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Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

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Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#411

Post by freedomben »

scarface74 wrote: post #308
koheripbal wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're advocating moving this power from massive corporations to the government, because at least the government has some accountability, whereas Google has NONE.

Where is this accountability? The Senate by design has two senators regardless of the population of the state, meaning that if you live in a more populous state, you have less voting power than people living in the flyover states. The electoral college also biases the Presidential election to less populous states. Not to mention even in the House of Representatives the ratio between the parties doesn’t match the popu…

In the US, bills (new laws) have to pass both the Senate and the House, and the House is population based. It's a system of checks and balances to ensure that large states and small states don't control each other. In theory, if a particular change is favored by one set and not the other, then it doesn't pass.

In practice it's a little murkier than that, but the way you presented it makes it sound like the system is just stacked to the benefit of the smaller states over the larger, when that is not the case.

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#412

Post by CWuestefeld »

koheripbal wrote: post #305
scarface74 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I’m just amazed that people are willing to give government more power - the same government who would like nothing more than to have more power to intrude on people’s life.

We're advocating moving this power from massive corporations to the government, because at least the government has some accountability, whereas Google has NONE.

I argue that the government has essentially zero accountability, while the private sector has a huge degree.

Our bandwidth for holding government accountable is so limited as to be useless. Consider the federal gov't, since I think it's what you're mostly talking about anyway. We get to vote for

* 1x Presidential primary every 4 years, from a field of, let's say, 8 to be generous: 3 bits

* 1x President every 4 years, from a field of 4 at best: 2 bits

* 2x Senator primary every 6 years. Let's again say a field of 8: 3 bits

* 2x Senator every 6 years. Let's again say a field of 4: 2 bits

* 1x Representative primary every 2 years. Again, very generous field of 8: 3 bits

* 1x Representative every 2 years, field of 4: 2 bits

That gives us 5.4 bits/year of bandwidth to actually hold our elected officials accountable. Yes, we can write letters and stuff, but that doesn't really allow us to hold them accountable. 5.4 bits in a year is nowhere near enough to express our feelings on the myriad of topics that the government is fiddling with, so we have effectively zero control over those things.

Compare that with private sector. Even for entities like Google, we've got huge latitude to vote with our feet. We can use DuckDuckGo, etc. Our choices as consumers provides a comparatively enormous bandwidth.

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#413

Post by gwright »

scarface74 wrote: post #322
gwright wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are constructing a false choice. We have a general principle of due process and contract law that can be applied here in insisting that "massive corporations" play nice. Reigning in "massive corporations" doesn't require any new governmental powers. I'm saying this as someone who leans libertarian but I don't think that is in conflict with the concepts of due process and reasonable contracts. The Devil is always…

There is no law that says “play nice”. What laws are they in breach of by only allowing certain products to be sold in their store? Every retailer has the right to decide what is sold in their store. Especially since Android is supposedly “open” and you can sideload. At various times, HN users want the government to decide what gets sold in Apple and Google’s stores and decide what Amazon can and can’t sell. I’ve eve…

IANAL but I think a major component of contract law involves ensuring that the contract is "reasonable". This is what I meant by "play nice". I realize that the definition of "reasonable" is complicated (thus "law school"). But for the purposes of an HN discussion, I think it suffices.

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#414

Post by monksy »

tsimionescu wrote: post #409
nelaboras wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that they have to act across borders. Examples: In the EU you don't need to filter pornography the same way as in the US. In the US you don't need to filter personal information (eg individuals' faces) the same way as in the EU. Or does Google need to ban insults of the Thai king? Which legislation should apply? Already now China has split the global internet in a China and non-China part...

This seems very easy: when browsing the AppStore in Thailand, apps that insult the Thai king should be prohibited. Same with Facebook posts when accessed from Thailand, or YouTube videos etc. When accessing the same from the US, they MUST NOT be prohibited, because it would infringe on the rights of the creators. Every nation should have the right to impose whatever restrictions it sees fit on companies wanting to di…

> they MUST NOT be prohibited, because it would infringe on the rights of the creators.

However in reality the company acts conservitively and bans content that violates in Thailand for the US. "it's their platform". That's the same case as in the US. (See the article earlier talking about the CCP protest comments on youtube.)

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#415

Post by swiley »

buttersbrian wrote: post #291
swiley wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh. If I left an automation roaming the streets and it ate someone’s kid I would get in trouble. If google’s automations are broken and they harm the world then they need to be responsible and fix them or replace them with people.

But automating something that might eat a kid, versus inadvertently blocking an app access very very different. This why no one is tackling a nanny bot --- repercussions. Agreed on the last part.

Ok maybe an automation that blocked a parking lot is a better analogy.

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#416

Post by matwood »

lbeltrame wrote: post #132
dreamcompiler wrote: post #124

Pretty ironic given that an "official government source" advocated the ineffective and dangerous drug hydroxychloroquine and suggested people inject bleach into their bodies. Edit: Changed hydroxyquinone to the correct hydroxychloroquine.

