Now even if you want to go the pedantic or legal route, the meaning of complicity changes according to jurisdictions. Many legal jurisdictions consider interference in the opposition to a crime or even silence in the face of a crime to be complicity if you had sufficient knowledge about wrongdoer's intent. In this particular case, people had been warning for decades of this exact outcome, down to the details of the headline.
You could argue that this is policing of thought and opinion. Obviously, we're talking about moral responsibility here, which is just another opinion too as far as consequences are considered. (Except in cases of astroturfing and sock puppeting where the complicity is more direct. But we will ignore that possibility for now.)
I don't know about this line of thinking. If you truly believe this, then you could point to just about anyone on earth and state they're complicit in some atrocity or oppression.
I would concede there are degrees of proximity, but this particular example, that if you are in any way contributing to Apple's success (not matter the size) that you are complicit, and by implication be held responsible, for fasicm is truly whacky in my books.
Ah! I see where it's going now. You can't reinterpret and dismiss others' statements to your liking. If you choose to vocally support an activity that you know to be harmful in some way, then you're actively complicit in it. That's a choice. And not one that everyone takes to end up fighting with their own conscience. And even those who do, weigh their actions against a moral boundary they maintain.
> I would concede there are degrees of proximity, but this particular example, that if you are in any way contributing to Apple's success (not matter the size) that you are complicit, and by implication be held responsible, for fasicm is truly whacky in my books.
Misinformation peddlers actively frustrate and defeat the efforts of those who try to raise awareness and alarm about the problem. That's plenty enough for them to be held morally responsible for the results.
For example, surely anti-abolitionists' apologia made them more complicit in the continued institution of slavery than those who chose not to make excuses for it did, even if they themselves did not own or facilitate the sale of people.
We don't seem to have a problem with assigning some responsibility for abolition with abolitionists' own apologia, some of it still read in schools today.
Of course government censorship becomes a lot easier if you only need to put pressure on one company.
Things cannot improve unless stakeholders use their levers to change or abandon the company.
I think I have some index funds but I am going to try to put them into the DOW or gold or something.
I don't have access to the DOW directly, I would still have to choose individual stocks.
[1] https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/etfs/profi...
[2] https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/etfs/profi...
[3] https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/etfs/profi...
I give you credit for speaking up for what you believe in publicly.
My opinion is that it is pretty self evident that a large or small company would remove an app at the request of the US Government that actively tracks federal agents that are attempting to enforce the law.
In fact, it is because of just how obviously "self evident" it is that the point can even be made in the first place: if you construct a giant centralized bottleneck on the distribution of software and information, you will end up being asked to use that bottleneck to filter content by governments... not just in the United States, but around the world. If that is truly "self evident" to you, you do not build the centralized bottleneck unless you like the idea of the eventual possible results of such.
And, in that analysis, if you like the result, then you can argue with the tone of the wording, but I don't think the point is "untrue". Apple doesn't really have any choice in the matter, so they are a patsy here. And if you argued to help Apple obtain their centralized position, you are complicit in said result. You might be proud to be complicit, or you might be happy that Apple is a patsy, but that doesn't change the truth of the situation.
So like, great: you say that is self-evident... did you like what happened today? If not, do you like it when Apple does the same thing for counties all over the world--when I said "authoritarian control" it was me talking about other countries, such as China, where I think you would be hard-pressed to argue otherwise--and pulls apps like VPNs and protest coordination tools? If so, again, very not my jam... but it certainly makes sense for you to be happy Apple has no choice and proud of any prior involvement you have with such...
...but, if you ever think Apple is doing stuff that makes your stomach lurch because they have no choice but to follow the edict of a government, the question is: what does that imply for moral product development in this world? Do you build--and then advocate for, or defend on forums--a centralized App Store and deny the ability for third-party software? Or do you, as a principled stance... not do that?
To refrain one more time: we are in intense and powerful agreement that "it is pretty self evident that a large or small company would remove an app at the request of the US Government that actively tracks federal agents that are attempting to enforce the law". That isn't only "your" opinion: that is "our" opinion! ;P
As the moment of agency then happens well before this moment today, we then can't shy away from the real question: do you like Trump and how he's running ICE, and the result it has on families? If you do, again: not my jam ;P, but I totally get why you'd be happy about the result today or confused as to why you should feel differently about it.
However, it isn't obvious to me you do, as you want to hide behind the action today being "self evident", as if that obviates the need to even verify someone's (I want to say "yours" but you might technically be arguing on behalf of an anonymous third party, and I don't want to leave opening to pivot the discussion into whether or not you personally ever advocated for Apple) opinion on ICE: in fact, that is why that political opinion matters so very very much!
In a world where we decide one company has a bottleneck on information and freedom strong enough to quickly remove access to content and tools from a large percentage of the population, suddenly we must care deeply about how that tool will get used. If you don't like how that tool gets used, you really have to be advocating for that tool to not exist.
I don't know that saying to someone: "hey, you're complicit in fascism because you bought an iPhone" is a reasonable stance.
Imagine you're a factory worker who builds a component for Apple products. Is it fair to shout to that person you're enabling the US government's clampdown on peaceful resistance?
Do you think it makes sense to say to the tens of millions of Americans (and foreign investors) who hold positions in S&P 500 that they are complicity in fascism because Apple decided to remove apps?
I can appreciate your passion and conviction, but I don't know that the world is that black and white.
