Original link: https://reclaimthenet.org/google-play-suspends-podcast-addic...
Weird that Apple does this proxying... not going to open up that News app.
replies(4):
Weird that Apple does this proxying... not going to open up that News app.
This quote really sums up how ridiculous Google is being:
> What Google is asking of Podcast Addict would be comparable to Google asking a web browser app to remove references to all the websites and social media posts that reference the coronavirus unless the reference comes from an official government entity or public health organization.
Banning this app is like banning web browsers because the allow access "questionable" websites or banning search engines because they index such sites.
I hate how much (dis/mis)information is being spread about COVID-19, but banning an entire podcast app leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
If this is the first time you hear about it, the safest place to obtain it is the author's Google Drive: https://twitter.com/PodcastAddict/status/1262047866614247425
I don't buy the "evil monopoly" narrative as what does this accomplish for Google?
This is exactly why Google and maybe other large corporations absolutely need to get split up. I hope Trump takes action against US tech companies as he have said he would. Very few things would make me happier as an european.
[0]: https://mobile.twitter.com/PodcastAddict/status/126165151294... [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23207039
Except usually a web browser doesn't include a index of sites, You go to a another site (Google/Bing) for that. If a browser does include "recommended sites" the landing pages of those sites best keep to Google's and Apples rules. For an extreme example, If Firefox was promoting PornHub on the new tab page we could understand why Google or Apple would tell them to cut it out, but it doesn't stop you from visiting the site.
I'm not saying I agree with what Google have done here (IMO they should re-instate Podcast Addict), Just that I can see why Google could think "recommended podcasts" and podcast indexes come under the "included content" of an app.
EDIT: As others has said here, It's more like Google banning YouTube because it contains video's about covid 19 which don't come from "approved sources" (Though Google did demonetize people for talking about it and de-rank non "approved sources")
I hope Google understands the slippery slope they are treading and its implications and consequences.
It was more that Podcast app's come with a curated list of podcasts and a search feature backed into the application then the actual hosting of the content.
Wait. Is this from the app apk or from dynamic content displayed on the app?
If it's the former, it's fair enough, if it's from the latter it's just another SNAFU by Google.
I say this because I remember the days before Apple’s Podcast directory when it was often easier to Google and listen in your browser or copy it on to a music player via drag and drop than it was to remember to launch an app that would do the downloading for you. (Partly because you still had to remember to connect and/or sync the player, and worry about disk space etc.) Nowadays, subscribing and listening via phone is so easy that I probably download 100x the shows I used to and barely listen to 5%. These days I use the apps as sources of possible content to listen to, but I would be really annoyed if some of the content disappeared with no warning, particularly if it was one daily/weekly episode that covered COVID.
Podcast Addict's UI was a bit too full for the simple use I do of podcasts.
The fear is justified and the extreme prejudice against Covid-19 misinformation (most of which has an agenda behind it) is warranted.
This particular case may go too far, but that has no bearing on whether the other efforts against misinformation are too extreme.
Edit: Here's how the page looked the day before takedown, no hints here at least of them doing anything like that: http://web.archive.org/web/20200515172150/https://play.googl...
And even if they were, couldn't a general app say something along "listen to your favorite sports podcasts, ted talks or get the latest news about X"?
It’s badly affected air travel and who knows what changes will result (or what contracts for pointless bio-security theatre have been made)
In the UK, a 300+ page law was basically pre-written and enacted very quickly, reminiscent of the early anti terrorism law.
We have set up a bio security unit, currently headed by the security services.
UK has a “threat level” system for coronavirus similar to the terror threat level.
The government talk about it in threatening terms such as it being everywhere and it not going away.
If you are against measures you can easily be accused of wanting old people to die.
The UK was absolutely petrified of it at the beginning shown by the very successful self policed lockdown.
Definitely some similarities
I've had several requests from Google over the last couple of years to make changes to my app to remove user generated content that is being rendered in the app. Sigh.
Why are you posting an Apple News link that is a redirection to the original source, instead of the original source?
Google is actually applying the same standard in this case (or at least attempting to). They're also fighting conspiracy theories on YouTube.
I would have no problem if covid19 was taking out only those propaganda spouting idiots from the gene pool, but unlike let's say people ignoring gun safety laws and pointing a loaded shotgun at their feet which then goes off and blasts their feet away but like as with antivaxxers, anything involving infectious diseases also endangers innocent people. Mothers, fathers, children, the weakest of societies.
