4 ms·

I'm sure people will use the "it's their platform they can do what they want" argument, but with Spotify and now Apple removing a certain person's content, can

by amoshi 8y ago

I'm sure people will use the "it's their platform they can do what they want" argument, but with Spotify and now Apple removing a certain person's content, can we call this anything but censorship?

pavlov 8y ago
Not everyone can publish on iTunes or Spotify. Is it censorship when these companies choose which content they want to publish? If not, why is it censorship when they use the same judgment to remove something they had previously approved?
tonyedgecombe 8y ago
Corporations get to choose who they want as customers, suppliers and partners. The whole system would collapse if they didn't have this ability. It's a stretch calling it censorship as these people can host their podcast somewhere else or even host it themselves if they want to. Apple doesn't have a monopoly on podcast hosting.
- repolfx 8y ago
  I find this argument increasingly tiresome. There has never been a time in history in which speech did not in some way depend on private support. Not so long ago that private support came from the owners of printing presses. It came from the landlords that allowed speakers on their property, and rented to unpopular people. It came from the telephone companies that served everyone even if they were saying "hateful" things down the phone. What we're seeing here seems like a relatively new phenomenon, of private companies that are taking it on themselves to systematically erase entire schools of thought from the modern communications platforms, at least as far as they can. And yes for any given instance you can say, well, you can host your content elsewhere. And that works right up until Google - for example - steals your domain name on moralistic grounds, or your last remaining ISP or hosting provider gets attacked or comes under pressure from activists and so on. Because the sort of people who are doing this don't simply want Alex Jones off iTunes. They want him gone completely, from everywhere, and they will not rest until that happens. Unfortunately Silicon Valley has long since lost any right to claim neutrality on political topics. That probably makes regulation inevitable. How long will conservatives sit back and watch as tech firms systematically attempt to erase their world view from the political conversation? How long will the wider population tolerate Twitter shadowbanning members of the government whilst doing nothing to an NYT journalist who (as noted above) says repeatedly she wants to kill all men, that she hates whites etc? This sort of extreme side-taking seems both new and very short-sighted. It cannot end well.
  - madeofpalk 8y ago
    > What we're seeing here seems like a relatively new phenomenon, of private companies that are taking it on themselves to systematically erase entire schools of thought from the modern communications platforms, at least as far as they can. That's not happening though. Or, if it is, it's nothing new. Newspapers have always decided to not hire someone. Newspapers are not a free outlet for anyone to publish any content they wish. Editorial choices are made that, in one very narrow (and incorrect) view, could be seen as eliminating speech and "entire schools of thought". Apple is exercising editorial control over it's platform, like they do with most of theirs. To say that they shouldn't be allowed to do this is a very interesting claim to make, especially when you're trying to promote freedom of speech.
    - repolfx 8y ago
      There's a key difference. Newspapers are responsible for what they print. They can get sued if they print things that are illegal, or even just wrong. With the editorial voice comes responsibility for what's said. Technology companies have historically been viewed more as common carriers. In fact the term "common carrier" was invented to describe an earlier wave of technology companies. They are not responsible for what's said or done with their platform because they do not exercise editorial voice. The DMCA further solidified this notion in law by making it clear that if you respond to legal takedown requests you have a safe harbour and are not considered to be aiding-and-abetting crime