6 ms·

This is a fundamental problem with the single DRM-enforced app store model that Apple innovated, and which has been widely copied and lauded. Once you implemen

by veidr 8y ago

This is a fundamental problem with the single DRM-enforced app store model that Apple innovated, and which has been widely copied and lauded. Once you implement that, you have to toady up to whatever governments exist, including oppressive/murderous regimes, to be in their markets. If your ecosystem is just console video games, say, it's not that big of a deal; you have to either censor some games or don't enter certain countries at all. Might be unfortunate, but its not a fundamental human rights issue. But if your ecosystem is about general-purpose apps and communication tools, you become complicit to some degree in all sorts of vile shit; oppression and forced relocation of minorities (China), mass murder of gay people (Russia), etc. There's no way around this for Apple; they have to cave to government demands or risk being forced out of the Russian market. That wasn't inevitable, though; it's a side effect of the model they chose.

sandov 8y ago
This is why we must eradicate proprietary software from our general purpose computers, because computers are the single most powerful weapon we have for freedom and self-improvement. It doesn't matter too much if your videogame console is closed source, but it matters a lot if the software you use to read books, to write, to communicate with people is closed source. Apple isn't going to do it, Google isn't going to do it. We must do it.
- Scene_Cast2 8y ago
  There are three ways of slicing the problem: the technical capability of loading whatever apps you want, the legal ability to do so, and the ecosystem / game theoretical (is it a reasonable way of doing things - e.g. living without gapps is possible but very hard in practice). Back when Stallman outlined the distinction between proprietary vs open, he meant all of the above in spirit, but never really addressed the hosting and server-side side of things. I think it's currently still a weak spot in his philosophy. Open-source software doesn't truly solve the server-side if your phone has a hardcoded "ax.itunes.apple.com" - in theory, you could modify & recompile & host your own, but it wouldn't be a first-class-citizen thing. Also, consider e.g. if Apple's stack was open but highly customized - you needed a team of engineers and a swath of servers to simply get a clone up and running. Again, not impossible, but I don't think open-source is only a part of the solution.
- veidr 8y ago
  Well, 100% conversion of the entire world to open-source software would indeed solve the issue I describe. But, I have only 57 more years to live[1], and I don't think I will likely see that happen in my remaining time on earth. Another way to prevent this issue is simply to have open computing platforms without significant barriers to running arbitrary software, and without any gatekeeper that can prevent them. This is mostly how computers have worked since their inception, and indeed is still how Apple's macOS machines work. I am not saying that this model can prevent atrocities, but it can prevent companies like Apple from being complicit in those atrocities. (But I think it's likely that this kind of platform model would benefit at-risk populations to some degree, too, because when there's no effective gatekeeper, there's no central point for a state actor wishing to do evil to apply pressure to.) [1]: I just assume I will live to 100. :)
  - y_molodtsov 8y ago
    But we still have model — Apple isn’t a monopoly in any way.
logicallee 8y ago
But Apple has to obey the laws of the United States. Here is an alternative viewpoint: If Apple is based in the "right" country (that believes in freedom) -- and I think you and I seem to agree this is the case, because you don't mention anything bad about the U.S., mentioning only Russia and China by name, and with descriptions like "vile shit", "mass murder", "oppression" --, then the U.S. government should be doing whatever negotiations and interventions need to take place to keep foreign governments from forcing a U.S. company to do evil. Here is an analogy. If you're CEO at a Fortune 500 American company, you don't have to make your life choices so that foreign governments can't blackmail you into doing evil, by kidnapping your family. Because the government protects you from that. If Tim Cook's family were abducted by China to force Tim Cook to have Apple do something... well this scenario is just completely implausible, the whole weight of the entire U.S. government would be all over it, it would be an international issue of immense proportions. I think it's kind of up to the government to keep foreign companies from forcing American companies to do bad things.
- jpetso 8y ago
  It kind of isn't up to the U.S. government. It's about how you structure your organization to have the right incentives to do the right thing. Apple and numerous other businesses are beholden to shareholders, whose #1 demand is profit. Many shareholders are located in the U.S. - so far, so good. At some point, the business decides that more profit is best obtained through international expansion. Apple extracts money from Europe, China, Russia etc. and delivers the desired returns. Yay. The flipside is that if those returns are in danger of disappearing, there's now an immense pressure to stop that from happening. I don't believe the U.S. government can even help Apple if they don't want to be helped - their primary incentive is not preservation of diversity and free speech, but satisfying the shareholders. Possible fixes: a) Avoid conflicts of interest. Apple is not an American company at this point, it's an international company. So, limit your market reach to regions that align with your principles, i.e. don't expand to Russia and China. Of course, this can never work because public companies are legally obligated to maximize shareholder returns. Which leads to, b) Put incentives in place to prefer doing the right thing over the profitable thing, i.e. don't sell a voting majority of your business to investors who will sacrifice principles for money. Both of these fixes mean sacrificing market share to other, less morally grounded businesses, because you don't get to be a world leader in selling stuff by playing fair. You can't go back to playing fair once you depend on being a world leader. Apple literally can't do anything about it because of what its incentives are, and if it aligned those differently then it wouldn't be the big Apple that we give a shit about. I don't believe there's a solution to this except supporting a decentralized market and educating others about why that's important. Apple is a lost cause, they're at the point of no return. They couldn't fix it if they wanted to. Let's make sure they're only one of several viable options going forward.