I am incredibly lucky to not have lost someone close to me to the 'rona, but other people I know have not been that lucky. So every time I hear someone "we gotta open up for the economy!!!" I'd like to throw these idiots in a jail cell and let the keys sink to the bottom of the Mariana Trench out of empathy for those affected by the reality.
Google in particular has been very "active," not to forget also: https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-will-ban-anything-ag... ("video that 'goes against' WHO guidance on the pandemic will be blocked")
I'd like to think this was an accident somewhere down the chain and will be remedied in the morning. I love the app and hope it gets sorted out.
I don't agree with Googles decision (I strongly disagree with it). Just stating that under the letter of the law (of the app stores policies) I can see why app stores feel they have the power to govern the search results in such apps (iirc web browsers have a exception to the clause - /me goes to double check Googles policy on web browsers - brb)
EDIT: With a quick 5 min glance at the policy it looks like Google have been extremely heavy handed because "Any apps referencing COVID-19, or related terms, in any form in their metadata will only be approved for distribution in the Play Store if they are published, commissioned or authorised by one of these entities." But podcasts in their search couldn't be in their play store meta data. (Still digging)
> Searching for “coronavirus”or “COVID-19” in Google Podcasts returns podcasts from mainstream media outlets that aren’t endorsed by government entities or public health organizations.
I'm a little worried about this phenomenon. Google is not constructed by journalists. Freedom of speech might not be first priority for Google.
It's beyond fucked up what Google is doing.
Because it makes a ton of sense to move music to YouTube music, but the podcasts to something entirely different.
They're blindly stumbling around making sure the public will think they're pretty deserving of any and all antitrust hammers than swing their way in the near future.
Why is that not banned?
It could still be reversed if they feel public opinion swings the other way. That wouldn't mean it's automation gone wrong.
Another aspect that I don't quite understand: The story claims that Google asks for the app to be published as a new download. And indeed the provided screenshot includes this request (in pretty small print). This makes no sense to me. Why wouldn't Google be satisfied by just changing the existing app? Any ideas what the reason might be?
>the 'rona
Please just don't.
Second, this is an index of all podcasts. If you are going to ban index searches google should also ban their own search engine because right now I can search for plenty of corona propaganda using it.
Not to mention that you can literally post an RSS feed into pretty much every podcast app, it's an open ecosystem. Jesus.
Can Google actually put people with some degree of sensibliity in charge of these decisions? This reminds me of Amazon deleting 1984 from people's Kindles.
If google applied this consistently it should have to ban the following apps: Google Chrome[1], Firefox[1], Opera[1], Google[2], Google News[3], Google Podcast[2], Netflix[4], Youtube[3], Play Store[2, 3], any news/journalism organization (including CNN, PBS, NYTimes, BBC (uk), ARD/ZDF (de)), reddit[3], twitter[3], facebook[3], and plenty plenty more.
But at least Jair Bolsonaro is still free to put out fake news apps if he wants because he is head of the government...
[1] Allows access to sites such as google[2].
[2] Allows access to "fake news". And it has a covid warning section linking to (thereby endorsing) non-approved sources such as wikipedia.
[3] Displays/Links to a lot of non-government approved journalism and "journalism".
I said "reminiscent", i.e it invokes memories. Hastily enacted, a blunt instrument, huge, sweeping changes to legislation, makes human rights organisations nervous etc.
What does that mean in the UK context specifically ... for example, the COVID law repeals a reform that was made some years ago, after police finally caught the most prolific serial killer in history. He is believed to have killed perhaps 250 people without being caught, because he was a doctor who was forging death certificates. So the rules were changed to require multiple sign-offs on the cause of death, because multiple signoffs on cremation forms were the only way he was originally detected.
In the COVID panic that rule has been removed. Doctors can now put any cause of death they want without anyone checking them. In many countries there are now widespread reports of elderly relatives being assigned COVID as a cause of death in care homes, when the family members know they repeatedly tested negative and weren't sick.
Even better, the rule that said multiple psychiatry opinions are required to involuntarily commit someone was also repealed. In other words the government anticipated their policies would lead to both mass mental breakdown and civil disobedience; allowing a single doctor to effectively imprison someone indefinitely without any trial or any checks/balances at all, looks like a rather neat solution to that, doesn't it?
