Apple should have the right to control what they distribute through their app store; this is undeniable in my mind. A reasonable, though not as obviously sound, argument could be made that at some level of scope and scale its alright to sell general purpose hardware limited to one operating system which delegates control over executable code to the manufacturer. I believe its also clear that Apple is far past any values of scope and scale where this is reasonable for them, specifically.
No one in these comments is talking about Google. Same thing happened with Fortnite; the conversation is all about Apple. This is a signal that the issue here really isn't their decision to allow or ban specific apps; its the core platform decision to allow or ban application distribution channels.
That might explain why it looks like all of the comments are about one or the other.
Think of iOS devices like gaming consoles with a GSM chip and you'll have a better analogy.
You can't install your own software on an Xbox, Playstation or Switch without going through some hoops. Neither can you get any random piece of software in their stores without complying with their rules.
It's the exact same thing with iOS.
Firstly, the iPhone is used predominantly as a general purpose computing device, whereas a console is definitely not.
Secondly, pretty much every console has been locked down, whereas it's very new for a GP computing device to be this locked down.
Like, I understand the argument here, but the scale of people using only an iPhone makes it dangerous to give Apple this much power.
Imagine if MS could do this back in the 90s on Windows, would that have been acceptable?
It was not acceptable and they were forced to display a browser selection pop-up, on a OS that already freely allowed users to install whatever browser they wished.
Contrast this with Apple's iOS, where they somehow get away with not allowing any other browser engine than Safari's Webkit.
In Europe. I once tried to uninstall IE in 2005, and it was a complete comedy of errors that lead to me re-installing Windows.
I think what's better for the consumer, and society in general I suppose, is to treat them as general computing devices. Especially as we see them converge with PCs (e.g. tablets with keyboards replacing laptops).
Consider the following: If you had to pick only one, would you replace your PC with a gaming console, or a smartphone? I worry the vast majority of people would choose the smartphone, and as such we would have replaced the open PC culture we have now with a closed, proprietary culture.
I do feel they're an interesting analogue; they sell hundreds of millions of units, the scale is there, but why do I, if no one else, hold them to a different standard than phones? At the end of the day, I do hold them to a different standard, even if I don't have a fully logical argument for why.
I'm satisfied enough with three reasons, though none represent a fully logical argument.
First, they have very limited scope. Every game console does one thing: play games. Some game consoles do a second thing: watch movies and tv. There are platform features to support those goals (parties, voice chat, friends, etc), but that's effectively it.
In comparison, phones have undefined potential scope. They're used for everything anyone could need computing for, usually only limited by the screen size, input systems, processing power, and in the iPhone's case, Apple's 2010s attitude about what your phone is for.
Second, that limited scope described above is wholly "non-critical infrastructure". I love gaming; definitely more than most people. I have a Series X and a PS5 sitting next to my TV, while I'm typing this on a PC with a RTX 2070. Gaming can lead to some very powerful, life-changing moments for some people, and its been a godsend during this pandemic for many. But, its still Just Gaming.
I would define both Communication and News, among others, as computing scopes which are critical infrastructure; these are both things people use their phones for, and they're both scopes which Apple has a demonstrated history of assaulting on the iPhone.
Third, there's very little conversation from actual stakeholders concerning game consoles changing. I try to keep apprised with the games industry, and by extension how game developers feel about the major platforms; the discussion about Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo opening their platforms simply isn't happening. While they do have final control over what is allowed to be played on each console, even with the physical disc market, there's very few incidents of them abusing that control to restrict distribution of a game that desired distribution on each console. There certainly are games which haven't even attempted approval and would be shut down (steam has many anime porn games like this), but the problem certainly isn't as severe as on iOS (due to the limited scope, combined with specialized development skillset, combined with individual investment necessary to get a game working on each platform, I imagine).
There's a second argument, the Fortnite one, that secondary marketplaces aren't just necessary for freedom of speech, but also for revenue. All of these companies force games to use their IAP frameworks, which I'm sure takes something around 30%. Its definitely strange to me that Epic railed against Apple for the same policies they accept freely on Xbox, PS4, and Switch, and I have a less cogent explanation for this; either (1) they should be fine paying that tax to gain access to the platform, or (2) they shouldn't be, and thus should take issue with every platform exerting that control. Unfortunately, the reality is probably (3) Sony owns 2% of Epic, Epic cuts special deals with every platform, and those deals have kept them happy for now, despite not applying to the majority of game developers, and Apple is actually in the right on this specific issue in never giving special deals.
