It ended up as the main way Belarussian protesters organize themselves. TG is a huge target for their government and I would not be surprised if Apple is being pressured by them.
As long as they operate an app store, they will be a target. Just might not be the only target.
That's kinda the point that having a single controlling entity makes the ecosystem vulnerable to this kind of pressure.
I wish it weren’t so.
Have you thought about what that would mean in practice? Given that the APK could be hosted on multiple (TLS-enabled) foreign sites, a government would need a team of people to be constantly monitoring the web for sites containing the APK, who would then send orders to domestic ISPs demanding that they prevent their customers from accessing those foreign sites.
I believe it is also possible to share apps via Bluetooth.
You mean like the MAFIAA[0] has been doing for decades?
https://www.mobiles24.co/downloads/s/96965-m1769-speak_softl...
My point was that any similar attempt would likely be just as unsuccessful.
Exactly! If they want to start policing all content generated through apps that can be installed on iOS... they'll start getting millions of takedown requests from governments around the world.
Very weird decision strategically, and ofc very questionable morally.
So what???
Protestors are being imprisoned and tortured, they actually hanged protest organizers from trees, as a scare tactic, does Apple really want to go on public record as an enabler of this?
It is ethically abhorrent, disgusting and beyond terrifying.
If the team responsible for this at Apple is reading this thread, you should know you have blood on your hands.
> does Apple really want to go on public record as an enabler of this?
They just did. They are. And I shall treat them as such.
If Apple is going to enforce moral views on countries and users, I want the board that chooses these views to be elected. Because as soon as you make such a legitimate demand, a thousand others will follow in terms of acceptance or not of hate speech, dissemination of propaganda, harassment, and the various definitions of terrorism.
A way to prevent Apple from conducting immoral actions in some countries would be to accepte universal jurisdiction in some places, so that crimes in country A by entity X can be judged in country B. Unfortunately this has been a thing constantly opposed by USA.
That seems like the logical conclusion if you think they have blood on their hands.
It seems like a little much to call Apple an ‘enabler’ for being against doxing.
Just because protesters use a tactic doesn’t mean everyone needs to support it, especially if it is a tacit call to violence.
I, too, can cheer on HK, whatever that means...
Anyway, if I understand correctly your position is that if people here believe that Apple's action is wrong, then they must believe that protestors doxxing Belarusian law enforcement is justified. Therefore people here should also believe that doxxing Apple employees is justified.
My response is that any question of "relative badness" changes drastically in the immediate presence of real physical violence. If Belarusian law enforcement is out on the streets cracking demonstrators' skulls, it's more plausible that doxxing is a lesser evil (though of course, I have no idea how credible this doxxing is) -- direct physical violence just makes every response more acceptable.
Apple's response may have the downstream effect of increasing physical violence, but only through a more diffuse chain of events, so it's possible to think that Apple's action is bad but, unlike direct physical violence, not bad enough to warrant doxxing its employees (which, anyway, doesn't seem anywhere near as effective as doxxing Belarusian law enforcement -- how many Apple employees have the power to affect this policy?).
Two points I question:
You assume that doxxing Belarusian law enforcement is effective.
You also imply that Belarusian law enforcement have the power to affect Belarusian policy.
These seem like very much unjustified assertions.
You also seem to ignore the possibility that doxing Apple employees could affect Apple’s policy which is what people want when they criticize Apple.
I am not arguing for doxxing. I’m against it.
However if one believes it would be effective at changing Belarusian policy, it raises the question as to why it would not be effective in changing Apple’s policy?
There is also the point made by the parent that Apple’s people have “blood on their hands”, and are “enablers of violence”.
From your statement about the relative badness, I presume you don’t agree with the parent comment about this.
So it doesn’t seem like your view is representative of the one I was replying to.
I stand by my original comment.
If someone thinks Apple’s employees have “blood on their hands”, then it is logical to assume that by the same reasoning they support doxxing of police, they would support doxxing of Apple employees because they equate what Apple employees are doing with violence. That’s what it means to say that someone has blood on their hands.
The fact that you don’t actually think that what Apple is doing is so bad, changes nothing about the original comment. I was replying to a comment that was far less moderate than the opinion you have just expressed.
You just don’t share the views of the person I was replying to.
It seems a lot closer to the argument DoingIsLearning is making about why “Apple employees” have blood on their hands.
Here’s a real quote from my comment, rather than a few words out of context in quote marks:
“That seems like the logical conclusion if you think they have blood on their hands.”
It’s obvious that I am not saying they should be doxed.
But sure - if people are just reacting to a few words without reading the whole comment or what is a reply to, then they won’t understand.
However if you believe that doxing of individual law enforcement officers is justified because of their support for the regime, and you accuse Apple’s team of having blood on their hands for ‘enabling’ the regime, it would be logical to conclude that you support doxing Apple’s employees.
But your comment didn't just say such a person would conclude it's justified. You said the logical conclusion would be them participating in the doxxing. Those are very different things. The list of actions that I think are justified but don't participate in is enormous.
(And by "mandatory for everyone that believes that" I meant that logic would mandate it, which is the same as it being the logical conclusion.)
But even with your new version, just talking about it being justified, well that's not necessarily the logical conclusion. One reason is that their participation is at a different level, so the justification might not extend to them.
