>Apple earned the criticism that led to this rule

How? Apple isn't saying that they're going to take negative action against someone for going to the press and bad-mouthing them and, frankly, there's no evidence that this has ever happened with them. That would be vindictive. What they said, on the other hand, is that it wouldn't be helpful to do so and that is an accurate statement.

Apple doesn't change decisions based on media reporting. They make and change decisions based on the information they have. There has never been a reversal of a decision that came as a result of media intervention. It has always come as a result of the affected party giving Apple some information that they didn't have before.

You have every right to say whatever you want about any organization or person, but they don't have to keep on working with you.

Apple is taking it from a relationship standpoint. If someone trash talks you in public and your opinion of them has gone down, you have every right to stop interacting with them.

Now saying they have market power and should not being able to do that, well that is the domain of different regulations.

> They simply have no right to quash free speech.

They haven't quashed free speech. They've built a consequence to speech into their developer agreement, as an exercise of their freedom of association.

If you're in a bar and you trashtalk the waitstaff to their faces, it's fully within their rights to eject you. You're free to stand on the sidewalk outside of the bar and continue to exercise your rights. Just as OP is free to speak about their experiences with Apple. But Apple, and the bar, have no obligation to maintain a business relationship with anybody.

That's a decent analogy and I'm surprised you're getting voted down.

It’s a lot closer to leaving a Yelp review that accurately described their behavior a few days after you witnessed them doing something stupid that ruined your experience.

Only if you admit in the review that you took no action whatsoever to allow them to fix whatever the issue was.

If you research that time period you will find many arbitrary rejections were being made that could not be resolved by the developer and may even have been nonsensical.

https://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-app-rejections-2009-1...

https://www.cnet.com/news/behind-10-eyebrow-raising-app-stor...

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3dwq8/apples-long-histor...

Read your own articles. None of the decisions were overturned as a result of a report to the media. All of them were resolved independently between Apple and the developer.

Google Voice and the NiN album were both reinstated without change after succumbing to public pressure. Google actually went to the FTC where Apple claimed they didn't reject their app! The drone strike notification app in the Vice article ended up being approved in 2017(!!) after five years of trying to publish it, then it got immediately removed lol.

https://www.macworld.com/article/1140476/accessapproved.html

https://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/11/16/2318247/official-g...

https://mashable.com/2017/03/28/apple-app-store-metadata-dro...

Also from the CNET article: a political countdown timer, a podcasting app and South Park streaming episodes app were all never approved.

None of those articles cite the reason for the change as being media backlash, though. If that was the case, then why would Apple wait days in some cases, weeks in others, and years (according to you) for still others.

It's always resolved through either a change by the developer or a change in the review policy at Apple. Again, the statement is about the relationship between the developer and Apple. If anything, Apple will be less likely to cave or change a decision just because of media pressure. Otherwise, the countdown timer, podcast app, and South Park would have just been approved after the media got wind of it. You're literally arguing against yourself with that point.

Because punishing is how you restrict free speech. If your "free" speech has this kind of consequences, it isn't free.

"Free" speech only applies to governments limiting the free expression of their citizens. Private companies have no obligation to continue doing business with someone for any reason, especially when that individual is acting in bad faith by disparaging their business relationship.

No. Free speech (and other rights) isn't about governments but about people. Your rights aren't less violated because the violator has no democratic legitimation, that just makes it worse. The only way in which companies infringing your rights is less relevant is that companies having that ability shouldn't even exist, so making them behave is merely a band-aid.

That is nonsense. This isn't about limiting speech. It's about maintaining a business relationship. No one, individual or otherwise, has the right to force a business relationship, or any other relationship, between two people, entities, or companies unless both sides are willing to maintain it.

Of course you have a right to use the services companies provide! That's the whole point of allowing them to exist. Your approach just gives power to capitalists they shouldn't have.

It's obviously not quite as clear-cut when it comes to relationships between individuals that have rights.

So, let me get this straight... You think that "free speech" protections provide a mechanism that forces companies to maintain relationships with people that they don't want to do business with? So, if someone is harassing employees, being damaging, or any litany of other inappropriate behaviors, that company is still required to provide service to that person because that person has a right to service?

You have not thought this through, at all...

Rights are not absolute. Having a right does not entail having the right to abuse that right to violate the rights of someone else. Employees have the right not to be harassed. If a company stops doing business with you for that it defends its employee which is legitimate.

What is Apple defending here? Not their right not to be criticized because that doesn't exist. Their NDAs? That would be legitimate but locking Rambo out of his account won't achieve that aim.

So the only reason to disable his account is to punish him. That's the job of the state, its courts and executive. Not of a for-profit company that does not even allow him to know why he is being punished, let alone a hearing or an appeal court.

Your idea would compel companies to support speech that they don’t believe in. This is tantamount to forced speech.

The point of free speech is to make democracy work. There's no reason to grant it to companies.

You should really familiarize yourself with caselaw surrounding speech, and educate yourself about rights other than the freedom of speech. Your ideology is far too removed from reality, but your phrasing is too absolute. Be honest about the difference between your desires and legal reality. Otherwise, nobody is going to take you seriously.

I'm fairly leftist, and I support a pretty strong freedom of speech, but I'm also familiar enough with other rights to see how they get balanced against one another, a la "the right to swing your fist ends at my face." I read popehat, because the authors are attorneys specializing in the first amendment. They defend people I find deplorable; they've got politics I disagree with. But I keep reading, because they're experts and it's a good source of fact.

Where did I say anything about US law?

Aside from the Principality of Sealand, is there a country whose laws reflect your ideology? Genuinely curious.

But to answer your question, apple is first and foremost a US company.

> Aside from the Principality of Sealand

Sealand doesn't seem all that socialist to me but I'm not very familiar with it.

> But to answer your question, apple is first and foremost a US company.

Rights != what the law says rights are. Else it wouldn't be possible for the state to violate your rights on a large scale.

Anyway, Apple is subject to the laws of every country it operates in.

So I can censor a newspaper company who is publishing things I disagree with?

Of course, unlike the newspaper itself.

I don’t understand. Can the government control the contents of the newspaper and decide what the newspaper company may publish?

> I'm surprised you're getting voted down.

I'm not surprised one bit. I generally don't talk about downvoting, but it's pertinent to the topic of free speech and consequences for speaking.

There's a common theme in "free speech" advocacy -- folks assert that free speech must not have any consequences. Addressing that misconception with facts about the US legal system and precedent frequently results in downvotes. Which is rather ironic -- downvoting is a consequence that can result in "censorship." But karma comes and goes with the popularity of my opinions; I'm not bothered.

https://www.popehat.com/2013/09/10/speech-and-consequences/

Having freedom of speech does not imply that the speaker should be free from the consequences of that speech. Especially hurtful or otherwise irresponsible speech.

And spreading pre-release confidential information is different from criticizing the company.

Apple is also free to decide who it wants to welcome into its developer community, and it’s fair that they take the content of your speech into account in that decision.