Its important to remember that the way Apple and Google treat game developers is, frankly, garbage. That previous statement I made about Apple never giving special deals actually isn't true: Amazon uses their own IAP framework for digital purchases on Kindle and Prime Video. Fortnite is definitely the same scale as these use cases, but they couldn't negotiate a special deal. Google allows applications to use whatever IAP framework they want (IIRC), but not Games; Games have to use Google's 30% tax IAP framework. Due to these policies, Google and Apple are both Top 5 "Gaming Companies" by revenue, despite not producing a single game. By comparison, real gaming platform holders (Sony, MS, Nintendo) negotiate all the time, and find middleground that keeps developers happy.
This conversation is, of course, happening every day with iOS. Nearly every app developer has a story about how Apple has slighted them. Most experience a weird review and recover from it. Some don't. Many have similar stories concerning Google and the Play Store, but its a far less interesting narrative because there are alternatives for Android users and developers. In fact, the best selling Android devices come with an alternative store pre-installed (Galaxy), all of the first-party apps on Samsung phones are distributed and updated through there (in other words, its users use it), and you can go download Fortnite there right now.
So, its not the "exact same". Its similar enough to where I keep an open mind, and I'm ready to join the cerebral fight for mindshare if the need for openness in consoles should occur, but I don't feel we're there yet. The first thing I'd need to see is actual game developers rally against a platform; maybe that isn't happening due to fear of retribution, but I think even considering that we'd be hearing anonymous rumblings, and I'm not even hearing that.
This has been going on since the App store first launched. I remember speaking up about this years and years ago. There were two sides, and well, we know which side one: people just accepted that Apple gets to dictate what goes on the iPhone.
So at this point, I have no sympathy for anyone who suddenly realizes: "Hey, what are we doing? What are we allowing?"
Every cheered when Apple prevented Flash from running on the device. And then porn apps. And then cheap "flashlight" apps. Or apps that did nothing except cost $1000 for a JPEG of a red gem. Guess what? This is the end result.
So I always look for sincerity when people propose fighting back against this now. Because now that it affects them, they want a change, but do they really want change, or are they just being selfish. And it's always selfish. People are fighting for their piece of the pie.
The "fuck you, got mine" attitude.
> No one in these comments is talking about Google.
Google I can side load apps freely. Others can operate stores and do this. Google does not have this problem.
Considering that Facebook and Twitter can't effectively moderate their platforms (algorithms don't work well and human moderation is too expensive) I doubt Parler could either, even if they wanted to.
What an odd statement.
If that were true, Parler would have no reason to exist. After all, it's raison d'etre is specifically to allow people to get away from the perceived censorship on the major social media platforms.
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, etc, etc, all struggle with the issues of content moderation. The perfect example is Facebook pulling down a journalist photo of, if memory serves, a naked girl in a warzone as CP when obviously it was not.
Yup, these systems are imperfect.
But I think it's pretty silly to claim they're completely worthless or ineffective and therefore moderation simply cannot be done, and Parler is therefore off the hook.
Heck, HN has commenting rules/guidelines. Are you suggesting those shouldn't exist and any system to enforce them is pointless?
This is clearly a strawman argument and frankly such an already polarized statement that I'm not sure there's any point replying.
But, I will say this: I'll bet if Parler simply took threats of violence and incitement on their site seriously and agreed to move to proactively remove that kind of content, they wouldn't be in this position.
Unfortunately, their entire pitch as a platform is to not moderate at all. To that end, their CEO has outright stated they will not moderate their site in any way, and as a result there's some truly scary content on that site from individuals who are literally advocating for the murder of those they view as political enemies.
And if not calling for murder and violence is "cultural orthodoxy", well, I guess I'm pretty orthodox and I'd hope you are, too.
As for Parler, their position on moderation always put them in direct violation of the Amazon/Google/Apple ToS for their various services.
The real mystery is why nothing was done to this point.
Unfortunately objective reality is extremely polarizing in 2021. Calling for murder and violence is illegal and should be prosecuted under the law.
>The real mystery is why nothing was done to this point.
