So Apple censoring is the same as a mall refusing you to hold a protest there, which happens all the time.
Not necessarily. Apple is a non-monopoly making a judgement about their corner of a decentralised protocol. That’s quite different from an ISP, where many Americans have little or no choice. Particularly when said ISPs have often received lawful monopolies and government subsidies. Context matters. Finally, my ISP doesn’t have terms of use in respect of content; Apple does.
So ISPs dictating what content is acceptable would be like your garbage collection company refusing to collect political flyers for an opposing party or something. Even though it’s not technically the government, I would see it as a government sponsored entity.
Now if you want something compariable, consider the bakery refusing to serve a gay couple. Even though I support gay rights, I agree there with the Supreme Court that a private entity should not be forced to endorse speech they do not agree with. And that would be what Apple is doing here.
Verizon, AT&T et al according to the US Supreme Court have the right to freedom of speech just as much as you do. So yes they are free to block whatever content they want.
And you have the right to not support them, campaign against them or build your own ISP. But your right to freedom of speech shouldn't stop others right to their freedom of speech.
There is an expectation on everyone's part to uphold these values. To practice tolerance. To pull together.
By not upholding these values, Apple is stating that they disagree with free speech. They are exercising intolerance. They are saying it is better to create separate little bubbles to exist in.
Yes they're not the US government. But fortunately, the US government is the gold standard of free speech around the world.
If companies do not wish to uphold that standard, they'll probably suffer. Like FB and Twitter did in the stock market last week.
No they are emphatically not, because Jone's screeds are not intended to be free speech as cherished by society.
They are acknowledging that society's norms can be weaponized against itself by those bent on power and destruction, and that tolerance of intolerance is incompatible with continued existence of the norms of free speech and tolerance. [1]
When the First Amendment was written, ~240 years ago, the government was the only conceivable entity with enough power to censor (besides a state church, but the amendment also banned those).
Now there are private entities with comparable censorship power to governments (examples: Google, backbone providers, cell phone carriers). For the sake of the people's natural right of free expression, the interpretation that backs your "reminder" may be obsolete, and anti-censorship law may need to be made to apply to them.
Please interpret the word "Congress" to mean something other than the government. I'm not arguing what it should say, but what it does say. And what it does say is pretty clear.
Another case of terrible economic nomenclature. Apple is a public private sector company.
Apple is in the private sector [1] of the economy, i.e. it "is not controlled by the State." This distinction is important to Constitutional law, since the First Amendment does not restrict the private sector; it restricts the state (also known as the public sector [2]).
Apple is a publicly-held corporation, as opposed to a privately-held one like Uber, but that's less relevant to this discussion.
Luckily podcasts are designed to be decentralized, so even if Apple gets too trigger-happy with banning certain podcasts, that won’t affect anyone’s ability to still subscribe to those podcasts.
[0] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#obj...
However, i feel if this was some left-leaning podcast, the same people supporting this removal would be outraged.
A recent (local to Australia example) was this woman fired over pro-abortion tweets (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-30/cricket-australia-sack...). The same people cheering about someone getting fired for anti-ssm tweets were up in arms about this.
That said I also agree that apple should be able to do business (or not) with however they like, the problem is the level of control we gave them in the first place. Everyone publishing and subscribing to iTunes is responsible for this. Site's like InfoWars especially should have seen this coming.
[1] https://www.salon.com/amp/fox-news-tucker-carlson-runs-to-al...
He's against IIRC having trans children take puberty blockers, which might be an issue, but TBH an argument can be made for the well-being of the child.
No, I think this is an issue of twitter-mob pressure against Itunes after Spotify announced they would keep Infowars content. And there are, AFAIK very few people who care one way or the other. It's more a slim minority of people who hate Alex Jones' views and wish to have his content blocked much the same way trolls are trying to take out Rick and Morty.
He’s talked extensively about the Jewish mafia. He promoted violence against the made-up “Pizzagate” B.S. and only backed down because Texan libel law is particularly stern. I support Alex Jones’ right to speak, but I don’t think—particularly in the era of the Internet—Apple should support him.
He's not crazy. He's just driving sales to his on-line store this way. These days, even conspiracy nutjobs aren't honestly crazy.
He once had to admit that he does it for entertainment when lawsuits happened.
But otherwise he is a right wing nutter. Apple chose not to support his podcast anymore.
I'm pretty sure there are plenty of other podcasts that support POTUS that haven't been removed.
Infowars is and should remain free to publish content independently of these providers, which they can easily do.
It's his right to continue to spew his garbage, he just has to do it elsewhere.
This is one company/guy getting booted off a private platform. He is still able to go to other platforms or apply for public permits to express his viewpoint.
This xkcd seems to fit here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/94xu2n/apple_is...
He's basically lying to sell products when he lied about Sandy Hook being fake the victim's families got doxed by his crazed fans.
He also claimed the government was putting chemicals in the water that turns frogs gay, implying that the same chemicals turn people gay, etc.
This is really hurting people and it is getting out of control.
Apple cannot associate with this podcast for fear that they will be sued for listing it on their podcast lists.
For people not in the USA, Alex Jones is a chicken little conspiracy theorist claiming that the sky is falling but it is not. He claims we live on a prison planet that Nazi alien lizards that shapeshift control. Quite a bit crazy like him is also David Icke and others.
Good on Apple I say.
Because nobody other than a fringe minority actually wants free speech in all its deranged, violent, racist, mysgonistic, cruel, abusive forms. The majority of us just want a nice, safe space free from the nasty side of humanity.
He won't get ad revenue, but he'll still get to his message out.
I find the idea of the government restricting speech more terrifying. That's why we have the First Amendment. I will fight for Alex Jones' right to spew his garbage. But I'll also defend Apple's right, and in my eyes obligation, to not actively promote him.
I definitely don’t want my elected representatives involved in idea curation. That’s far more terrifying. Go be a journalist in Turkey to see what is truly terrifying when elected representatives get involved.
An amendment that very few other rich, developed countries have, and yet Americans appear to cling on to like it's the only thing stopping the damn wheels coming off.
Isn't 1A why y'all have Citizens United?
I'm not a fan of either, but interesting to observe the polarized reactions depending on the corporate in question.
> but interesting to observe the polarized reactions depending on the corporate in question.
You're interested to see the polarized reactions you've imagined :)
Apple gets plenty of criticism on HN, just for different things to what Google gets criticism for.
There's no reason to believe Google would be heavily criticised on HN if they took the same action Apple is taking here.
People are sophisticated enough to consider context in their reactions to things.
