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Re:Apple Approves Parler to Return to App Store by tekstar on Monday April 19, 2021 @12:44PM (#26864825)
Oh please. Laws exist, platforms must ensure their customers follow the laws, and when a customer refuses to remove illegal content or implement a moderation policy the platform has the choice to accept the liability or remove the customer. Proof is right here, with some moderation changes they let Parler back in.
Re:Apple Approves Parler to Return to App Store by Aerroon on Monday April 19, 2021 @12:46PM (#26864868)
When will Google and Apple start moderating Chrome and Safari? Those are their apps. Therefore they should be held accountable for all the unmoderated content you can find on them, right?

Or are some apps/publishers more equal than others? If Brave becomes more popular, will they also get removed for "unmoderated content"?

Re:Apple Approves Parler to Return to App Store by shadowgovt on Monday April 19, 2021 @01:48PM (#26865819)
Some apps and publishers have always been more equal than others.

Look in the source code for both Firefox and Chromium, and you'll find a section that glad-handles high-value extension binaries... The binaries where if they aren't configured correctly when the browser is installed, the user will assume the browser is broken, not the extension binary.

Similarly, Microsoft decompiled some of its own APIs when developing Windows XP to account for circumstances where third-party developers (mostly Adobe) had squeezed clock cycles out of their API calls by assuming certain memory footprints in clear violation of the API spec. But if Photoshop didn't work on Windows XP, it was XP that was broken, not Photoshop.

There has never, to my knowledge, been a point in the history of the computer industry where "all software is created equal."

Re:Apple Approves Parler to Return to App Store by ksec on Monday April 19, 2021 @02:00PM (#26865992)
I have a better example. Email. Do they now censor my email from a Group message involving things they do not like?

Do I need moderation for my Email now?

But you know Apple will hide behind their privacy policy when it is their apps.

Re:Apple Approves Parler to Return to App Store by GoldenMonkey on Monday April 19, 2021 @01:05PM (#26865149)
Laws exist? How about protecting free speech and other points of view. It's clearly a right vs left viewpoint. And so political. We can easily list how much worse facebook is in terms of supporting dictators, supporting the CCP, censoring stories on Uyghurs. Not allowing political discourse on alternative viewpoints besides what is in their leftist bubble.
Re:Apple Approves Parler to Return to App Store by kingnothing on Monday April 19, 2021 @02:16PM (#26866181)
Free speech protects you from the government, not private companies.
Re:Apple Approves Parler to Return to App Store by noofen on Monday April 19, 2021 @04:28PM (#26867599)
These "private companies" are monopolies.
Re:Apple Approves Parler to Return to App Store by dahfizz on Monday April 19, 2021 @04:50PM (#26867824)
The first amendment protects against Congress specifically. But you as a human have the right to free speech, and that right needs to be protected against private individuals/ corporations as well. If McDonalds blew up your house, you would sue for property damages instead of shrugging and saying "well it wasn't the government, so I guess they didn't violate my property rights after all."

Whether what Apple did here is actually a violation of one's right to free speech is a pretty tenuous argument. But that is the argument you should be responding to.

Re:Apple Approves Parler to Return to App Store by jariel on Monday April 19, 2021 @01:55PM (#26865925)
"Oh please. Laws exist, platforms must ensure their customers follow the laws, and when a customer refuses to remove illegal content"

Don't make this about 'laws' - this was definitely not about 'laws' or the 'law' would have stepped in - and it's definitely not Amazon's job to enforce the law.

Amazon knowingly sells fake goods and suppresses unions so let's not give them the moral high ground.

Apple's concern I don't think was arbitrary: there was a lot of 'really bad discourse' on Parler, and it was not moderated at all (or community moderated which had no effect).

I don't like Apple's App Store 'monopoly' however they were within reason to not want Parler in the store.

If Apple allowed non-AppStore downloads, then I think it would have sat much better.

Amazon however, I think did something a few steps more inappropriate and more nakedly political.

Amazon has a zillion customers that do arguably more nefarious things, in the 'big picture' they look hypocritical, though they are surely within legal rights as well.

I do feel however, that Amazon shouldn't be allowed to drop customers without a 3 month notice unless said customers have done something actually illegal, and by that I mean 'illegal as designated by an actual Judge'.

Re:Apple Approves Parler to Return to App Store by tekstar on Monday April 19, 2021 @02:00PM (#26865994)
> and it's definitely not Amazon's job to enforce the law.

It's about liability, and big corp's allergy to it.

> I do feel however, that Amazon shouldn't be allowed to drop customers without a 3 month notice unless said customers have done something actually illegal, and by that I mean 'illegal as designated by an actual Judge'.

That's not how liability works

Re:Apple Approves Parler to Return to App Store by octopoc on Monday April 19, 2021 @02:06PM (#26866071)
> > I do feel however, that Amazon shouldn't be allowed to drop customers without a 3 month notice unless said customers have done something actually illegal, and by that I mean 'illegal as designated by an actual Judge'.

> That's not how liability works

The post you're replying to is describing a better process (note the use of the word "shouldn't"), and your reply seems to be saying, "no, because that's not the current process."

The fact that the system we have now exists does not mean it's the best system possible. I could have misunderstood your comment though.

Re:Apple Approves Parler to Return to App Store by jariel on Tuesday April 20, 2021 @07:04AM (#26873039)
It has nothing to do with liability.

Amazon hosts all sorts of content that could make them otherwise liable, and they are selling billions in knock-off products every month.

They are able to insulate themselves from it quite well - much like 'Avis Car Rental' is not 'liable' for agency or person that does something bad while renting their car.

Amazon's response was at least about PR, and probably a little bit politics.

Re:Apple Approves Parler to Return to App Store by zackees on Monday April 19, 2021 @09:54PM (#26869900)
What liability? Section 230 specifically says they are immune from liability.