irrational).

Putin has attacked a good many political dissidents on foreign soil, is it really such an unbelievable claim?

> likely result in many other western IT firms closing their offices and leaving

That's just naive. Russia and China are huge markets. Apple and Google are not going anywhere unless their hands are forced.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#228

Post by wwtrv »

r721 wrote: post #218
wwtrv wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arbitrary imprisoning or harming the employees of Google or Apple would likely result in many other western IT firms closing their offices and leaving, that would be a very stupid thing to do for the Russian government. So I don’t think such threats could have been real (but I guess you can’t really count on authoritarian regimes not doing something completely irrational).

NYT and Bloomberg report that threats were real: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28563916

I’m not denying these threats were issued, but actually following them through would be a very irrational thing to do. So it’s probably just a bluff. Of course it doesn’t really matter that much since Google/Apple were going to comply with their requests anyway.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#229

Post by vetinari »

nicce wrote: post #208
vetinari wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read it again, you will find it is the same thing.

Not really. It is totally different policy. Somebody asking removing content from the whole world, because of their limited local legalization versus just not showing it for this limited area. From the perspective of some users, it might be the same result. However, the content is still there and can be accessed from the different route.

Both youtube and app store are local and remove/block by regions; so if something is removed from multiple regions, it is because it infringes some law in all regions.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#230

Post by smokey_circles »

Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #88
viktorcode wrote: post #85

Reuters doesn't report this, but the government officials threatened the companies (Apple and Google) with jail time for their employees yesterday. After that the companies finally conceded. There's a short video fragment from the meeting of the government officials and the companies representatives. It's worth watching, especially if you come from a democratic nation. Letting your Russian employees be persecuted don…

Pull out of the countries then. Participating in dictatorship is barely better than refusing to do so if that dictatorship will falsely imprison your employees.

Nobody is going to do that so long as there is financial reason to not.

Which is not to say Google and Apple don't care about their employees, clearly this article suggests otherwise.

It's just not true that pulling out is a viable or even straight forward option.

You could also make an argument for US government placing pressure on these companies to keep a presence in Russia so they (the US government) can have some kind of foothold to push soft pressure

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