if it takes place on your platform. Right now tech firms seem to be trying to have it both ways. They want the scale, legal immunity and profits that come with bulk automation and claiming to be a common carrier. But then they want to selectively eliminate legal speech as well to make their employees feel good about themselves. I suspect if regulation is introduced, it will work like that - editorial control cuts both ways. If Apple, Twitter, Facebook etc are going to exercise such control over their platform, they'll have to do it like newspapers do. That means if someone "publishes" something that triggers liability on their platform, it falls on them. In practice that would be impossible given their business models. Edit: to be clear, I'm making a general argument here rather than about Apple specifically. Apple is a bit unusual in that it does (or at least did) manually review most content put on its platforms. In that sense Apple might well be able to argue it doesn't want or need common carrier status and it would be allowed to do this and equivalent things (removing Alex Jones apps), especially as it's not a monopoly. Also, I'm not explicitly advocating such a legal approach, I'd want to ponder it more first, just speculating on a likely potential future given that the legal tools and precedents already exist. Such a change in legal perspective would affect Twitter, Facebook and Google much more than Apple.
- amoshi 8y ago
  >can host their podcast somewhere else [...] Apple doesn't have a monopoly on podcast hosting. True, but with Spotify, now Apple and in the future perhaps other major players, what if all members of the oligopoly deny someone a service? >even host it themselves Can be seen as a silencing strategy - making something extremely inconvenient.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Apple never hosted the podcast. It just provided a search engine. If Google and every other search engine decides not to index the Pirate Bay, I will still know where to get my uhh -Linux distros.
  - delinka 8y ago
    >...making something extremely inconvenient. It's not Apple's job to keep things convenient for content publishers. Let alone those only indexed by their search engine. If you're squelched by mere "inconvenience", then perhaps your convictions to share your message aren't strong enough and your message isn't worthy of attention after all.
  - marcelluspye 8y ago
    Then they've just given some new upstart room to enter the market by hosting the denied person. It's funny to call an industry that didn't even exist 20 years ago an oligopoly. The industry leader of 20 years from now may not even exist yet.
criddell 8y ago
Is it censorship if Barnes and Noble won't let me put my book on their shelves?
- danesparza 8y ago
  It depends. But it's most likely also legal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
scarface74 8y ago
Apple didn’t “remove” the content. Apple never hosted it. The podcast directory is no different than Google, it crawls RSS feeds that are hosted on other servers and caches the results. You can still add the podcast to the Apple podcast app if you know the URL.
- vortico 8y ago
  They served the metadata. Whoever hosts the actual audio files isn't really a factor in the debate.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    They don’t “host” the metadata any more than Google “hosts” the web pages it caches. When you create a podcast, you host the RSS feed wherever you want (not on Apple’s servers) and you submit the url to the RSS feed to Apple. Apple crawls the RSS feed periodically. Once you subscribe to a podcast - either by clicking on a link from the podcast directory or by entering the url yourself - not an iTunes hosted url - the podcast app goes to your server directly.
    - vortico 8y ago
      Correct, and people would equally upset if Google removed search query links to Infowars' website pages, regardless of whether they like or hate the actual content. That's what this debate and people's concern is about.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        Google removes, filters, and sets the page rank of content all of the time. If a search result doesn’t appear on the first page, statistically it may as well not exist.
dionian 8y ago
it's legal censorship

