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Re:Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19... by tsimionescu on Monday May 18, 2020 @01:42PM (#23225713)
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 distribute content to that nation.

Is it a pain to do this for the content distributor? Of course! But national sovereignty is far too important to be traded for ease of content distribution.

Of course, there is a problem (which some may consider a benefit) with the design of the Internet itself: there is no easy way to define what it means to distribute content to a particular country. But probably using national IP blocks is going to generally be good enough for many use cases.

Re:Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19... by monksy on Monday May 18, 2020 @02:56PM (#23226881)
> 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... by tsimionescu on Monday May 18, 2020 @04:02PM (#23227658)
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.