And if you go by the motive in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24738218 then identifying the police is being done for a very direct purpose to level the playing field on the ground. Someone might reasonably feel that this reason doesn't apply to Apple employees, even while saying that Apple employees have blood on their hands.
It is true that some person might have the nuanced sentiments and tactical analysis you hypothesize, but the actual person who I was responding to didn’t seem to be expressing such a complex view in their comment, and my original reply still stands as a reasonable challenge to the implications were of what they wrote, given the sentiment with which they expressed it.
I don't think so. IT is 5% of Belarusian GDP.
But a Facebook employee would have to join the group and they wouldn't have access to older messages. It's not like with Telegram, where all the content, including old messages, is stored in plain text on the server.
You can even check if it matches up if you meet in person or if you communicated using another medium.
Because they are usually pretty aggressive about acting on inciteful content.
Also known as accountability for their own actions.
The mechanism is already in place and ready to be expanded to include anything more as necessary.
Plus they make and sell communication apps subject to carrying the exact same sentiments. Content policing a chat app is asinine.
Apple can do whatever they want on their platform. I wouldn't want to be involved in something illegal such as above when using an app on iOS accidentally.
Actually no they can’t much of the world has laws to prevent such abuses of power.
Nit: apps may show user-generated adult content (with some restrictions), as long as such content is not the main purpose of the app. So a “porn browser” would not be allowed, but an “internet browser” is.
Apple owns the app store and the iOS platform. They have a duty to protect their customers from clicking on unsightly and wrongful content. Customers expect that from apple. I wouldn't want any kid to end up accessing this channel on telegram.
They don't.
> Customers expect that from apple
They shouldn't
> I wouldn't want any kid to end up accessing this channel on telegram.
It's parent's duty to protect their kid however they see fit, not Apple's.
If you believe democracy to be unsightly and wrongful, then your believes are reactionary, and must be subject to rectification.
Somehow in your definition democracy is something only allowed to happen organically, if forcefully torn from you by corruption and guns, "oh well".
I imagine that it's through the terms of the contract signed by Telegram to be allowed into the App Store.
That Apple is flexing its market share (and walled garden) to enforce those terms on Telegram isn't even unusual.
But that doesn't make it ethical or right.
The App Store is theirs and they will kick you out if they don't like you. Isn't that good enough?
Are you sure? I remember people backing Apple when they were protecting users phones from FBI hacking.
But Belarus?
The reality was their phone did get "hacked" and Apple participated in PRISM.
There has to be limits on freedom, you can't just be allowed to post bomb making plans on the internet or yelling fire in a crowded theatre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...
> Holmes, writing for a unanimous Court, ruled that it was a violation of the Espionage Act of 1917 (amended by the Sedition Act of 1918), to distribute flyers opposing the draft during World War I. Holmes argued this abridgment of free speech was permissible because it presented a "clear and present danger" to the government's recruitment efforts for the war. Holmes wrote:
>> The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.
I agree with you, but I hope you're not making a false-equivalence between Trump and Obama, or that the Obama administration's actions against free-speech had the same motivations - and lack of conscience - as the Trump administration's.
It would be much fairer to compare Bush Jr to Trump - it was under Bush Jr we got "free speech zones", for example.
> Obama's war on whistleblowers leaves administration insiders unscathed
> Since Barack Obama entered the White House in 2009, his government has waged a war against whistleblowers and official leakers. On his watch, there have been eight prosecutions under the 1917 Espionage Act – more than double those under all previous presidents combined.
> And yet other apparent leaks have gone entirely unpunished or have been treated, as in the case of General David Petraeus, as misdemeanors. As Abbe Lowell, lawyer for one of the Espionage Act eight, Stephen Kim, has argued in a letter to the Department of Justice, low-level officials who lack the political connections to fight back have had the book thrown at them, while high-level figures have been allowed to leak with “virtual impunity”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/16/whistleblowe...
one is very different from the other. I agree yelling fire in a crowded place can't be allowed - causes people to panic, because it's not possible to 'unhear' a sound.
But posting bomb-making information (or really, any information) should be allowed. This information is voluntarily consumed, so it has no danger of causing harm without a person acting on said information (in which case, it's not the information but the person acting on it that is the problem). This applies to _any_ information, not just bomb making information.
Like the information the crowded theater is on fire?
I mean I agree, information should be free, but that's a bad way to phrase the argument.
Check Holme's quote. It's not "yelling fire in a crowded theatre." It's "Falsely yelling fire..."
Do you see the difference?
In fact, The Schenk[0] case was partially overturned by Brandenberg[1], where that example was superseded by "incitement to imminent lawless action," as it's more specific.
So what? Freedom of speech isn't meant to be just free speech as long as it's approved by some government.
>There has to be limits on freedom, you can't just be allowed to post bomb making plans on the internet or yelling fire in a crowded theatre
One of those things is not like the other.
From an ethical standpoint, the only limits on freedom should be those that infringe on the rights of others.
As in, "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins."
And why Telegram in particular? Why doesn't Apple give the same ultimatum to Facebook to pressure them to block access to militant ethnonationalist groups - or for a more-fair comparison: Awful groups on WhatsApp.
If there's one thing worse than burdensome walled-garden rules, it's inconsistent enforcement of them.