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The (rather massive) flaw in your reasoning is the idea that Google and Apple are the solution to the problem. If you live in a society without religious freed

• username90 6y ago
  Apple and Google put themselves in a position where they became a part of the problem. If they ran open platforms where they don't have to power to ban apps this would never have happened.
  • shadowgovt 6y ago
    Those open platforms exist. Can the apps in question be downloaded in Pakistan via F-Droid?
    • fakedang 6y ago
      What about the iOS users? AFAIK, it's more likely the Ahmadiyyas have iPhones since they are a relatively well-off community compared to the rest of Pakistan (or the Muslim world in general).
      • shadowgovt 6y ago
        Very good point. I had my viewpoint focused on Android and forgot that the side-loading question on Apple is very different.
        • selimthegrim 6y ago
          I can tell you none of my cousins over there who belong to that community had an iPhone last time I saw them, they were busy making fun of an old iPhone I had brought to sell compared to their Androids
  • sk5t 6y ago
    Just as we have laws that prevent US organizations from giving or taking bribes even in countries where bribes are legal (FCPA), and US laws prevent US individuals from overseas sex tourism which would be illegal on US soil, what prevents us from requiring US organizations not to participate in religious oppression, child exploitation, and other such acts?
    • zepto 6y ago
      Nothing. That would be a good way to solve this problem.
    • mcguire 6y ago
      You would further have to require US organizations not to do business with other organizations that participate in oppression, etc., transitively. And have to have a way to enforce that.
    • yibg 6y ago
      Would this not just lead to a fragmentation of whatever industry? e.g. if google / apple can't legally do business in Pakistan or some other countries because of these laws, presumably someone like China will step in and provided the missing products or services. Not that this is necessarily a bad situation ethnically anyways, but there are consequences.
  • passivate 6y ago
    >Apple and Google put themselves in a position where they became a part of the problem. If they ran open platforms where they don't have to power to ban apps this would never have happened. In this particular case, what problem would open platforms solve? The laws in Pakistan still exist and the social problem is not addressed. Or are you implying that Apple and Google should be on the hook for solving religious problems in other countries? If so, I think wanting companies to engineer social behavior in other countries is a dangerous path bordering on the unethical (IMO). But having said all that, whats stopping a country from simply blocking their hosting servers? Ultimately, the app has to be downloaded from somewhere. Okay, so then you move to a P2P system, so then the get their ISPs to block that,etc ,etc. It's just whack-a-mole.
    • zapdrive 6y ago
      Each of the two alternate steps you mentioned are an order of magnitude more difficult than just banning the app.
      • passivate 6y ago
        I don't think its an order of magnitude. Blocking CDNs that host APKs and P2P traffic is fairly easy to implement. Most firewalls will let you do this. The more wide-scale you want to deploy your app, the easier it will be to detect (more asymmetry) and block the hosting source. Anyway, we're far far away from the main point now. I believe the best approach to the problem is solving it bottom-up rather than top-down. Practically speak as well, its going to be seen as a US company forcing "western morals" on a developing country.
        • ClumsyPilot 6y ago
          Telegram is 'blocked' in Russia, yet you can still get the APK, you can install it, it works, torrents work, etc. It's crazy popular. The action you describe were tried anf they broke half the internet, and were backpedalled.
    • foolmeonce 6y ago
  • d1zzy 6y ago
    How come would that not happen? Apps come from somewhere and they are installed on someone's platform. The government can simply ask the provider of those apps to stop providing them and/or the provider of the platform to stop allowing for them to be installed. Your only choice then is to comply or stop doing business in that country. So the only reasonable complaint I could see against these companies now is "maybe they should have stopped doing business in that country" which would allow them to take the high moral road. Ofc that wouldn't necessarily result in better freedom for the people in the country, just fewer services than the rest of the world but it is a possible choice.
    • readams 6y ago
      If the provider of the app has no footprint in the oppressive country, and Apple and Google have control because they have open platforms, then the apps will continue to be available.
    • jjav 6y ago
      > provider of the platform to stop allowing for them to be installed The fact that this is possible (worse on iOS) is the architectural and political tragedy of these app stores. A "provider of the platform" should have no power to have any say in what apps are installed on a user-owned device, in which case it would be impossible to coerce them into banning this or that.
      • sneak 6y ago
        > A "provider of the platform" should have no power to have any say in what apps are installed on a user-owned device, in which case it would be impossible to coerce them into banning this or that. What if end users who buy the device WANT the manufacturer to have that power, to keep their device malware- and spyware-free?
        • LiberatedLlama 6y ago
          Do you think Ahmadiyya Muslims in Pakistan want Apple and the Pakistani government to forbid them from installing the software they like? Do you think they feel safe because of this? It is common for totalitarian systems to cite user/citizen safety to justify themselves. I encourage you to see past this bullshit.
  • sneak 6y ago
    You're right that if they ran open platforms where they don't have the power to ban apps this never would have happened: someone else who made a basically malware-free experience for phones would be in that position instead. An "open platform" where every inexperienced user can install whatever they want on their device is a world where most every phone has several remote access malware/spyware packages installed on it. Centralizing these functions is good, in some respects.
• AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  Apple and Google can't fix Pakistan. They can control how they respond, though. And how they responded looks pretty spineless.
  • jmull 6y ago
    What do you think they should do?
    • AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      Me? I think they should close any facilities they have in Pakistan, tell Pakistan plainly that they're not going to do that, and keep making the app available. (Of course, I don't own any stock, so it's kind of painless for me to have that opinion.) The thing is, neither Apple nor Google wants a future where the only apps available are those that lie in the intersection of what is legal in 180 different jurisdictions. (I mean, Myanmar just blocked Facebook. What if they demanded that Google and Apple remove the Facebook app from their stores?) The alternatives are to have a different store for each country (do-able technically, but a lot of work, and I don't like it on freedom grounds), or to just say no to some countries' demands that some apps be removed. Specifically Apple: You had the "1984" Super Bowl commercial. Are you now going to be on the side of the censors? Or are you still on the side of freedom?
      • dalmo3 6y ago
        > the only apps available are those that lie in the intersection of what is legal in 180 different jurisdictions. On Android at least, apps can be region-locked.
      • jmull 6y ago
        > keep making the app available Leaving Pakistan means shutting down their Pakistani App Store, so the app still won't be available. (Someone could, say, put the app on the US store and Pakistanis might be able to figure out a way to get it from there... but they can do that either way.) > ...The alternatives are to have a different store for each country OK, I guess you don't know this yet, but that's the way it is and has been the whole time. Different laws, different stores. We already aren't stuck with the intersection of what's allowed in 180 different jurisdictions.
• loveistheanswer 6y ago
  >The (rather massive) flaw in your reasoning is the idea that Google and Apple are the solution to the problem. What makes you say that? I see nothing in their comment which implies Google and Apple could or should solve the problems of oppressive countries. If a criminal who wants to commit murder asks me to sell them a gun and I decline, it would be absurd to think that implied I thought I could solve the problem of murder. Rather, I would simply be refusing to be a conscious, direct enabler of murder. It would be nakedly malicious for me to reason "well, if I don't sell them this gun, someone else will, so I might as well make some money."
• rcoveson 6y ago
  And the (rather massive) flaw in yours is the idea that "fixing" and "not fixing" a problem are the only two possible outcomes. Would Apple and Google condemning this policy and refusing to comply "fix" the problem? Probably not. Is it the right thing to do? Of course! One certainly shouldn't help enforce an unjust law. This action lends a huge amount of credibility to an immoral policy. We're focusing on this mere "symptom" of the problem because it's Apple and Google. Our laws govern those companies. Our (seemingly theoretical) ability to control them means we are partially responsible when they do bad things.
  • jmull 6y ago
    Ultimately "refusing to comply" means exiting the Pakistan market (and accepting arbitrarily harsh fines and criminal punishments for their employees until they do). > One certainly shouldn't help enforce an unjust law. The law is being enforce on them. Your moral responsibility for a situation is proportionate to your power over that situation. Apple and Google have some sway due to their size, but it seems to me it's limited. I suspect that in a direct sense they largely suck money out of the Pakistani economy rather than pump money in, which really blunts their influence. > Our laws govern those companies. In Pakistan, Pakistani laws govern those companies. The US (and other nations) could impose economic sanctions on Pakistan for this (which would affect the business Apple, Google and others from do there). If that's what you want then you need to be lobbying your politicians.
    • rcoveson 6y ago
      I'm confident we only disagree on the threshold of injustice. Surely there is a point where exiting the market is the only moral thing to do? Or does the responsibility-proportional-to-power argument justify subjecting your business to literally any law? To me, this law is past the threshold where it is morally acceptable to continue to do business in that nation. For you, that threshold is somewhere else, but I'm confident that you have one. Which of the following semi-hypothetical laws would it be acceptable for an American company to enforce, rather than ceasing business operations in the country? 1. Take-down of apps used to propagate what the state considers blasphemy 2. Take-down of apps used to advertise the democratic candidate of the party opposing the party in power 3. Requirement that the location data of all users of a certain set of apps, e.g. Grindr, be actively provided to state officials 4. Requirement that the location data of all users be provided to state officials with a court order 5. Same as 4, but without a court order 6. Requirement that the state be given the ability to arbitrarily adjust the prominence of web search results I could go on, but you get the picture. I'll bet there are things on this list that you would be uncomfortable with your employer, or an American company whose services you used, helping to enforce. There are also probably some things on the list that you think are futile for individuals or companies to resists, even if you wish the law wasn't that way. I think that's is all there is to our disagreement: That we draw the line in a slightly different spot.
• d1zzy 6y ago
  > The (rather massive) flaw in your reasoning is the idea that Google and Apple are the solution to the problem. Nor should they even attempt to, because the moment they get involved in policy making you have an army of HNs complaining how large corporations influence politics.
  • nvrspyx 6y ago
    No one asked for them to get involved in policy making. They're referring to making their platforms more open such that neither Apple nor Google have complete dictation of what is downloaded and installed. Especially in Apple's case, this would be a useless ban if they let people download apps outside of the App Store.
    • jpttsn 6y ago
      Do you think Apple would make as much money from iPhones if they allowed side loading?
• Shivetya 6y ago
  Leave out the word religious. Lack of religious freedom usually comes along with a lot of other rights being trampled on. We must admit that there are people in this world who do and say things we do not agree with. However the same system which expands from trampling on religious rights to other rights is no different than a system which tramples on another right and eventually tramples religion. Corporations have little choice when faced with government intervention and we cannot seriously hold these corporations accountable for bowing down to political pressure elsewhere when we allow our own government a free pass for doing the same or turning a blind eye to it. To change how businesses operate abroad we must change how our government operates. We should hold both to the same standard but government must lead because it has the courts, the arms, and the laws, to pressure one but the other has little it can do to pressure it