Its no mystery why monopolistic tech giants have moved in unison to silence and censor anyone who opposes the narrative pushed by the ruling elite. Extremely low-information people take this to mean silencing Trump and his ignorant followers. Informed people understand that voices across the political spectrum, from advocates for Palestinian rights to journalists who push back against war propaganda, have been silenced by tech giants at the behest of powerful interests. Fortunately, low-information people who numerically dominate our society and mindlessly bleat the propaganda they have been programmed with have nothing to fear from the new totalitarianism. Until of course they get branded as a "Nazi" by having the wrong friend or the wrong relative, or being at the wrong place at the wrong time, or being flagged by a nameless, faceless algorithm that has been "flawlessly" programmed to seek out "Nazis" and ensure that they aren't able to participate in society. Of course when you are unpersoned by a tech giant, and your bank account is cancelled, and you are put on a no fly list and you are restricted from participating in society in every other way, you can always contact the powers-that-be and easily get the situation cleared up, just like all the people who are summarily banned from Google or Facebook without an explanation, right?
Such a standard is on it face politically slanted towards banning conservative/right speech more than left speech
So how would you classify these?
Advocating for killing "commie Democrat traitor politicians":
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/kua9fq
Advocating for bombing Amazon:
https://i.imgur.com/WcwH3F1.jpg
Advocating for attacking Apple stores:
https://i.redd.it/8bcbvebwz6a61.png
Oh, and by the way, that first guy (JuarezTX) has many more posts along those lines.
So, thoughts? Is it more "subjective analysis" to consider these posts to be incitement to violence? Should Parler be removing these?
Your first link is 404, so I can not comment on it
The second likely would not rise to the level of a "True Threat"
The third I think likely would / should be bannable as that is close enough for me to consider it a True Threat.
Apple's complaint was the Parler was not aggressive enough in removing posts, not that they were not removing posts at all
Apple, Google, and Amazon all have a very clear political bias in their enforcement of their own rules, I am not sure how this could even be debatable anymore.
I can easily cherry pick comments from Twitter, Facebook, etc that have the same or stronger lang around incitement to violence only towards groups like the Police, or other unpopular groups... This level of aggressive enforcement does not seem to be present if the target of the incitement is unpopular
My purpose wasn't to cherry pick, it was to understand what your line is re free/legal speech.
The fact the second one isn't a direct call to action but just an implication, and therefore you think it's fine, is useful information. It tells me that your bar and mine are definitely not the same.
I'll bet you also don't think Trump encouraged the rioting the other day because he didn't explicitly say "hey everyone, riot now!"
Which is of course what makes Trump so effective. Decades of litigation have taught him the artform if plausible deniability. Never say what you want. Imply it and let folks put two and two together
Of course, in the case if Parler, there's no shortage of folks who lack similar instincts and therefore say the quiet part loud...
> I can easily cherry pick comments from Twitter, Facebook, etc that have the same or stronger lang around incitement to violence
The difference is the CEO of Parler has ruled out moderating that kind of content, including the examples I've cited here, whereas every other site removes it.
So the situation simply isn't comparable.
> This level of aggressive enforcement does not seem to be present if the target of the incitement is unpopular
Okay, so where are your examples? I'd be happy to provide my opinion if you'd like.
I have outlined what my line is, True Threat [1], is a legal standard: "‘True threats’ encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals. . . . Intimidation in the constitutionally proscribable sense of the word is a type of true threat, where a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death.” [1]
>>I'll bet you also don't think Trump encouraged the rioting the other day because he didn't explicitly say "hey everyone, riot now!"
I dont actively follow Trump's (or any other) twitter feed, I largely view Twitter as a cesspool just like I view Parler and all other Social Media including Facebook, Gab, even Reddit at this point. Mostly because each platform ends up becoming an ideological echo chamber for the most extreme views of their founding ideology, for the major platforms that ends up being left authoritarianism, for many of the alt-tech that ends up being right authoritarianism..
Since I am not authoritarian at all, left or right, those platforms hold little interest for me and I generally avoid those places. So I can not speak to all of Trump's tweets, though I do believe the partisan machine has generally applied the least favorable reading of all his public comments over the last several years and often time claim "dog whistles" far too often to the point where my general position is one of "Boy who cried wolf" when I see these types of comments.