The cause is that you are supporting a company that thinks it has the right to control what its users do on their devices, and the effect is that this relationship is easily hijacked by the government. It actually is very straightforward.
If you want to stop the company, you have to convince the stakeholders to change/abandon the company or disempower the stakeholders themselves directly. This is why I make the case here: I can either convince you or oppose you directly.
>I don't know that saying to someone: "hey, you're complicit in fascism because you bought an iPhone" is a reasonable stance.
Don't worry, I do know that it is a reasonable stance. There are a ton of phones on the market that don't enable this type of control, and they are more affordable and useful than iphones. The barrier to entry is slight inconvenience.
>Imagine you're a factory worker who builds a component for Apple products. Is it fair to shout to that person you're enabling the US government's clampdown on peaceful resistance?
Factory workers are probably living in some third world country where they have very little leverage in negotiating the terms of the company, and they are probably too poor to afford iphones and don't care about US politics, but they still have some leverage. So you could shout that to the factory worker but they probably wouldn't care. It would be futile
>Do you think it makes sense to say to the tens of millions of Americans (and foreign investors) who hold positions in S&P 500 that they are complicity in fascism because Apple decided to remove apps?
I don't use this language of fascism because it has because been overused by the left. But my answer is simply yes. Shareholders are responsible for the actions of their companies.
You are just playing this game of deferring responsibility to some non-existent person. The consumer defers blame onto the company. The worker defers blame onto the management. Management defers blame onto the shareholders. The shareholders can pass the blame onto management. At the end of the game we can all shrug and say "well there was nothing I could have done".
The reality is that all stakeholders are to blame. Everyone has some leverage over the company, and many stakeholders have pivotal positions.
1. Apple users tolerate the status quo through inaction, which is the centralized distribution of software. 2. Governments take advantage of this status quo to control apple users.
If it was the case that the OS was open, then the US Gov. would have no leverage to prevent the distribution of the software mentioned in the article. However apple's stakeholders enable and justify the centralized software distribution as a feature rather than a bug.
Developers are in on it too: the locked-down ecosystem is more lucrative for them because there are higher entry costs to producing software, and thus reduced competition. It prevents piracy for example, at the cost of preventing the distribution of pretty much all open source software.
Having a point of view and then using that point of view to make public claims, often counter-claims in face of precisely this type of criticism, is an action. Examples are easily found on this forum.
> or wrongdoing act
Which includes simple dishonesty.
Would have Apple done the same if it was any another country?
Probably not. They would have courts and the democratic processes to help them resist.
But in face of authoritarian government who can hurt Apple's sales the company always bows. Be it actions in China or now action in US. The motive is simply profit.
The company cannot have a centralized control to make it "safer" and then give that way if the profits are under threat. Companies should be shamed for that.
Does Apple publish apps designed for reporting locations of immigrants or minority groups? Is that a line of business they want to be in at all?
Your second paragraph reads to me like you’re equating the desire to protest and document the atrocities being committed by government agents to physical threats and violence being committed by unhinged private citizens against minority groups. This is a disingenuous argument.
"An app that gives you real-time updates on the location of people you deeply dislike" is
It's extremely unlikely that there are not more people out there
The point is that If you're in Apple's position it doesn't especially matter who is being targeted and how many people are actually using the app that way. If they don't want to be in the anonymous people-reporting app game on the basis that it may make people unsafe vis a vis said unhinged private citizens, that's not unreasonable or inconsistent, and it doesn't necessarily take an extraordinary government threat to the business for Apple to want to distance themselves from that kind of app.
However, you said: "If the app in question is being used by some to commit targeted violence, ..."
Was this a pure hypothetical? If so, I don't think it needs to be addressed until it actually becomes a real problem. Apple itself ships an app that alerts me when a police officer is nearby (Maps), but I haven't heard about any police being targeted with violence because of that.
If it was not a pure hypothetical, I'd be interested to see a link, as I'm not aware of any violence committed due to the existence of ICE-tracking apps. To my previous point though, I am aware of private citizens committing violence against the same groups that ICE targets with kidnapping and trafficking.
While it might better satisfy our sense of justice to wait until we can definitely say that a enabled b, the hazard is obvious, and Apple can reasonably determine that they don't want to be party to it.
> I am aware of private citizens committing violence against the same groups that ICE targets ..
Of course. Does Apple host apps whose primary purpose is reporting the location of those groups?
Cool, then I stand by what I said previously: it doesn't need to (and actually shouldn't) be addressed now. The app has value for journalists, protesters, people looking to prevent family or friends from being kidnapped, and others. All of those benefits outweigh purely hypothetical concerns around possible violence.
> rather than their actions.
>> everyone who claims that Apple fundamentally needs the centralized ability to control apps on their platforms "for everyone's safety"
Sure, Apple probably wants to have control over that too, but are we really going to let them destroy the very thing that made these systems magic? Computers are "magic" because we can program them. Because they are environments. You cannot make a product for everybody. But you can make an environment in which everyone can adapt to their individual needs and use cases. That's what makes the computer magical and so special. A smart phone is nothing without its apps.
So yes, complicit.
I don’t know that that is fair.
This framing is designed to shame people into feeling guilty for their point of view, rather than their actions.
Being complicit means to be knowingly involved in or facilitating an illegal or wrongdoing act. In my books, it requires a level of participation that I don’t think your characterization meets.