All these changes are in a sense well intentioned, the lawmakers believed speed is more important than accuracy. Those beliefs are wrong.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I was using this exact app to listen to the "Making Sense" podcast by Sam Harris, on the topic of covid-19. This is clearly not a government source, but as usual, Sam probes with some of the most intelligent, nuanced questions on this topic. It would be sad to see discussions like these get suppressed with the rest under Google's policy.
I've been a Pixel/Nexus user for about a decade. I'm feeling it's finally time to get out of Google-land and move to a more open phone with F-Droid. I don't trust Google to use their power fairly. Any recommendations for devices?
I don't know. The google should ban itself for they indexes reference the coronavirus but... oh well.
> What Google is asking of Podcast Addict would be comparable to Google asking Google to remove all references to the websites and social media posts that reference the coronavirus unless the reference comes from an official government entity or public health organization.
I doubt it'll stick.
Just as the implication isn't that the PATRIOT act authors did 9/11, they certainly took the momentum of the aftermath of a tragedy to push their pre-existing agenda.
Nothing in the metadata. Pure evil.
Perhaps you haven't seen the article because it's behind an Apple News link. There's a screenshot of a message stating company policy as follows:
"Pursuant to Section 8.3 of the Developer Agreement and the Enforcement policy, apps referencing Covid-19, or related terms, in any form will only be approved for distribution on Google Play if they are published, commissioned or authorized by official government entities or public health organizations"
Edit: Changed hydroxyquinone to the correct hydroxychloroquine.
Alas, all the competitors are now moribund, and much of the market couldn't give two hoots about privacy issues.
Whatever index they use on podcasts.google.com is full of the same, so I'm leaning toward no. https://podcasts.google.com/?q=covid19&hl=en-GB
It sounds like it is the indexing that's the issue here. Worth noting that if they ever crack down on Podcast apps being able to play non-indexed content they'll wipe out the whole Patreon economy around podcasts, which relies on sharing private feeds with subscribers.
Edit: to back myself up.
Here is this website standing behind authoritarian right-wing government doing antisemitic dogwhistles: https://reclaimthenet.org/hungarian-government-facebook-over...
Here it is protecting conspiracy theorists against "censorship": https://reclaimthenet.org/youtube-demonetizes-sgtreport-trur...
Here it is covering the ban of a known right-wing troll (also piss drinker) Joey Salads: https://reclaimthenet.org/twitter-suspends-joey-salads/
Here it is supporting a fringe far-right social network Gab a bunch of times: https://reclaimthenet.org/gab-biggest-mastadon-node/ https://reclaimthenet.org/new-gab-decentralized-version/ https://reclaimthenet.org/gab-chat/ https://reclaimthenet.org/gab-pro-benefits/
It's just so much consistent support for basically fascists on this. Propping this website up is dangerous.
To give an answer to this endless debate, a proper, randomized clinical trial is needed. And the conditions set correctly, too: lopinavir and ritonavir were, per NEJM, not successful, but a later study in Lancet showed that administration at earlier time points (within 7 days of symptom onset) might be working and needs more investigation.
I know Novartis is running a trial, and so is U of Minnesota[1] which has finally completed enrollment and will release results after peer review.
Oh, and more on topic, it looks like Twitter has blocked a legitimate page of the Canadian part of the same group of trials[2].
[2] https://twitter.com/DrToddLee/status/1261442201369939968
There's never been a better time to excise Google from your life, or if you work there, to excise your life from theirs.
I have explicitly stated that I am against innocent people to die as a consequence of people spouting propaganda. As for those to be thrown into jail for spouting propaganda, these are not innocent.
> I hope you live in a country that has free speech laws
I do, I'm German and we strike a sensible balance between freedom of speech and protecting people from deadly propaganda, although I'd like a bit more strict regulations especially forcing social networks to hire actual German people for moderation who understand cultural context and have enough time for a reasonable informed moderation decision.
It's not a political stance, it's a moderation action.
Google, Facebook, etc. are just bad moderators of their platforms.
Selective enforcement of moderations policies is bad moderation. Implementing automated moderation without proper quality control is bad moderation. Implementing automated moderation without proper appeal processes is bad moderation.
