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What did Apple even hope to accomplish here? If this was some (extremely) ill-thought-out attempt at combating hate or misinformation don't they realize 90% of

What did Apple even hope to accomplish here? If this was some (extremely) ill-thought-out attempt at combating hate or misinformation don't they realize 90% of said content will be fed to users via YouTube/Reddit/Safari/other social media? Is it just abuse of power by low level employees?

givemeethekeys 4y ago
They need factories to reopen.
- zaptrem 4y ago
  But this has nothing to do with China
clnq 4y ago
It looks like some abuse of power. Pepe is as offensive as the ok-hand and thumbs-up emojis. All are used by people who align with far-right politics, and all are considered hate symbols by small groups while not recognized as such by most people. But if we step back, we see another much more significant problem with Apple's efforts. They are trying to police communications between users of their products, even banning words on apps on their devices. It's easy to get distracted by the idea that Apple is the good guy just saving someone from being offended and forget that rich tech bros are deciding what the US should and shouldn't talk about. What is more insidious is that they are so good at controlling how this is presented to their customers. If Apple said straight up - "some of the income we make from our sales goes into censoring certain conversations in the US," I'm sure not many people would be on board. Finally, there is the entire topic of discussion related to ownership of our hardware. When we buy an iPhone, can we own it and use it as we please? Or must we submit to Apple's control of what software we can run on it? How much of the price we pay for such a product goes into anti-consumer practices like this? It's not just offensive things you can't run on an iPhone. There's a lot of software that's potentially life-saving that you can't. For example, many medical apps like custom continuous blood glucose sensor and closed-loop "artificial pancreas" software people with type one diabetes use (mostly on Android these days as getting that type of software on iOS is a tremendous hassle). This whole thing feels like a proverbial boiling frog situation. Apple shareholders and executives move inch by inch, Pepe by Pepe, more and more into a position of authority for what is acceptable and what is not. Stories like banning Pepe make the news, but when they see people accepting this, they can deny a life-saving/improving app or two if their shareholders have a conflict of interest, let's say. No one would be okay with a tech company taking this action out of the blue, but when they create expectations that they are the authority on what we have on our phones and what we talk about, and people accept them as a de-facto authority, it's easy.

givemeethekeys 4y ago

They need factories to reopen.

zaptrem 4y ago
But this has nothing to do with China

clnq 4y ago

It looks like some abuse of power. Pepe is as offensive as the ok-hand and thumbs-up emojis. All are used by people who align with far-right politics, and all are considered hate symbols by small groups while not recognized as such by most people. But if we step back, we see another much more significant problem with Apple's efforts. They are trying to police communications between users of their products, even banning words on apps on their devices. It's easy to get distracted by the idea that Apple is the good guy just saving someone from being offended and forget that rich tech bros are deciding what the US should and shouldn't talk about. What is more insidious is that they are so good at controlling how this is presented to their customers. If Apple said straight up - "some of the income we make from our sales goes into censoring certain conversations in the US," I'm sure not many people would be on board. Finally, there is the entire topic of discussion related to ownership of our hardware. When we buy an iPhone, can we own it and use it as we please? Or must we submit to Apple's control of what software we can run on it? How much of the price we pay for such a product goes into anti-consumer practices like this? It's not just offensive things you can't run on an iPhone. There's a lot of software that's potentially life-saving that you can't. For example, many medical apps like custom continuous blood glucose sensor and closed-loop "artificial pancreas" software people with type one diabetes use (mostly on Android these days as getting that type of software on iOS is a tremendous hassle). This whole thing feels like a proverbial boiling frog situation. Apple shareholders and executives move inch by inch, Pepe by Pepe, more and more into a position of authority for what is acceptable and what is not. Stories like banning Pepe make the news, but when they see people accepting this, they can deny a life-saving/improving app or two if their shareholders have a conflict of interest, let's say. No one would be okay with a tech company taking this action out of the blue, but when they create expectations that they are the authority on what we have on our phones and what we talk about, and people accept them as a de-facto authority, it's easy.