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Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ

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Re: Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a shame too, because Apple has the money and brand wherewithal to fight the government. See the FBI vs Apple stuff that happened years ago. That actually won them some real converts. Capitulating over this is Apple showing their supposed core values have significantly hollowed

Isn’t Apple mostly interested in making more money, though, instead of spending money? The way I see it of all the top tech giants, Apple has the most to lose with all the tariff shenanigans, so it’s in their [shareholders] interest to stay friends with the current administration. Apple has never had moral values other than earning money by making great products. And I say this as someone who is deeply embedded in th…

Part of the brand after the FBI fiasco was about being a privacy forward company that didn’t simply capitulate to government demands on a whim. They demonstrated in smaller tests they were willing to put up a fight for those principles.

That of course was now almost a decade ago. They seem to have changed their entire messaging and with it, seemingly their interest in being more than a ROI machine.

It’s a regression not a step forward. Apple was never a paragon but this was legitimately a step in the right direction I felt, but alas, I suspect in today’s culture I am increasingly in the minority position

Re: Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

For all the talk of Trump being Hitler, I never saw any real tax protest movement to defund the regime...

Most people have their taxes withheld directly from their pay by their employer, and don't get the option to not pay their taxes, because the government gets the money before they do.

Re: Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ

#55

Back in 2011, Apple removed apps that crowdsourced warnings about DUI checkpoints. It remains Apple's policy today. According to Grok, "In March 2011, four Democratic senators—Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), and Tom Udall (D-N.M.)—sent letters to Apple, Google, and Research in Motion (BlackBerry's parent company) urging the removal of such apps […]" So, we have precedent wher…

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Re: Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ

#57
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure who you’re expecting to convert. Most people- thinking of people like my parents- think any app that hinders police must be a bad thing. The idea that something like ICEBlock is benevolent and doesn’t make the user a criminal by association just doesn’t register.

Surely an app designed to help circumvent the law is a bad thing, even if it doesn't make one legally a criminal merely by association?

Why is that a bad thing? Was the Underground Railroad a bad thing?

Re: Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ

#58

Methinks this won’t be the last politically-motivated removal from Apple’s App Store; the more apps they remove then the more they weaken their own arguments about how a locked-in walled garden is in consumer interests.

And it is certainly also not the first.

What was the first?

Re: Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ

#59
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to refute your point, but a trivial enough thing to create as a web site. I'm guessing that will come next (if one doesn't already exist).

I guess the developers will need to learn HTML+CSS and self host this app on a Russian server. Will be good to showcase the freedom of the web! I am going to use this news to hit every lemming in the face - those who claim corpo-controlled walled gardens are good for you and grandma.

Then the government will just force ISP DNS not to answer queries for the domain. That's how easy you can block 99% of users, which is good enough.

And eventually, when all our hardware is runs-software-and-settings-signed-by-approved-entity-only, that last 1% can't do anything about it either.

Re: Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ

#60
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to refute your point, but a trivial enough thing to create as a web site. I'm guessing that will come next (if one doesn't already exist).

I guess the developers will need to learn HTML+CSS and self host this app on a Russian server. Will be good to showcase the freedom of the web! I am going to use this news to hit every lemming in the face - those who claim corpo-controlled walled gardens are good for you and grandma.

Aren't mobile apps more or less already HTML+CSS?

A basic website should be easier to write and maintain than any app, because you don't have to maintain both the server and the client.

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