volgo 8y ago
What about mass incarceration of black people (USA)? Should Apple play nicely with them too?
dane-pgp 8y ago
> If your ecosystem is just console video games, say, it's not that big of a deal; you have to either censor some games or don't enter certain countries at all. Might be unfortunate, but its not a fundamental human rights issue. Be careful of the ground you might concede to the censors. Freedom of expression is most certainly a fundamental human right: https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/quotes/universal-declaration-of-human-rights-article-19 https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/quotes/universal-declar... It's easy to dismiss video games as "lesser" forms of art or expression, but we shouldn't underestimate the potential for games to convey significant social and political messages (both positive and negative). In case a concrete example is needed of a thought-provoking video game with artistic merit, let me suggest this to those who haven't seen or played it: http://www.papersplea.se/ http://www.papersplea.se/
- ggg9990 8y ago
  There isn’t a single source of truth on what is or isn’t a “fundamental human right.” It’s a matter of opinion that differs across time and geography.
  - MereInterest 8y ago
    Then make an argument about whether or not you consider freedom of expression to be a fundamental human right. You have stated that arguments on the topic are possible. You have done absolutely nothing to argue any position on the matter.
  - lillesvin 8y ago
    While it's not as universal as its name makes it seem, the UN uses The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human... That would be a good starting point since it already backed by some pretty powerful countries.
- veidr 8y ago
  You are right. That sounded more dismissive than I intended, and I agree on both counts; video games can be artistic masterpieces, and freedom of expression is a very important and fundamental human right. So censorship of games is bad, too. But in my judgement, it is probably not going to rise the the level of interning or murdering people at scale. Will check out the game. ;-)
jackson1way 8y ago
> mass murder of gay people (Russia) any source on that? I have never heard about any murdering of gay people in russia. Clearly, Russia is rather hostile to gay people. But "mass murder" requires a proper source. Or you you are walking on the Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction path.
- veidr 8y ago
  Well, here are a few sources (I think the first one might be where I originally read about it, and realized the situation there was worse than I knew): https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2017-in-review/the-year-russian-lgbt-persecution-defied-belief https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2017-in-review/the-year-ru... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/27/russia-chechnya-pop-star-zelimkhan-bakayev-missing https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/27/russia-chechny... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_concentration_camps_in_Chechnya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_concentration_camps_in_Che... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/01/russia-rise-homophobic-violence https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/01/russia-rise-ho...
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    None of those in any way support your comment, whatsoever. And calling Chechnya Russia is similar to calling Peurto Rico the United States. It's a subject of Russia, but is not what you'd call Russia. It's a 95% Islamic nation that waged a lengthy war of terror attacks against Russia and has its own independent government, rules, and laws which are driven primarily by Islamic law. You'll find nations driven by Islamic law tend to make Russia look like LGBT heaven. Of course Russia is no such thing. It's illegal in Russian to distribute 'propaganda' for homosexual or bisexual advocacy in the presence of minors. And that in turn is used as a justification to prevent nearly all public homosexual or bisexual activism, though people are free to do whatever they want in private. In any case stating Russia is engaging in "mass murder of gay people" is something way beyond sensationalism and a reflection of how our media's efforts at creating a Red Scare has, arguably intentionally, driven people completely to the point of overt ignorance. It's like wartime propaganda, without a war.
duxup 8y ago
>But if your ecosystem is about general-purpose apps and communication tools, you become complicit to some degree in all sorts of vile shit; oppression and forced relocation of minorities (China), mass murder of gay people (Russia), etc. I wonder if it would be possible to sort of fence off communication tools to a more open area of the ecosystem.... like everything in an curated app store.... then another space where it is a bit of the wild west but you don't control what is installed... sort of Android's ability to side load apps.... Granted this is convoluted and I guess there's nothing keeping that side channel from becoming all pirated apps from the other store.... well that thought experiment didn't work.