by amoshi 8y ago

I'm sure people will use the "it's their platform they can do what they want" argument, but with Spotify and now Apple removing a certain person's content, can we call this anything but censorship?

pavlov 8y ago

Not everyone can publish on iTunes or Spotify. Is it censorship when these companies choose which content they want to publish? If not, why is it censorship when they use the same judgment to remove something they had previously approved?

tonyedgecombe 8y ago

Corporations get to choose who they want as customers, suppliers and partners. The whole system would collapse if they didn't have this ability. It's a stretch calling it censorship as these people can host their podcast somewhere else or even host it themselves if they want to. Apple doesn't have a monopoly on podcast hosting.

repolfx 8y ago
I find this argument increasingly tiresome. There has never been a time in history in which speech did not in some way depend on private support. Not so long ago that private support came from the owners of printing presses. It came from the landlords that allowed speakers on their property, and rented to unpopular people. It came from the telephone companies that served everyone even if they were saying "hateful" things down the phone. What we're seeing here seems like a relatively new phenomenon, of private companies that are taking it on themselves to systematically erase entire schools of thought from the modern communications platforms, at least as far as they can. And yes for any given instance you can say, well, you can host your content elsewhere. And that works right up until Google - for example - steals your domain name on moralistic grounds, or your last remaining ISP or hosting provider gets attacked or comes under pressure from activists and so on. Because the sort of people who are doing this don't simply want Alex Jones off iTunes. They want him gone completely, from everywhere, and they will not rest until that happens. Unfortunately Silicon Valley has long since lost any right to claim neutrality on political topics. That probably makes regulation inevitable. How long will conservatives sit back and watch as tech firms systematically attempt to erase their world view from the political conversation? How long will the wider population tolerate Twitter shadowbanning members of the government whilst doing nothing to an NYT journalist who (as noted above) says repeatedly she wants to kill all men, that she hates whites etc? This sort of extreme side-taking seems both new and very short-sighted. It cannot end well.
- madeofpalk 8y ago
  > What we're seeing here seems like a relatively new phenomenon, of private companies that are taking it on themselves to systematically erase entire schools of thought from the modern communications platforms, at least as far as they can. That's not happening though. Or, if it is, it's nothing new. Newspapers have always decided to not hire someone. Newspapers are not a free outlet for anyone to publish any content they wish. Editorial choices are made that, in one very narrow (and incorrect) view, could be seen as eliminating speech and "entire schools of thought". Apple is exercising editorial control over it's platform, like they do with most of theirs. To say that they shouldn't be allowed to do this is a very interesting claim to make, especially when you're trying to promote freedom of speech.
  - repolfx 8y ago
    There's a key difference. Newspapers are responsible for what they print. They can get sued if they print things that are illegal, or even just wrong. With the editorial voice comes responsibility for what's said. Technology companies have historically been viewed more as common carriers. In fact the term "common carrier" was invented to describe an earlier wave of technology companies. They are not responsible for what's said or done with their platform because they do not exercise editorial voice. The DMCA further solidified this notion in law by making it clear that if you respond to legal takedown requests you have a safe harbour and are not considered to be aiding-and-abetting crime if it takes place on your platform. Right now tech firms seem to be trying to have it both ways. They want the scale, legal immunity and profits that come with bulk automation and claiming to be a common carrier. But then they want to selectively eliminate legal speech as well to make their employees feel good about themselves. I suspect if regulation is introduced, it will work like that - editorial control cuts both ways. If Apple, Twitter, Facebook etc are going to exercise such control over their platform, they'll have to do it like newspapers do. That means if someone "publishes" something that triggers liability on their platform, it falls on them. In practice that would be impossible given their business models. Edit: to be clear, I'm making a general argument here rather than about Apple specifically. Apple is a bit unusual in that it does (or at least did) manually review most content put on its platforms. In that sense Apple might well be able to argue it doesn't want or need common carrier status and it would be allowed to do this and equivalent things (removing Alex Jones apps), especially as it's not a monopoly. Also, I'm not explicitly advocating such a legal approach, I'd want to ponder it more first, just speculating on a likely potential future given that the legal tools and precedents already exist. Such a change in legal perspective would affect Twitter, Facebook and Google much more than Apple.
amoshi 8y ago
>can host their podcast somewhere else [...] Apple doesn't have a monopoly on podcast hosting. True, but with Spotify, now Apple and in the future perhaps other major players, what if all members of the oligopoly deny someone a service? >even host it themselves Can be seen as a silencing strategy - making something extremely inconvenient.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Apple never hosted the podcast. It just provided a search engine. If Google and every other search engine decides not to index the Pirate Bay, I will still know where to get my uhh -Linux distros.
- delinka 8y ago
  >...making something extremely inconvenient. It's not Apple's job to keep things convenient for content publishers. Let alone those only indexed by their search engine. If you're squelched by mere "inconvenience", then perhaps your convictions to share your message aren't strong enough and your message isn't worthy of attention after all.
- marcelluspye 8y ago
  Then they've just given some new upstart room to enter the market by hosting the denied person. It's funny to call an industry that didn't even exist 20 years ago an oligopoly. The industry leader of 20 years from now may not even exist yet.

criddell 8y ago

Is it censorship if Barnes and Noble won't let me put my book on their shelves?

danesparza 8y ago
It depends. But it's most likely also legal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship

scarface74 8y ago

Apple didn’t “remove” the content. Apple never hosted it. The podcast directory is no different than Google, it crawls RSS feeds that are hosted on other servers and caches the results. You can still add the podcast to the Apple podcast app if you know the URL.

vortico 8y ago
They served the metadata. Whoever hosts the actual audio files isn't really a factor in the debate.
- scarface74 8y ago
  They don’t “host” the metadata any more than Google “hosts” the web pages it caches. When you create a podcast, you host the RSS feed wherever you want (not on Apple’s servers) and you submit the url to the RSS feed to Apple. Apple crawls the RSS feed periodically. Once you subscribe to a podcast - either by clicking on a link from the podcast directory or by entering the url yourself - not an iTunes hosted url - the podcast app goes to your server directly.
  - vortico 8y ago
    Correct, and people would equally upset if Google removed search query links to Infowars' website pages, regardless of whether they like or hate the actual content. That's what this debate and people's concern is about.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      Google removes, filters, and sets the page rank of content all of the time. If a search result doesn’t appear on the first page, statistically it may as well not exist.

dionian 8y ago

it's legal censorship