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Apple removes app created by Andrew Tate::Legal firm had said Real World Portal encouraged misogyny and there was evidence to suggest it is an illegal pyramid scheme
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”
While I truly believe the dude and his app are bad, Apple shouldn’t be able to both arbitrarily remove whatever apps they want from the store, but disallow loading apps from places other than the store.
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In the USA (yes, there are other countries where Apple operates but anyways…) the 1st amendment, unfortunately, doesn’t protect speech on social media, only from government persecution. We cannot read the minds of the framer of the constitution, but I firmly believe they are now rolling in their graves, as they couldn’t have foreseen the internet and social media, and so didn’t account for those.
Exactly because the 1st amendment is effectively neutered, freedom of speech in America is in grave danger and we shouldn’t rejoice about it.
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I expect that once he’s convicted, not just accused, they should not only be allowed, but required to ban him (“innocent until proven guilty”).
And yes, I believe once your platform get big enough to be effectively considered a public square, it should be protected by the 1st amendment.
I don’t know if there are other countries where this is true (maybe some European country? not sure) I’m just saying in this thread I’m speaking only for the USA.
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You’re right and I’m not denying this. I’m just arguing that, for certain very large monopolistic corporations, maybe it should apply as well.
My point was simply “I speak for America as I’m not sure about other countries”, but, I went googling around and it seems other countries (I looked mostly at Europe) are not much better, so I have to conclude freedom of speech is in grave danger pretty much everywhere in the world.
The US (or European) version isn’t flawed, it’s behind the times, as internet, mobile phones and social media didn’t exist when it was written.
Let’s say you have a cafe with an open mic night. One day, a guy comes up to the stage and starts yelling Nazi rhetoric and racist slogans. You can be a free speech absolutist like yourself and let the guy stay on stage, or you can keep your customers and kick the fucker out. The only difference between this and Apple is scale.
Bingo, that makes all the difference, and that there are a lot more than two open mic cafes to choose from.
Cafés can rightfully kick those guys out, but when you’re as big and power as Apple, the law should (but doesn’t as of yet) curtail that power a bit, as it lends itself for immense abuse.
Instead of treating huge corporations that actively suppress competition like they’re a de facto form of government, we should instead… prevent them from getting to the point where their size and market share grants them power over the lives of citizens comparable to that of the government.
Fully agree, and that’s exactly what I’m arguing for here.
But the app itself has already been deemed inappropriate and harmful to the consumer, on its own merits and not related to Tate himself. Equating this to removal of free speech is a false equivalency, that right is not being infringed on and is the wrong argument to be having. Tate has plenty more platforms to freely spew his misogynistic BS.
But he is already guilty of hate speech. That’s why he was banned on multiple platforms like YouTube and TikTok. On that issue alone Apple can cancel their contract with him.
He isn’t just accused, he is ultra accused:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66581218
Did you read the article? Do you know what “alleged” means? There is a trial, let’s wait till the verdict is out
Edit: to be clear, I hope he gets convicted, but let justice do its course.
Edit2: If the app was deemed dangerous, the judge in the trial should rule to ban the app waiting for the verdict, not Apple.
No, protection from government persecution is just what the 2nd amendment to the United States Constitution provides.
The general concept of freedom of speech is larger than that, and there is nothing about a large powerful corporation that should mean they are allowed to fuck you over for what you say
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Okay, aside from 1 ascii character being off, have any meaningful response to what I meant with my comment?
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It’s not easy
I have android, I don’t feel many “social ramifications” thankfully. Android is a bit more free, but it’s still ran by a large corporation that can change the rules at will, so there is no truly free (as in “freedom”) option. So, maybe it’s a duopoly instead of a monopoly, not much better really.
(ok ok, there are some fringe minor alternatives, but not really ready for prime time).
I have had girls halfway through giving me their number, stop because they realize it’s not an iPhone. I have friends I hang out with multiple times a week for almost a decade that don’t add me to the friends group chat because it’s 15 iOS users and most don’t want to deal with non iMessage messaging. Are you seriously telling me you’ve never been in a single groupchat where people say things like “Wait who doesn’t have an iPhone in here”? Because I’ve been in dozens.
At least on Android you can load any app you want at any time even if Google delists it from the play store. Literally did this the other day to install an app that Google didn’t allow that was only hosted on fdroid
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You probably have Android which, while more open, is still ran by Google who could, at will, decide to change the rules tomorrow by forcing an update directly to your (or my) phone. Besides those two, there isn’t much. While competition and free market is good, it’s not always enough, sometimes regulation is needed.
Terms of service can be incredibly one sided. And you don’t have the option to not agree or negotiate, and still use the hardware you paid for in a reasonable way.
If there actually were serious ramifications to not having an Iphone in the US, then Android wouldn’t have more than 40% market share.
The only thing you guys have a problem with are pompous snooty egomaniacs who care about the OS on someone else’s phone.
Why do you care what other people think about the brand of phone you use? And I say this as someone who has an iPhone. I don’t give a shit if someone thinks I have an iPhone or a Nokia 3310. Why would I?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
I’m aware of it. But this is not the same as letting Nazis hang out in your bar turning it into a Nazi bad, you don’t have to even interact, see, or be aware of the shitty things that others do with their own devices.
Apple is a private company that doesn’t want to promote this rapist. It’s their right.
Owning black people was also the right of plantation owners. And Nazis said they had a lot of rights as well…
If you think that something being a legal right means it morally should be, you’re on the wrong side of history.
You’re comparing Apple to Nazis because they don’t want to be in business with a rapist scumbag?
No, I’m saying just because we currently don’t regulate large corporations enough doesn’t mean they should have the right to fuck over anybody they want to
As a privately owned company, they reserve the right to not support rapists.Stop advocating for a rapist.