The moderation policy is insane, but I think how moderation is done is even more insane.
Give it a few years
It doesn't work that way. New drugs are assumed ineffective until proven otherwise. A government official with no medical training recommending an unproven drug based on a few anecdotes is the height of irresponsibility.
Of course that's assuming that they don't get the same play store treatment from GOOG
It's a little too ironic that Goggle, who has countless times made the argument that they aren't responsible/liable for what their users do on a service ("honestly senator its just a platform we provide"), and then here they are the ones calling for some downstream accountability. Not that I agree at all with the logic- you may as well say that a bank is responsible(liable) for the use of any money they lend out ;} -- but its the hypocrisy that stinks to high heaven here!
For the record: as a paying Podcast Addict user, I think this is a shitty action by Google. I just don't see how it is unconstitutional.
NB. I hope something good comes out of this, like more people discovering and using third party app stores, or being able to run apps on android auto even if google hasn't approved such apps (hello TomTom).
A million clueless searches vs a few informed dissenting voices, which is more troubling for authoritarian regimes?
You can search all you want, but can you share what you have learned?
Welcome to our "new normal".
Perfectly suitable for daily use, typing from such a device just now. :) IIRC there is a community port for PinePhone as well.
On the other Hand people like Dr. Erickson get censored, because they simply dare to question the lock down and argue that there is no evidence supporting it's effectiveness in saving lives.
In my case, I once made the bad decision to watch a Jordan Peterson video. By itself it wasn't crazy, he was mildly provocative, a little paternalistic, not my cup of tea. But geez, the trash that then ended up appearing in the side bar after that was awful. I find that if I watch some "bad" videos, I have to spend a fair amount of time culling shit out of the subsequent recommendations.
Another way to keep your feed from being polluted is simply to create "garbage user" that you toggle to if you want to view potentially garbage content.
What I really wish youtube did was to allow users to filter out videos that contain keywords we choose, like twitter's somewhat effective "muted words" list.
No, there's plenty of public evidence that lockdowns reduce the spread of COVID-19 and save lives; that's not true for the PATRIOT Act. So this is false, as well as being a red herring...
> Many people here agreed with that for years until Snowden etc revealed that it was unjustified.
I don't think that Snowden and other whistleblowers revealed that the PATRIOT Act was unjustified so much as that what was actually authorized by the PATRIOT Act was a drop in the bucket to what the US government was actually doing in surveillance.
The proximate result of which was Congress expanding surveillance authority to legalize much of what had been being done illegally (authority it is currently in the process of renewing), so clearly it's not even a universal conclusion, even now, that the unauthorized surveillance they revealed was unjustified.
Continuing to use their software and services in any way is extremely irresponsible. Deplatform now!
Here's a few citations:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52388586
https://fee.org/articles/youtube-to-ban-content-that-contrad...
https://www.theblaze.com/news/youtube-will-remove-any-corona...
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/youtube-ramps-up-actio...
These haven't been cherry picked, they're the top 4 results on a DDG search.
Your example only demonstrates that you don't understand the difficulty in censoring content on social platforms as enormous as YouTube; not that Google don't have a policy that prohibits such content.
They will be too busy arguing about systemd or similar rather than working on the UX so it will never happen. The Linux world seems to strive for perfection (despite everyone's idea of perfection being different) when they barely have the resources to do even a "good enough" solution.
The package name is 'com.google.android.apps.podcasts'
I get it's cool to hate Google these days and I'm not saying I agree with the removal of the podcast app, however the removal of that app is consistent with how Google have been maintaining some of their other platforms too. This isn't a theoretical point either, it's been well documented in the news and talked to death on here too. So regardless of my opinion of Google (and to be clear: I'm not fan either) I still can't help feeling that all the "Google are hypocrites" remarks being made are completely ignorant of the fact that Google are actually removing content on YouTube as well.
Here's a bunch of citations that proves this and the GP comments are actually correct despite the down votes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23220864
On it you can listen to a podcast about Covid 19 from a media company that is not a government agency or health organisation.
If google’s automations are broken and they harm the world then they need to be responsible and fix them or replace them with people.
It's too bad google is so insanely incompetent that there are more every day instead of less. It's enough to make you think that they aren't staggeringly incompetent, have talented engineers, and aren't trying to fight conspiracy theory videos that are among the stickiest content on their sites.