My belief in this was reinforced by twitter's very very weak justification for their permaban [2]. The posts they highlighted in their justification were not something I would consider to be bannable speech
>>whereas every other site removes it.
Which I also explained due to Parler's very different position on what constitutes bannable speech, they take the same position that generally favor i.e all Legal Speech should be allowed, if a person could not be arrested and jailed for the speech then it should be permitted.
Now I have a feeling you also want the law to be changed to the point where people can be jailed more aggressively for their speech not simply be banned from a popular website. One of the reasons I generally oppose popular platforms banned unpopular speech is that fact that the law often follows popular opinion, thus it is popular to ban speech today it will not be long before the overton window shifts where maybe we need to water down the protections of legal speech, to the point where we are tossing people in cages for their unpopular speech.
As a individualist, libertarian advocating for Geo-Libertarian public policies my opinions are often viewed as unpopular, it concerns me that we are attempting to create safe spaces and echo chambers online where no dissenting opinions are welcome, and if you say an unpopular thing you are painted as a racist, bigot, sexist or some other immoral designation. For example I have been called a racist simply because I oppose income based taxation.
>>Okay, so where are your examples?
Just go back to the BLM protests/riots there we all kinds of calls for violence that went unchallenged. Then there is antifa, hell for a time there was popular subculture around "Punch a Nazi" and of-course all conservatives were "Nazi's"
[1] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1025/true-threats
[2] https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspensio...
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/27/764879242/nra-was-foreign-ass...
Democrats have called everyone from sitting US presidents to Tulsi Gabbard a "Russian Asset". This is more than likely another false alarm.
What are all these Russian assets meant to be doing anyway? Promoting an excessively calm world peace with strong ties between Russians and Americans? Russia hasn't been a credible threat to the US for 30 years. Nobody is accusing all these assets of actually doing anything. There isn't a path for how Russia is going to take advantage of the US. Anything Russia can do, China can do 3 times over.
The time that they were an appropriate punching bag is long since past.
>There isn't a path for how Russia is going to take advantage of the US
Maybe the plan is to sow discord among NATO allies, cause division among US citizens, make democratic processes such as voting appear unreliable, etc.
And if there are worries about division between US citizens, possibly Amazon, Apple and Google need to be probed for Russian connections. Suppressing the speech of the sitting president is going to be quite divisive and makes the democratic process look extremely unreliable.
There is no reason to be concerned if people have connections to Russia is the point here. The top examples of problems on your mind are kinda trivial compared to what the US does to itself.
The only way to contain fringe elements is to allow them to identify themselves and be prepared when they demonstrate intent to perform harmful acts (“terrorism”). The polite silent majority will go home, the extremist minority will go to prison if they overstep legal boundaries.
I’m not sold on this action either way, just providing what I believe to be something worth considering.
It seems like people denying a problem exists is creating massive inertia against solutions to even the most apparent and emotionally salient problems (mass shootings, COVID, etc).
Are these companies acting preemptively from fear of being later assigned culpability?
The people really deeply devoted to these movements will remain, but many others will just lose interest if it becomes inconvenient.
The constant rejection isolates and estranges the proselytizer from normal society.
Does it though? 21% of voters approved of storming of the Capitol. That's not something that can be cancelled by banning a single app. I can see these bans biting the liberals in the back the next time Republicans take control of the federal government.
https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20...
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/09/23/trump-amer...
That also aligns with around 20% of voters supporting Nixon after Watergate. I think we should do our best to make sure that number stays at around 20% and does not grow; for if it does it imperils the whole democratic system of government that we take for granted.
I wholeheartedly agree that authoritarianism is a threat to democracy, though.
Pretending that it's exclusive to the political right is not favorable to democracy.
If it's difficult to use the thing and the content skews more and more extreme, existing users may continue to get more radicalized, but new users don't offset attrition rates and eventually it dies off.
Americans drop a loser like a brick. Taking Parler off the app stores seriously de-legitimizes their cause and their celebrity. If you read Apple's language [1] its very clear Apple believes Parler is operating in extremely bad faith, that they either lack the ability to moderate or are only doing so as a temporary token gesture. This means Parler's user demographic will become more and more full of fringe radical elements that scare off the silent majority less radical crowd.
[1]: "Your response also references a moderation plan “for the time being,” which does not meet the ongoing requirements in Guideline 1.2 – Safety – User Generated content"