I don’t support rapists. That dude and people that want his app suck.
But everybody deserves to be able to run whatever software there want on their devices. And no company should be able to tell you what to do with things that you own.
Dude nobody here is advocating for a rapist, period. We advocate for freedom of speech, and not just the limited one currently granted by the 1st amendment of the constitution of the USA.
As a privately owned (really, public) company, they do reserve those right. I believe that’s a mistake, and that the constitution should protect free speech even on those platforms, even though it currently doesn’t.
Edit: I don’t mean they should make it easy to install Tate’s app, mind you, just “possible”. Just allowing app sideloading like Android, behind a bunch of warnings and hoops to jump, would be enough.
This is so dumb. It’s not arbitrary. It’s in their TOS. Apple doesn’t want the negative brand associations with him.
It is arbitrary. There is no court. There is no jury. There is no impartial third party to appeal to. Their terms of service are so vague that they could give any bs reason to take down anything they want. And they have done this to take down perfectly reasonable apps that are just critical of apple in the past.
And Google bans any app that allows Youtube to play while the screen is off.
Platforms owners are allowed to decide what they allow on their own platforms.
It is the same as a physical store removing certain products from their shelves. Nobody should force them to add any they do not want on there.
Don’t like it? Start your own platform.
Yeah. That’s private enterprise. Of course there is no judge or jury. It is arbitrary because it’s business and business is built on people’s feelings.
But when one businesses whims can harm the right of millions, it’s time to regulate them so the CEOs feelings don’t fuck users over.
How about the pyramid scheme thing? How about malware? You gonna bust out your pseduo-Voltaire to defend malware too?
Do you believe it’s actually possible to eliminate malware? I don’t, and I don’t think fear of that is a good reason to let a megacorp censored and suppress people’s rights.
Also that quote wasn’t actually said by Voltaire, but I have another out of context and disputed quote for you that’s very relevant here:
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
A business is not a government and people need to start recognizing the boundaries of what you are actually entitled to as a basic versus what is extra.
If you walked into my printshop and used MY photocopier to routinely print Nazi fliers and this is something that I become aware of I should have the right to veto what use my photocopier is being put to. They are free to say what they want but I do not need to provide them service to assist them in it. They do not have the right to my compliance or my passive participation through use of my business to spread their garbage.
Companies can say no. Freedom of speech protects you from the government it doesn’t entitle you to use of a privately owned platform to serve as your personal megaphone.
Your printshop isn’t a de-facto public town square. Apple, Google, Twitter, and other large companies have inserted themselves into that position.
People like you that just go “government vs private business” miss the entire context, history, and nuance because why that distinction even ever mattered in the past and how it came to be.
In the past, almost every business was closer in practice to being an individual. Your local print shop. Your local hardware store, etc. And for businesses like that, I agree with you 100% , they should get the right to do what they want.
However, private mega-corporations nowadays have more power than most governments at the time the Constitution was signed. When a company has the power to decide what more than half the country can put on their own phone, that’s national level power, companies can seriously oppreess people, discriminate, etc, at this scale. Sure, this is a case of stopping a bad person, but there have also been cases of apple censoring apps critical of apple or other awful governmental atrocities in other countries. I’d rather apple not be able to censor anything, than be able to censor things like that.
And your last paragraph is flat out wrong. Freedom of Speech is a concept, that means you are free to say what you want. You might be thinking of the first amendment to the United States Constitution, which is just one thing the US government promises to do.
The thing is that that concept of business having different responsibilities that scale with size isn’t a thing. It doesn’t matter if they are a print shop or own half the god damn world they operate on the same principles. That is what make these giant conglomerates scary and why anti trust options and breaking businesses into more smaller options is a good idea. But applying your ideas of government to a business is stupid. If you want a town square get the town to build a square where those rights are protected - don’t go down to the Mall owned by a management group and then crow freedom of speech when they throw you out for yelling obnoxious shit in the food court.
Freedom of Speech is a concept - but there are two distinct ones. The actual legal protection and this fictional cootie shot bullshit of “I should be able to say whatever I want and no private citzen or group of private citizens should be able to challenge me in any way”. Honestly the second part is just entitlement half the time because last I checked those who usually advocate for the latter are usually the most willing to remove the former from entire groups of people. Personal consequences and social accountability should be and are part of that freedom. There are countries all over the world that have the freedom of speech enshrined in law but every single one places limitations of some sort of how it is protected and exercised . The US for instance has obscenity law, protected classes for whom services cannot be denied and people have the right to sue for defamation or libel. What counts as a legitimate protest (or exercise of free speech) and what gets the unruly unlawful mob treatment is also governed by a web of concepts and law. Free Speech is not an access card that removes all barriers, it’s a protection from your government and if you want your government to properly protect you from it you need to increase the space, services and property the government runs on where those rules are protected. You privatize a library you lose a lot of protections immediately because a federal or state institution has to play ball and businesses are closer to autocratic rule.
Freedom of Speech is nebulous and nuanced but in all cases, every single country that protects expression, the responsibility, rights and restrictions given to businesses work on private citizen rules and the right for a private entity to refuse or withdraw participation is just as enshrined.
he has the right to have his app. apple and google have the right to not publish it.
As for Google, I agree.
As for apple, how is anybody supposed to install the app if apple refuses to publish it? Unlike Google, they made their app store the gatekeeper as the only way to install apps for end users.
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Ignore the downvotes. I’m glad somebody still believes in freedom, and not just the crazy ones (i.e. fuck Andrew Tate, but fuck censorship too). People have died for us to enjoy this right that others want to throw down the drain.
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