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While all of that is true, the bigger question in this argument is whether or not Apple can justify the premise of restricting speech on its platform as arbitra

While all of that is true, the bigger question in this argument is whether or not Apple can justify the premise of restricting speech on its platform as arbitrarily/selectively as it does without being taking to task for interfering in the operation of the product they sold. For example, was Apple in the right to threaten Telegram with expulsion from the App Store for user-generated chatrooms protesting the election in Belarus when such events are the function of chatroom services? Would Apple have done the same with iMessage, Discord, Facebook Messenger, IRC clients, etc for similar discussions Apple deemed inappropriate the previous example? We can all agree Apple has a 1st amendement right to freedom of association. But how far does it justify hypocrisy, unwritten rules, retroactive changes to their EULA, and interference in commerce at point of sale or after the fact? At some point a contract must be a contract and not a list of suggestions or commands subject to whimsical application. Not on Apple's or Epic's. On another note, I'm surprised Apple hasn't interfered with Tinder or dating apps as a whole considering that user-generated content on those is almost certainly pornographic.

joshuamorton 5y ago
By the definition you're using here, any messaging app has user generated pornographic content. People sext on every service. Policing private messages isn't expected though.
- klyrs 5y ago
  ... unless you Think of The Children™ and conclude that the potential to transmit child porn is a sufficient reason to criminalize e2ee...
- Dracophoenix 5y ago
  They have and that's my point. Any medium of communication can and has been used for pornographic distribution. Mail, Lithograph, Magazines, Comic Books, Movies, Telephone, SMS, the Internet, BBS, Usenet, etc and I'm sure there'll be more by the time Apple is gone. If wants to dictate what people can watch or receive in addition to what they say, at any point in time they can boot off UPS and Netflix. And it's telling that they haven't. Apple's decision points have no consistency if such consistency is predicated on Mr.Cook's claim that all developers are treated equally (however he happens to define it). Why Telegram and not Tinder or iMessage as a medium of distrribution? With respect to your point about private messages, do those private messages become public when more than two people are involved? Would that mean that conferencing apps like Skype, Zoom, Teams, or Slack fall under the aegis of Apple's benevolent dictatorship so long as they wish to keep a cubby in App Store? Or is there something more going on. (My money is on the latter but who knows?) To cut to the chase, Apple's positions are similar to a tyrannical parent justifying it's trigger-happy hot-and-cold approach in a roundabout pseudological fashion that ,once untangled, spells out "ipse dixit". The company affirms the conclusions of its arguments by merely citing their name, whereas similar actions from Microsoft or Amazon would warrant shaming or at least suspicion even where the latter two would a plausible justification. While I don't recommend anti-trust provisions (as that doesn't solve the underlying problem with how Apple or an Apple rump company engages in business) an investigation by the FTC into Apple's actual business conduct cross-examined with Apple's/Cook's lofty if shallow claims is more than appropriate to assess whether Apple has perpetrated a fraud against developers and consumers.
  - visarga 5y ago
    Wait till they ban GPT-3 because it can be prompted to write porn.

joshuamorton 5y ago

By the definition you're using here, any messaging app has user generated pornographic content. People sext on every service. Policing private messages isn't expected though.

klyrs 5y ago
... unless you Think of The Children™ and conclude that the potential to transmit child porn is a sufficient reason to criminalize e2ee...
Dracophoenix 5y ago
They have and that's my point. Any medium of communication can and has been used for pornographic distribution. Mail, Lithograph, Magazines, Comic Books, Movies, Telephone, SMS, the Internet, BBS, Usenet, etc and I'm sure there'll be more by the time Apple is gone. If wants to dictate what people can watch or receive in addition to what they say, at any point in time they can boot off UPS and Netflix. And it's telling that they haven't. Apple's decision points have no consistency if such consistency is predicated on Mr.Cook's claim that all developers are treated equally (however he happens to define it). Why Telegram and not Tinder or iMessage as a medium of distrribution? With respect to your point about private messages, do those private messages become public when more than two people are involved? Would that mean that conferencing apps like Skype, Zoom, Teams, or Slack fall under the aegis of Apple's benevolent dictatorship so long as they wish to keep a cubby in App Store? Or is there something more going on. (My money is on the latter but who knows?) To cut to the chase, Apple's positions are similar to a tyrannical parent justifying it's trigger-happy hot-and-cold approach in a roundabout pseudological fashion that ,once untangled, spells out "ipse dixit". The company affirms the conclusions of its arguments by merely citing their name, whereas similar actions from Microsoft or Amazon would warrant shaming or at least suspicion even where the latter two would a plausible justification. While I don't recommend anti-trust provisions (as that doesn't solve the underlying problem with how Apple or an Apple rump company engages in business) an investigation by the FTC into Apple's actual business conduct cross-examined with Apple's/Cook's lofty if shallow claims is more than appropriate to assess whether Apple has perpetrated a fraud against developers and consumers.
- visarga 5y ago
  Wait till they ban GPT-3 because it can be prompted to write porn.