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I'm not disagreeing that there are megacorporations which wield too much power. I don't believe it's a good thing that Apple can decide what software you can ru

I'm not disagreeing that there are megacorporations which wield too much power. I don't believe it's a good thing that Apple can decide what software you can run on the device you bought, and I don't think the often used security argument is sufficient justification. It would be better if there were other legal ways to install software on iDevices. But if there are other ways to install software, I don't really have any moral qualms with Apple moderating its own store. They can sell whatever they choose to sell, as far as I'm concerned. In the case of Parler specifically, I see no moral issue whatsoever because you can still access Parler through the browser. Apple and Google aren't blocking their users from accessing Parler, they're simply refusing to do business with them. Calling this censorship or a violation of free speech is, to me, confusing the right to free speech with an imagined duty of other people and entities to provide you with a platform.

belorn 5y ago
If there is no power relation then there is hard to argue an abuse of power. Since I am neither an iphone user, iphone developer or parler user/developer I can't know if such power relation exist. However could not the same be said about the app in the article? What does the app do that they can't do through the browser? If apple has no power in this relationship then the impact of the decision should be zero. It seems however that Apple do have some power or else the Russian government wouldn't have gone after Apple to censor the app. Censorship is just an other word for power abusing their position to limit the powerless. It is not about forcing people and entities to provide a service, its to prevent people and entities that holds power to abuse that power in order to keep others powerless. If that translated in a specific case to being forced to provide a service, then there is always a second choice. They can open up and give up the thing that gives them power. In the case of apple that would be to provide alternative ways to install software without tricks that keeps apple in power. It is an active choice of Apple to be the door keeper for what the captured users can or can't do with their own devices.
- ookdatnog 5y ago
  Censorship is not always an abuse of power. Forum moderation is a form of censorship. The moderators on HN will delete your comment if it violates the community guidelines. But I'm certainly not against that, in fact, that's why I'm here in the first place.
  - belorn 5y ago
    The question comes down to how much power HN moderators has and how they use it. If HN was the primary place where the wast majority of startups got funding, and HN moderator would delete comments in order to influence the conversation between investors and founders, such moderation would very quickly be seen as an abuse of power. It is one form of moderation that I have never seen on HN. As it is, HN moderators has a rather limited power and rarely been exercising the little power they have. A way to describe this is that people wielding power do not always commit act of abuse, and all power is not equal. There is no true name policy on HN, no rules against people contacting each other outside of HN, no restrictions against people based on political, religious or other views. I can mention the competing communication platform discord and not get banned for doing so. People can read HN without creating accounts, and HN do not block VPNs or Tor. As a tool for authoritarians, HN moderation is not an effective one. Possible by design. Their behavior has so far not been to utilize power in order to maintain power. There is not much left if you remove power and abuse from the definition of censorship, and so I would not describe HN moderation as it is now as censorship. Occasionally they do things like automatically reduce article weights based on specific political topics, which is a soft kind of censorship, but from what I have seen they have taken a bit more relaxed attitude and not done that so often any more.
swayvil 5y ago
If that platform was owned by the government, or in the public domain. Or not owned by anybody, like the space around our planet. Then such shenanigans would definitely be called censorship and a violation. But because it's privately owned, it isn't. The way it hinges on who's name is on the receipt. Which is just a legal artifact. Seems unrealistic. I mean, the more realistic take is : yes, our whole population is definitely using it to communicate. Before that solid fact any mere legalism is insubstantial. And when you look at it that way it follows that there is definitely a snake in the cradle.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  Private censorship is absolutely censorship. Anyone disagreeing is engaged in a dishonest semantic argument as there are numerous examples of it usage this way that predate this debate by decades. The argument is that the first ammendment protects the right to engage in private censorship. In my mind, the core debate at the center of the issue is the assertion that corporations have the same rights as any other citizen. I think that is patently absurd but the Supreme Court disagrees.
- ookdatnog 5y ago
  My wording was a bit careless in my previous post: I didn't distinguish between censorship and free speech violations. If YouTube deletes your video for violating ToS, that can be called censorship (in the same way that a forum moderator removing your post can be called censorship), but it's not infringing on your right to free speech. This is because your right to free speech doesn't entail a right to any particular platform or channel. Others, including the government, are in no way obligated to help you broadcast your speech.
  - swayvil 5y ago
    We might ask what good the right to free speech achieves. And then we would ask if the behavior in question interferes with the achievement of that good. Thus we avoid the merely semantic tangles.
    - 5y ago

