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Yeah, I don't see how this is different from Twitter taking down a tweet which doxxes someone. Would people object if Apple told Telegram they had to remove a

Yeah, I don't see how this is different from Twitter taking down a tweet which doxxes someone. Would people object if Apple told Telegram they had to remove a channel that was being used by white supremacists to coordinate terrorist attacks? The answer to that question matters, because if users in this thread succeed in making iPhones less of a walled garden, terrorists will be able to use their iPhones to coordinate terror repeatedly on a large scale, and there won't be anything Apple can do about it. Is that really the world you want to live in? Personally, 2020 has satiated my appetite for craziness, and I'm ready for a little stability.

FeepingCreature 6y ago
I think a channel for white supremacists to coordinate terror attacks existing isn't good, per se, but it should still be possible for them by default and the government should have to demonstrate that it can responsibly handle the power to police it before we let it do so. So at the current state of the world, I wouldn't object to Apple doing this, but I'm still in favor of white supremacists being able to do this, because I don't know of any mechanism by which you could stop precisely white supremacist terrorists from coordinating but not also citizens coordinating against state power. I don't want white supremacists being able to carry out terror attacks, but I want people to be able to coordinate demonstrations and civil resistance, and I'm not aware of a way to do this without also enabling white supremacists, and I think that's a valid tradeoff.
- qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
  This isn't a government, this is Apple. It seems perfectly reasonable to me for Apple to install some speed bumps against activity such as doxxing or terror which it strongly frowns upon.
- Demiurge 6y ago
  A state is most of the time a tool for a majority to oppress a minority. Laws and police are just their tools, and so are dictators. Whoever is labeled a dictator is just a figurehead supported by majority of elites, who in turn are supported by economically strong coalition, represented by some majority of people who are united. Precisely, there is no difference between oppressing white supremacist minority and any other minority that wants to overthrow the status quo. It’s not going to be easier or harder depending on how the anti state elements are hiding their communication, because their conflict has to become public to have the effect you desire, which is some systemic change that you agree with ( making you part of this group by the way). I’m not saying privacy is not important. I’m wondering whether unmitigated privacy is more important to people you and I most probably do not support.
  - extropy 6y ago
    Good point. Today's world is a grand experiment to find out what is the right balance between stability and privacy. Stability comes with slowing down the progress and the top taking ever so more and getting more corrupt. So there always need to be some upwards pressure.
  - jlokier 6y ago
    > A state is most of the time a tool for a majority to oppress a minority. Laws and police are just their tools, and so are dictators. Whoever is labeled a dictator is just a figurehead supported by majority of elites, who in turn are supported by economically strong coalition, represented by some majority of people who are united. I don't agree that that characterisation of a state is true. I mean, it's sort of true, but it misses out some essential features which are directly relevant to that description, for some states anyway. One of those is: Some states (maybe the USA?) believe in more than just acting out the wishes of the majority at any given time. Some of them believe in ideals, which outlive an ephemeral majority. Things like "rule of law" (which doesn't mean clobbering minorities, it means the government is held to account rather than acting like a rogue king), "human rights" (in theory, things like the Magna Carta), "justice" (as defined by a long history of institutions and systems whose learned principles are studied by people that practice in it). You can certainly argue that sort of thing still comes down to some level of majority oppressing a minority. But I think the character of that ruling is very different in ways that matter, if it demonstrates a decent attempt at those attributes and builds them into stable institutions, than if it doesn't bother or just pays lip service.
solson4 6y ago
Yes, it is quite different. Twitter is one of many platforms. If it begins to censor content it’s relatively straightforward to move to telegram or signal of matrix. The App Store on the other hand is a platform of platforms so its decisions affect all platforms on it. if you’re on an iPhone, there’s nowhere else to go. And Belarus has a gdp per capita of 6300. I imagine for most citizens getting a new phone is not trivial.
mola 6y ago
Well yeah, white supremacists are violent racist. People protesting against election fraud, aren't. If your idea of stability is the opression of the unprivelidge, then you are part of the problem. This is exactly why corrupt government call protesters anarchists, so middle class people wouldn't mind opression as long as there's stability. While usually the actual destabilization and craziness comes from the people with power who are afraid to lose it. I can't judge you personally, but history will.
- qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
  Read my last paragraph. The point is that you can't jailbreak one without jailbreaking the other.
  - extropy 6y ago
    Should it be Apple's business to police terrorists? Governments have found it convenient to offload policing to communication companies, via putting liability on them unless they do. I don't think this is the way to go.
    - qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
      I'm a moderate, I didn't say it should be Apple's business, I'm saying maybe it's a good thing if our comms infrastructure affords Apple the flexibility to do this. If Apple wants to change their TOS and say "publishing personal information is now OK", that is one thing. Maybe publishing personal information should be allowed. The point is that there is an intelligent human being weighing tradeoffs and trying to make a good decision as we muddle our way through the 21st century. Infrastructural changes, on the other hand, aren't as reversible. Screwups are more likely to be permanent. You're flipping a switch that can't be flipped back. That is the point I was trying to make by mentioning terrorism--there can be unintended consequences which you don't necessarily anticipate, so retaining flexibility is good.
      - nobody9999 6y ago
throw0101a 6y ago
> […] terrorists will be able to use their iPhones to coordinate terror repeatedly on a large scale, and there won't be anything Apple can do about it. And? If they're using (say) Signal or even Messages, it's already end-to-end encrypted and there's nothing Apple can do about it. > Is that really the world you want to live in? You mean like they're able to use GPG/PGP, Tor browser, and Tails Linux distribution to potentially have secure encrypted communications now? Terrorists, drug dealers, pedophiles, and organized crime have been the boogeymen against strong crypto for decades: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp... We've been through this before in the 1990s, and the techies (who tend to often lean libertarian) have generally sided with opening things up even if that meant the baddies also got the same capabilities: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars Coming at it form the opposite end: should the IETF weaken TLS with backdoors so the government agencies can monitor the bad people? Is that really the world you want to live in?
- judge2020 6y ago
  > We've been through this before in the 1990s, and the techies (who tend to often lean libertarian) have generally sided with opening things up even if that meant the baddies also got the same capabilities: Going in a different direction, you could also look at the state of Windows malware (and adware, eg toolbars) as a potential outcome to the un-walled garden approach: you end up with malware and thus the existence of an anti-malware industry.
  - throw0101a 6y ago
    Yes, I think this is one advantage of iOS that allows people who use it with confidence and not worry too much about clicking the wrong thing. It's why I like(d) Linux and Mac OS X (macOS) as well: I can set up my parents with a non-admin default account on their system and not worry too much about them hosing things too greatly (especially with off-machine backups). Windows caught up with that paradigm eventually. If sideloading comes to iOS I hope that a similar mechanism is introduced: not just "please confirm" dialogue and/or Touch/FaceID pop-up, but a separate 'login'.
jwalgenbach 6y ago
This is a false equivalency. One is a group objecting to rigged elections and another is a group that advocates for violence against others based on ethnicity. Those are very different things, and it is necessary to differentiate between the two.
- qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
  I didn't claim they were equivalent.
  - jwalgenbach 6y ago
    Really? Your answer to Apple restricting information posted by people protesting elections is to ask how people would feel about restricting information from white supremacist terrorists. At the very least, this is a whataboutism argument, trying to shift the discussion away.
FireBeyond 6y ago
> Yeah, I don't see how this is different from Twitter taking down a tweet which doxxes someone. No, this is Microsoft telling Twitter to take down that tweet, because they have a Windows app. Or threatening to block access to the app or twitter.com.
ksec 6y ago
>Yeah, I don't see how this is different from Twitter taking down a tweet which doxxes someone. I dont think that is an accurate analogy. It would more accurate to describe AWS / GCP asking Twitter to take down a tweet. Because Apple in your example Apple should be replaced with Telegram.

