Apple has decided to hold the power of being the gatekeeper of mobile apps. Every time they utilize that power they demonstrate the power relation that they hold over their captured audience. I could be cheering when I agree with their choice and get upset every time they do something which I disagree with, but in terms of power it the exact same thing. I rather choose to oppose the power itself.
But if there are other ways to install software, I don't really have any moral qualms with Apple moderating its own store. They can sell whatever they choose to sell, as far as I'm concerned. In the case of Parler specifically, I see no moral issue whatsoever because you can still access Parler through the browser. Apple and Google aren't blocking their users from accessing Parler, they're simply refusing to do business with them.
Calling this censorship or a violation of free speech is, to me, confusing the right to free speech with an imagined duty of other people and entities to provide you with a platform.
However could not the same be said about the app in the article? What does the app do that they can't do through the browser? If apple has no power in this relationship then the impact of the decision should be zero. It seems however that Apple do have some power or else the Russian government wouldn't have gone after Apple to censor the app.
Censorship is just an other word for power abusing their position to limit the powerless. It is not about forcing people and entities to provide a service, its to prevent people and entities that holds power to abuse that power in order to keep others powerless. If that translated in a specific case to being forced to provide a service, then there is always a second choice. They can open up and give up the thing that gives them power. In the case of apple that would be to provide alternative ways to install software without tricks that keeps apple in power. It is an active choice of Apple to be the door keeper for what the captured users can or can't do with their own devices.
If HN was the primary place where the wast majority of startups got funding, and HN moderator would delete comments in order to influence the conversation between investors and founders, such moderation would very quickly be seen as an abuse of power. It is one form of moderation that I have never seen on HN.
As it is, HN moderators has a rather limited power and rarely been exercising the little power they have. A way to describe this is that people wielding power do not always commit act of abuse, and all power is not equal. There is no true name policy on HN, no rules against people contacting each other outside of HN, no restrictions against people based on political, religious or other views. I can mention the competing communication platform discord and not get banned for doing so. People can read HN without creating accounts, and HN do not block VPNs or Tor.
As a tool for authoritarians, HN moderation is not an effective one. Possible by design. Their behavior has so far not been to utilize power in order to maintain power. There is not much left if you remove power and abuse from the definition of censorship, and so I would not describe HN moderation as it is now as censorship. Occasionally they do things like automatically reduce article weights based on specific political topics, which is a soft kind of censorship, but from what I have seen they have taken a bit more relaxed attitude and not done that so often any more.
But because it's privately owned, it isn't.
The way it hinges on who's name is on the receipt. Which is just a legal artifact. Seems unrealistic.
I mean, the more realistic take is : yes, our whole population is definitely using it to communicate. Before that solid fact any mere legalism is insubstantial.
And when you look at it that way it follows that there is definitely a snake in the cradle.
The argument is that the first ammendment protects the right to engage in private censorship.
In my mind, the core debate at the center of the issue is the assertion that corporations have the same rights as any other citizen. I think that is patently absurd but the Supreme Court disagrees.
So if the city officials sell public squares into private ownership you loose the right to protest. Its not sensorship!
Very convenient, I am sure it will never be abused.
Lets try a different example - what if oil companies pay twitter to boot off all climate activists, is that cool?
This is sarcasm right ? I mean when the party in power directly issues fiat's to social media to ban something, it is OK ?
This is because your right to free speech doesn't entail a right to any particular platform or channel. Others, including the government, are in no way obligated to help you broadcast your speech.
And then we would ask if the behavior in question interferes with the achievement of that good.
Thus we avoid the merely semantic tangles.
Now, i know this is crazy, what if someone 'encourages' them to make the correct decision regarding not helping you? Someone with loads of money and inflience, that doesn't like your speech? Like an oil company, sensoring an activist, is that still legal?
Parler was bankrolled by the 'powerless' heiress daughter of oligarch Robert Mercer.
We could all be cheering for the fact that the powerful went after those users, and then be angry when they go after users we want to protect, but I don't. I rather want to promote users ability to choose themselves if they want a filter that removes Parler members from their own devices.
On HN there is a setting which allow users to see dead comments. Its a user setting. There could be any number of dead comments and yet users can see them if they choose to do so. Such a simple choice makes a rather large difference in the power relation between HN moderators and HN user. Without it this whole discussion could not even exist as the parent comment is dead.
Given, it was Gab and Parker's problem for not going multi-cloud; but there is something specifically untenable to me about this whole "my entire infrastructure is now dead to you in 48 hours" sort of thing that Gab and Parler went through. Yes, it's a matter of contract law because they accepted the ToS as is, but I don't see anywhere that actually services alternative terms pipelines either.
To say nothing of the personal vendetta between the owner of Amazon and said candidate, the owner being the wealthyest man on Earth and directly controlling a big mouth-piece of the media (WashPo). The US is by definition an oligarchic state (the previous president was an oligarch, the current one was put in place by the oligarch enemies of the one before him).
Sounds like pure speculation.
Again, I'm surprised that almost no-one in here (to say nothing of the big media outlets) is not saying anything about the huge conflict of interest involving Bezos and the companies he owns and/or controls.
https://www.facebook.com/ProjectVeritas/videos/2445258202376...
Yep, I saw a few types of researches before. The US is, by all definitions, an oligarchy.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...