by veidr 8y ago

sandov 8y ago

This is why we must eradicate proprietary software from our general purpose computers, because computers are the single most powerful weapon we have for freedom and self-improvement. It doesn't matter too much if your videogame console is closed source, but it matters a lot if the software you use to read books, to write, to communicate with people is closed source. Apple isn't going to do it, Google isn't going to do it. We must do it.

Scene_Cast2 8y ago
There are three ways of slicing the problem: the technical capability of loading whatever apps you want, the legal ability to do so, and the ecosystem / game theoretical (is it a reasonable way of doing things - e.g. living without gapps is possible but very hard in practice). Back when Stallman outlined the distinction between proprietary vs open, he meant all of the above in spirit, but never really addressed the hosting and server-side side of things. I think it's currently still a weak spot in his philosophy. Open-source software doesn't truly solve the server-side if your phone has a hardcoded "ax.itunes.apple.com" - in theory, you could modify & recompile & host your own, but it wouldn't be a first-class-citizen thing. Also, consider e.g. if Apple's stack was open but highly customized - you needed a team of engineers and a swath of servers to simply get a clone up and running. Again, not impossible, but I don't think open-source is only a part of the solution.
veidr 8y ago
Well, 100% conversion of the entire world to open-source software would indeed solve the issue I describe. But, I have only 57 more years to live[1], and I don't think I will likely see that happen in my remaining time on earth. Another way to prevent this issue is simply to have open computing platforms without significant barriers to running arbitrary software, and without any gatekeeper that can prevent them. This is mostly how computers have worked since their inception, and indeed is still how Apple's macOS machines work. I am not saying that this model can prevent atrocities, but it can prevent companies like Apple from being complicit in those atrocities. (But I think it's likely that this kind of platform model would benefit at-risk populations to some degree, too, because when there's no effective gatekeeper, there's no central point for a state actor wishing to do evil to apply pressure to.) [1]: I just assume I will live to 100. :)
- y_molodtsov 8y ago
  But we still have model — Apple isn’t a monopoly in any way.

logicallee 8y ago

But Apple has to obey the laws of the United States. Here is an alternative viewpoint: If Apple is based in the "right" country (that believes in freedom) -- and I think you and I seem to agree this is the case, because you don't mention anything bad about the U.S., mentioning only Russia and China by name, and with descriptions like "vile shit", "mass murder", "oppression" --, then the U.S. government should be doing whatever negotiations and interventions need to take place to keep foreign governments from forcing a U.S. company to do evil. Here is an analogy. If you're CEO at a Fortune 500 American company, you don't have to make your life choices so that foreign governments can't blackmail you into doing evil, by kidnapping your family. Because the government protects you from that. If Tim Cook's family were abducted by China to force Tim Cook to have Apple do something... well this scenario is just completely implausible, the whole weight of the entire U.S. government would be all over it, it would be an international issue of immense proportions. I think it's kind of up to the government to keep foreign companies from forcing American companies to do bad things.

jpetso 8y ago
It kind of isn't up to the U.S. government. It's about how you structure your organization to have the right incentives to do the right thing. Apple and numerous other businesses are beholden to shareholders, whose #1 demand is profit. Many shareholders are located in the U.S. - so far, so good. At some point, the business decides that more profit is best obtained through international expansion. Apple extracts money from Europe, China, Russia etc. and delivers the desired returns. Yay. The flipside is that if those returns are in danger of disappearing, there's now an immense pressure to stop that from happening. I don't believe the U.S. government can even help Apple if they don't want to be helped - their primary incentive is not preservation of diversity and free speech, but satisfying the shareholders. Possible fixes: a) Avoid conflicts of interest. Apple is not an American company at this point, it's an international company. So, limit your market reach to regions that align with your principles, i.e. don't expand to Russia and China. Of course, this can never work because public companies are legally obligated to maximize shareholder returns. Which leads to, b) Put incentives in place to prefer doing the right thing over the profitable thing, i.e. don't sell a voting majority of your business to investors who will sacrifice principles for money. Both of these fixes mean sacrificing market share to other, less morally grounded businesses, because you don't get to be a world leader in selling stuff by playing fair. You can't go back to playing fair once you depend on being a world leader. Apple literally can't do anything about it because of what its incentives are, and if it aligned those differently then it wouldn't be the big Apple that we give a shit about. I don't believe there's a solution to this except supporting a decentralized market and educating others about why that's important. Apple is a lost cause, they're at the point of no return. They couldn't fix it if they wanted to. Let's make sure they're only one of several viable options going forward.