Where is the proof of inefficacy? For the record, there's no proof of efficacy either, because all the trials done that prove or disprove efficacy of hydroxychloroquine were flawed in one point or the other (at least the ones I've read). To give an answer to this endless debate, a proper, randomized clinical trial is needed. And the conditions set correctly, too: lopinavir and ritonavir were, per NEJM, not successful…

Studies are coming in daily showing no benefit from HCQ. As this article [1] points out, any other drug would not be looked at further given the current set of information. But, since HCQ has been seen as a cure, a lot more time and money will be spent showing the same results - no effect.

[1] https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/no-benefit-fro...

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#417

Post by [deleted] »

jl2718 wrote: post #258
heinrichhartman wrote: post #211

This is the result of out-sourcing juristic work to private companies: If we treat Android, Window, Twitter, Facebook, as public spaces/goods, then private companies should not have a say in what is allowed/not-allowed on their platforms. This is work for the courts and police to decide and enforce. If we treat those platforms as private. Then we are playing in s/o's backyard. You are totally at their mercy. They hav…

The only thing that needs to be constitutionally challenged is whether discretionary content filtering constitutes agency in publication under section 230 of the CDA.

[deleted]

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#418

Post by StavrosK »

jimmySixDOF wrote: post #144
ipsum2 wrote: post #3

My favorite (and only) podcasting app. I hope someone who works at Google reads this and flag it internally. This quote really sums up how ridiculous Google is being: > What Google is asking of Podcast Addict would be comparable to Google asking a web browser app to remove references to all the websites and social media posts that reference the coronavirus unless the reference comes from an official government entity…

You can try Pocket Casts [1] who are my favorite and only Of course that's assuming that they don't get the same play store treatment from GOOG It's a little too ironic that Goggle, who has countless times made the argument that they aren't responsible/liable for what their users do on a service ("honestly senator its just a platform we provide"), and then here they are the ones calling for some downstream accountabi…

That's not a solution. Instead, we should switch to alternative stores like F-Droid:

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.danoeh.antennapod/

F-Droid only lists FOSS software, but Google sorely needs competition. Unfortunately, any alternative store is unlikely to succeed since the users only have incentive to use it when Google misbehaves, so all Google has to do is misbehave rarely enough to kill the alternatives off.

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#419

Post by Dylan16807 »

laumars wrote: post #285
Dylan16807 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a great pity that you treat legitimate disagreement as mindless anger. "They are removing content on youtube." is a true factual statement. "They are applying the same standard." is not. The motivation may be the same, but the types of removal are very different. As long as their own podcasting app is up in its current form, there is a very good argument that they're not being consistent.

> It's a great pity that you treat legitimate disagreement as mindless anger. I’m not talking about disagreement of these posts (there’s nothing to disagree, the comments were factually accurate), I’m talking about the comments where people say stuff like “Google's rules only apply to their competitors“, which clearly isn’t true (as I’ve proven). I also don’t agree with you exaggerating my comments to claim I was acc…

I don't think it's splitting hairs. Banning video channels and banning apps are very different things. Consistency would ban both apps and any normal web browser, or would have never gone near banning this one.

The equivalent to the youtube bans is when they ban apps that are actually about covid-19. Not apps with internet search.

> I’m not talking about disagreement of these posts (there’s nothing to disagree, the comments were factually accurate), I’m talking about the comments where people say stuff like “Google's rules only apply to their competitors“, which clearly isn’t true (as I’ve proven).

No, the exact opposite of that. Because I was replying to the part of your post that says "It's a great pity all the factual comments about YouTube's COVID-19 video removal policy (or "censorship" depending on your viewpoint) are being down voted"

That is about disagreement, and is not about comments where people say stuff like “Google's rules only apply to their competitors“.

> I also don’t agree with you exaggerating my comments to claim I was accusing people of being mindless and agree when I said no such thing.

You said "factual comments are being down voted" in favor of "anti-Google rhetoric". That's either people being mindless or people being malicious. Maybe I shouldn't have used the word "anger", but I don't think "mindless" is exaggerating what you said at all. You painted the situation as having no legitimate reason to downvote those comments.

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#420

Post by tsimionescu »

monksy wrote: post #414
tsimionescu wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems very easy: when browsing the AppStore in Thailand, apps that insult the Thai king should be prohibited. Same with Facebook posts when accessed from Thailand, or YouTube videos etc. When accessing the same from the US, they MUST NOT be prohibited, because it would infringe on the rights of the creators. Every nation should have the right to impose whatever restrictions it sees fit on companies wanting to di…

> they MUST NOT be prohibited, because it would infringe on the rights of the creators. However in reality the company acts conservitively and bans content that violates in Thailand for the US. "it's their platform". That's the same case as in the US. (See the article earlier talking about the CCP protest comments on youtube.)

Yes, that is what is happening because most states are not given enough power to impose their beliefs on entities like Google.

Even more in reality than your example, YouTube is censoring content the US or China or maybe Russia doesn't like everywhere, and it is not censoring content that Thailand or Uzbekistan or wherever else doesn't like even in those countries.

But if the US were to impose a no-censorship policy on YouTube (or at least a no-censorship-except-our-censorship policy), you would probably see some fragmentation to appease both the US and Chinese governments. And if a few dozen other countries did the same, with true force behind their decisions, you would either see YouTube retreating from those countries (perhaps opening the way for local alternatives), or many more YouTube front faces. Either way, there may be some advantages compared to the current system.

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