FeepingCreature 6y ago

I think a channel for white supremacists to coordinate terror attacks existing isn't good, per se, but it should still be possible for them by default and the government should have to demonstrate that it can responsibly handle the power to police it before we let it do so. So at the current state of the world, I wouldn't object to Apple doing this, but I'm still in favor of white supremacists being able to do this, because I don't know of any mechanism by which you could stop precisely white supremacist terrorists from coordinating but not also citizens coordinating against state power. I don't want white supremacists being able to carry out terror attacks, but I want people to be able to coordinate demonstrations and civil resistance, and I'm not aware of a way to do this without also enabling white supremacists, and I think that's a valid tradeoff.

qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
This isn't a government, this is Apple. It seems perfectly reasonable to me for Apple to install some speed bumps against activity such as doxxing or terror which it strongly frowns upon.
Demiurge 6y ago
A state is most of the time a tool for a majority to oppress a minority. Laws and police are just their tools, and so are dictators. Whoever is labeled a dictator is just a figurehead supported by majority of elites, who in turn are supported by economically strong coalition, represented by some majority of people who are united. Precisely, there is no difference between oppressing white supremacist minority and any other minority that wants to overthrow the status quo. It’s not going to be easier or harder depending on how the anti state elements are hiding their communication, because their conflict has to become public to have the effect you desire, which is some systemic change that you agree with ( making you part of this group by the way). I’m not saying privacy is not important. I’m wondering whether unmitigated privacy is more important to people you and I most probably do not support.
- extropy 6y ago
  Good point. Today's world is a grand experiment to find out what is the right balance between stability and privacy. Stability comes with slowing down the progress and the top taking ever so more and getting more corrupt. So there always need to be some upwards pressure.
- jlokier 6y ago
  > A state is most of the time a tool for a majority to oppress a minority. Laws and police are just their tools, and so are dictators. Whoever is labeled a dictator is just a figurehead supported by majority of elites, who in turn are supported by economically strong coalition, represented by some majority of people who are united. I don't agree that that characterisation of a state is true. I mean, it's sort of true, but it misses out some essential features which are directly relevant to that description, for some states anyway. One of those is: Some states (maybe the USA?) believe in more than just acting out the wishes of the majority at any given time. Some of them believe in ideals, which outlive an ephemeral majority. Things like "rule of law" (which doesn't mean clobbering minorities, it means the government is held to account rather than acting like a rogue king), "human rights" (in theory, things like the Magna Carta), "justice" (as defined by a long history of institutions and systems whose learned principles are studied by people that practice in it). You can certainly argue that sort of thing still comes down to some level of majority oppressing a minority. But I think the character of that ruling is very different in ways that matter, if it demonstrates a decent attempt at those attributes and builds them into stable institutions, than if it doesn't bother or just pays lip service.