volgo 8y ago

What about mass incarceration of black people (USA)? Should Apple play nicely with them too?

dane-pgp 8y ago

> If your ecosystem is just console video games, say, it's not that big of a deal; you have to either censor some games or don't enter certain countries at all. Might be unfortunate, but its not a fundamental human rights issue. Be careful of the ground you might concede to the censors. Freedom of expression is most certainly a fundamental human right: https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/quotes/universal-declaration-of-human-rights-article-19 https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/quotes/universal-declar... It's easy to dismiss video games as "lesser" forms of art or expression, but we shouldn't underestimate the potential for games to convey significant social and political messages (both positive and negative). In case a concrete example is needed of a thought-provoking video game with artistic merit, let me suggest this to those who haven't seen or played it: http://www.papersplea.se/ http://www.papersplea.se/

ggg9990 8y ago
There isn’t a single source of truth on what is or isn’t a “fundamental human right.” It’s a matter of opinion that differs across time and geography.
- MereInterest 8y ago
  Then make an argument about whether or not you consider freedom of expression to be a fundamental human right. You have stated that arguments on the topic are possible. You have done absolutely nothing to argue any position on the matter.
- lillesvin 8y ago
  While it's not as universal as its name makes it seem, the UN uses The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human... That would be a good starting point since it already backed by some pretty powerful countries.
veidr 8y ago
You are right. That sounded more dismissive than I intended, and I agree on both counts; video games can be artistic masterpieces, and freedom of expression is a very important and fundamental human right. So censorship of games is bad, too. But in my judgement, it is probably not going to rise the the level of interning or murdering people at scale. Will check out the game. ;-)

jackson1way 8y ago

> mass murder of gay people (Russia) any source on that? I have never heard about any murdering of gay people in russia. Clearly, Russia is rather hostile to gay people. But "mass murder" requires a proper source. Or you you are walking on the Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction path.

veidr 8y ago
Well, here are a few sources (I think the first one might be where I originally read about it, and realized the situation there was worse than I knew): https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2017-in-review/the-year-russian-lgbt-persecution-defied-belief https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2017-in-review/the-year-ru... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/27/russia-chechnya-pop-star-zelimkhan-bakayev-missing https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/27/russia-chechny... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_concentration_camps_in_Chechnya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_concentration_camps_in_Che... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/01/russia-rise-homophobic-violence https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/01/russia-rise-ho...
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  None of those in any way support your comment, whatsoever. And calling Chechnya Russia is similar to calling Peurto Rico the United States. It's a subject of Russia, but is not what you'd call Russia. It's a 95% Islamic nation that waged a lengthy war of terror attacks against Russia and has its own independent government, rules, and laws which are driven primarily by Islamic law. You'll find nations driven by Islamic law tend to make Russia look like LGBT heaven. Of course Russia is no such thing. It's illegal in Russian to distribute 'propaganda' for homosexual or bisexual advocacy in the presence of minors. And that in turn is used as a justification to prevent nearly all public homosexual or bisexual activism, though people are free to do whatever they want in private. In any case stating Russia is engaging in "mass murder of gay people" is something way beyond sensationalism and a reflection of how our media's efforts at creating a Red Scare has, arguably intentionally, driven people completely to the point of overt ignorance. It's like wartime propaganda, without a war.

duxup 8y ago

>But if your ecosystem is about general-purpose apps and communication tools, you become complicit to some degree in all sorts of vile shit; oppression and forced relocation of minorities (China), mass murder of gay people (Russia), etc. I wonder if it would be possible to sort of fence off communication tools to a more open area of the ecosystem.... like everything in an curated app store.... then another space where it is a bit of the wild west but you don't control what is installed... sort of Android's ability to side load apps.... Granted this is convoluted and I guess there's nothing keeping that side channel from becoming all pirated apps from the other store.... well that thought experiment didn't work.