<story><title>Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims</title><url>https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/pakistan-forced-down-ahmadiyya-apps</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>passivate</author><text>&amp;gt;Apple and Google put themselves in a position where they became a part of the problem. If they ran open platforms where they don&amp;#x27;t have to power to ban apps this would never have happened.&lt;p&gt;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).&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;s just whack-a-mole.</text></item><item><author>username90</author><text>Apple and Google put themselves in a position where they became a part of the problem. If they ran open platforms where they don&amp;#x27;t have to power to ban apps this would never have happened.</text></item><item><author>jmull</author><text>The (rather massive) flaw in your reasoning is the idea that Google and Apple are the solution to the problem.&lt;p&gt;If you live in a society without religious freedom, that&amp;#x27;s a big problem, but Apple and Google &lt;i&gt;can&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; fix it.&lt;p&gt;If you care about the problem, it&amp;#x27;s important to understand this. If you succeed in getting people to focus on symptom of the problem and not the cause, you will help prevent it from being addressed.</text></item><item><author>zupreme</author><text>For those defending this practice, consider carefully the implications of what you are advocating.&lt;p&gt;On one hand you have a government deciding who can and cannot refer to themselves as adherents of a particular religion (by declaring that Ahamadis cannot call themselves Muslim).&lt;p&gt;On another hand you have Google and Apple, yet again, being the complicit chokepoints of “free speech”, with regard to app developers.&lt;p&gt;These may seem fair to you, but that may be because these practices have not negatively affected you...yet.&lt;p&gt;But consider: Would it be fair if England declared Catholics “unChristian” and banned their use if the term?  Or what if the USA declared hasidic jews “Unjewish” and banned their use of the term. Or what if Apple caved to pressure theoretical from Israel to ban Jehovah’s Witnesses from using the term “Jehovah”?&lt;p&gt;What next?  Government declaring who is and is not “white”?&lt;p&gt;Oh wait......</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>foolmeonce</author><text>You can make the same arguments for bribery. Nonetheless it is illegal for a US company to bribe people abroad and US companies end up selling off their holdings in banana republics.&lt;p&gt;Why is this law good? The US has a long history of corporations owning too much in banana republics and bringing the US into pro-dictator political positions.</text></comment>
<story><title>Google, Apple cave to Pakistan pressure to take down apps by Ahmadiyya Muslims</title><url>https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/pakistan-forced-down-ahmadiyya-apps</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>passivate</author><text>&amp;gt;Apple and Google put themselves in a position where they became a part of the problem. If they ran open platforms where they don&amp;#x27;t have to power to ban apps this would never have happened.&lt;p&gt;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).&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;s just whack-a-mole.</text></item><item><author>username90</author><text>Apple and Google put themselves in a position where they became a part of the problem. If they ran open platforms where they don&amp;#x27;t have to power to ban apps this would never have happened.</text></item><item><author>jmull</author><text>The (rather massive) flaw in your reasoning is the idea that Google and Apple are the solution to the problem.&lt;p&gt;If you live in a society without religious freedom, that&amp;#x27;s a big problem, but Apple and Google &lt;i&gt;can&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; fix it.&lt;p&gt;If you care about the problem, it&amp;#x27;s important to understand this. If you succeed in getting people to focus on symptom of the problem and not the cause, you will help prevent it from being addressed.</text></item><item><author>zupreme</author><text>For those defending this practice, consider carefully the implications of what you are advocating.&lt;p&gt;On one hand you have a government deciding who can and cannot refer to themselves as adherents of a particular religion (by declaring that Ahamadis cannot call themselves Muslim).&lt;p&gt;On another hand you have Google and Apple, yet again, being the complicit chokepoints of “free speech”, with regard to app developers.&lt;p&gt;These may seem fair to you, but that may be because these practices have not negatively affected you...yet.&lt;p&gt;But consider: Would it be fair if England declared Catholics “unChristian” and banned their use if the term?  Or what if the USA declared hasidic jews “Unjewish” and banned their use of the term. Or what if Apple caved to pressure theoretical from Israel to ban Jehovah’s Witnesses from using the term “Jehovah”?&lt;p&gt;What next?  Government declaring who is and is not “white”?&lt;p&gt;Oh wait......</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stale2002</author><text>&amp;gt; what problem would open platforms solve?&lt;p&gt;If it was easier for people to sideload apps, or there were many competing app stores, then people could get around theses bans more easily.&lt;p&gt;For example, if I could go to any website, on an iphone, and install an app very easily (Assume I choose to do so, via some setting), then it wouldn&amp;#x27;t matter as much if Apple banned the app from the app store.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; whats stopping a country from simply blocking their hosting servers?&lt;p&gt;They could do that, but if it was easy to install apps on a phone, then it would be very difficult for a country to block &lt;i&gt;every&lt;/i&gt; website that hosts the app.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; . Okay, so then you move to a P2P system, so then the get their ISPs to block that&lt;p&gt;Governments are not infinitely powerful.  An efforts to get around government internet censorship, sometimes work.&lt;p&gt;And the more methods there are of circumventing government censorship, the easier it is to do so.&lt;p&gt;Censorship has an effect.  But it is not perfect.  There is a spectrum of behavior, where it can be easier or harder to get around censorship.</text></comment>