solson4 6y ago

Yes, it is quite different. Twitter is one of many platforms. If it begins to censor content it’s relatively straightforward to move to telegram or signal of matrix. The App Store on the other hand is a platform of platforms so its decisions affect all platforms on it. if you’re on an iPhone, there’s nowhere else to go. And Belarus has a gdp per capita of 6300. I imagine for most citizens getting a new phone is not trivial.

mola 6y ago

Well yeah, white supremacists are violent racist. People protesting against election fraud, aren't. If your idea of stability is the opression of the unprivelidge, then you are part of the problem. This is exactly why corrupt government call protesters anarchists, so middle class people wouldn't mind opression as long as there's stability. While usually the actual destabilization and craziness comes from the people with power who are afraid to lose it. I can't judge you personally, but history will.

qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
Read my last paragraph. The point is that you can't jailbreak one without jailbreaking the other.
- extropy 6y ago
  Should it be Apple's business to police terrorists? Governments have found it convenient to offload policing to communication companies, via putting liability on them unless they do. I don't think this is the way to go.
  - qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
    I'm a moderate, I didn't say it should be Apple's business, I'm saying maybe it's a good thing if our comms infrastructure affords Apple the flexibility to do this. If Apple wants to change their TOS and say "publishing personal information is now OK", that is one thing. Maybe publishing personal information should be allowed. The point is that there is an intelligent human being weighing tradeoffs and trying to make a good decision as we muddle our way through the 21st century. Infrastructural changes, on the other hand, aren't as reversible. Screwups are more likely to be permanent. You're flipping a switch that can't be flipped back. That is the point I was trying to make by mentioning terrorism--there can be unintended consequences which you don't necessarily anticipate, so retaining flexibility is good.
    - nobody9999 6y ago

throw0101a 6y ago

> […] terrorists will be able to use their iPhones to coordinate terror repeatedly on a large scale, and there won't be anything Apple can do about it. And? If they're using (say) Signal or even Messages, it's already end-to-end encrypted and there's nothing Apple can do about it. > Is that really the world you want to live in? You mean like they're able to use GPG/PGP, Tor browser, and Tails Linux distribution to potentially have secure encrypted communications now? Terrorists, drug dealers, pedophiles, and organized crime have been the boogeymen against strong crypto for decades: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp... We've been through this before in the 1990s, and the techies (who tend to often lean libertarian) have generally sided with opening things up even if that meant the baddies also got the same capabilities: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars Coming at it form the opposite end: should the IETF weaken TLS with backdoors so the government agencies can monitor the bad people? Is that really the world you want to live in?

judge2020 6y ago
> We've been through this before in the 1990s, and the techies (who tend to often lean libertarian) have generally sided with opening things up even if that meant the baddies also got the same capabilities: Going in a different direction, you could also look at the state of Windows malware (and adware, eg toolbars) as a potential outcome to the un-walled garden approach: you end up with malware and thus the existence of an anti-malware industry.
- throw0101a 6y ago
  Yes, I think this is one advantage of iOS that allows people who use it with confidence and not worry too much about clicking the wrong thing. It's why I like(d) Linux and Mac OS X (macOS) as well: I can set up my parents with a non-admin default account on their system and not worry too much about them hosing things too greatly (especially with off-machine backups). Windows caught up with that paradigm eventually. If sideloading comes to iOS I hope that a similar mechanism is introduced: not just "please confirm" dialogue and/or Touch/FaceID pop-up, but a separate 'login'.

jwalgenbach 6y ago

This is a false equivalency. One is a group objecting to rigged elections and another is a group that advocates for violence against others based on ethnicity. Those are very different things, and it is necessary to differentiate between the two.

qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
I didn't claim they were equivalent.
- jwalgenbach 6y ago
  Really? Your answer to Apple restricting information posted by people protesting elections is to ask how people would feel about restricting information from white supremacist terrorists. At the very least, this is a whataboutism argument, trying to shift the discussion away.

FireBeyond 6y ago

> Yeah, I don't see how this is different from Twitter taking down a tweet which doxxes someone. No, this is Microsoft telling Twitter to take down that tweet, because they have a Windows app. Or threatening to block access to the app or twitter.com.

ksec 6y ago

>Yeah, I don't see how this is different from Twitter taking down a tweet which doxxes someone. I dont think that is an accurate analogy. It would more accurate to describe AWS / GCP asking Twitter to take down a tweet. Because Apple in your example Apple should be replaced with Telegram.