belorn 5y ago

If there is no power relation then there is hard to argue an abuse of power. Since I am neither an iphone user, iphone developer or parler user/developer I can't know if such power relation exist. However could not the same be said about the app in the article? What does the app do that they can't do through the browser? If apple has no power in this relationship then the impact of the decision should be zero. It seems however that Apple do have some power or else the Russian government wouldn't have gone after Apple to censor the app. Censorship is just an other word for power abusing their position to limit the powerless. It is not about forcing people and entities to provide a service, its to prevent people and entities that holds power to abuse that power in order to keep others powerless. If that translated in a specific case to being forced to provide a service, then there is always a second choice. They can open up and give up the thing that gives them power. In the case of apple that would be to provide alternative ways to install software without tricks that keeps apple in power. It is an active choice of Apple to be the door keeper for what the captured users can or can't do with their own devices.

ookdatnog 5y ago
Censorship is not always an abuse of power. Forum moderation is a form of censorship. The moderators on HN will delete your comment if it violates the community guidelines. But I'm certainly not against that, in fact, that's why I'm here in the first place.
- belorn 5y ago
  The question comes down to how much power HN moderators has and how they use it. If HN was the primary place where the wast majority of startups got funding, and HN moderator would delete comments in order to influence the conversation between investors and founders, such moderation would very quickly be seen as an abuse of power. It is one form of moderation that I have never seen on HN. As it is, HN moderators has a rather limited power and rarely been exercising the little power they have. A way to describe this is that people wielding power do not always commit act of abuse, and all power is not equal. There is no true name policy on HN, no rules against people contacting each other outside of HN, no restrictions against people based on political, religious or other views. I can mention the competing communication platform discord and not get banned for doing so. People can read HN without creating accounts, and HN do not block VPNs or Tor. As a tool for authoritarians, HN moderation is not an effective one. Possible by design. Their behavior has so far not been to utilize power in order to maintain power. There is not much left if you remove power and abuse from the definition of censorship, and so I would not describe HN moderation as it is now as censorship. Occasionally they do things like automatically reduce article weights based on specific political topics, which is a soft kind of censorship, but from what I have seen they have taken a bit more relaxed attitude and not done that so often any more.

swayvil 5y ago

If that platform was owned by the government, or in the public domain. Or not owned by anybody, like the space around our planet. Then such shenanigans would definitely be called censorship and a violation. But because it's privately owned, it isn't. The way it hinges on who's name is on the receipt. Which is just a legal artifact. Seems unrealistic. I mean, the more realistic take is : yes, our whole population is definitely using it to communicate. Before that solid fact any mere legalism is insubstantial. And when you look at it that way it follows that there is definitely a snake in the cradle.

shkkmo 5y ago
Private censorship is absolutely censorship. Anyone disagreeing is engaged in a dishonest semantic argument as there are numerous examples of it usage this way that predate this debate by decades. The argument is that the first ammendment protects the right to engage in private censorship. In my mind, the core debate at the center of the issue is the assertion that corporations have the same rights as any other citizen. I think that is patently absurd but the Supreme Court disagrees.
ookdatnog 5y ago
My wording was a bit careless in my previous post: I didn't distinguish between censorship and free speech violations. If YouTube deletes your video for violating ToS, that can be called censorship (in the same way that a forum moderator removing your post can be called censorship), but it's not infringing on your right to free speech. This is because your right to free speech doesn't entail a right to any particular platform or channel. Others, including the government, are in no way obligated to help you broadcast your speech.
- swayvil 5y ago
  We might ask what good the right to free speech achieves. And then we would ask if the behavior in question interferes with the achievement of that good. Thus we avoid the merely semantic tangles.
  - 5y ago