Given that there is selective attention given to different political subjects it is by definition a political stance.
If we interpret this expression metaphorically rather than literally, then curiously it would most directly apply to people claiming COVID is dangerous and everyone needs to run out of the building (economy) and then wait for government assistance. If there is in fact no fire, as more and more data implies, then it's the people claiming there's a killer virus on the loose who are crying fire and should - by this logic - be suppressed, with people saying "it's all clear" being the ones who get amplified.
I would say HCQ is a "lead" in the pharmacological sense (after all there's an effect in vitro), but of course there's no guarantee it will work properly (work as in "higher efficacy than placebo or other treatments") in vivo.
The reason for my comment is that the announcement by the "government official" (who was not the first, the first being the eccentric Dr.Raoult) turned what should have been scientific debate into a political flamefest (at least in the media). And science (aka, proper, randomized clinical trials) got lost in the way (at some point the U of Minnesota trial struggled to get new people).
I personally don't have any particular love for HCQ: chances are, like remedisivir, that if there is an effect, it is small. But I want to point out that so far science is still out on this one.
Isn't the elimination of human judgement one reason we all hate bureaucracies?
I am actually curious if any of you have other recommended apps from F-droid
Unfortunately both of the above can have counter agenda (could have good intentions such as calming hoarding), even worse is that you can have kooks, active disinformation, lulz, etc. There is no good answer to this.
If we treat Android, Window, Twitter, Facebook, as public spaces/goods, then private companies should not have a say in what is allowed/not-allowed on their platforms. This is work for the courts and police to decide and enforce.
If we treat those platforms as private. Then we are playing in s/o's backyard. You are totally at their mercy. They have every right to kick you out if they don't like your face. It's their property. You are a guest.
I think we need constituted digital public spaces and platforms with:
- democratic footing (users are in charge)
- public ownership
- division of power (politicians =!= judges =!= police)
- effective policing
In such a system it would be for independent courts to decide which Apps can be distributed and which not. Those courts would be bound to a constitution/body of law, which applies to all parties a like.
Yes, this will be expensive. Yes, you will have to give up some privacy. But you will be a citizen in a society, and not a stranger playing in a backyard.
Maybe the current platforms can be coerced into a system which approximates the above. But I have my doubts. I hope in 200years people will have figured this out, and will look back to this age as the digital dark ages.
With regards to the app removal, do we know it is a Google management decision and not the work of an overzealous app reviewer or an algorithm (the latter being the way Google usually operate)?
The reason I talk about internal consistency is because it is hard getting the right balance between removing stuff that should be vs stuff that shouldn’t and that problem is only magnified when when doing so at scale. So if this were a management then I totally understand the pitchforks but if it’s a false positive an in algorithm then hopefully Google will rectify and we can all go back to moaning about Electron or whatever the next meme is.
Still. Even if they did take that turn. I don't think they would have stayed truly neutral. Lot's of ways to penalize competition without banning them from your platform. A wolf is a bad shepherd.
I now live in the Subscription section, and it's great!
While obviously Podcast Addict does not deserve a ban, the sheer number of people in this thread advocating unrestricted speech around COVID-19 is thoroughly disturbing. This despite the carnage that the disease is wreaking in the US and UK right now, and the fact that conspiracy theories spread on Google and Facebook platforms have certainly added significant fuel to the fire of COVID-19.
Even down here in NZ we're dealing with cell towers being set alight due to batshit conspiracy theories spread on Facebook and Youtube. I'm generally very much pro-free speech, but this is one thing that needs to be stamped down on fast, mainly due to more and more americans gathering in large protests and spreading the virus.
"They are removing content on youtube." is a true factual statement.
"They are applying the same standard." is not.
The motivation may be the same, but the types of removal are very different. As long as their own podcasting app is up in its current form, there is a very good argument that they're not being consistent.
The bad news is Google is acting like Apple.
There is no win-win scenario on policy enforcement when a company gets big enough.
If you respect and enjoy podcasts, don't use google apps.
Edit: my recommendation is AntennaPod. I used to use and love PocketCast until NPR effed it.
Electric companies are mostly private. They are not allowed to cut off electricity to people/orgs that say things they don't like.
(Note sarcasm)
It's not like there wasn't any anti-scientific rubbish, hate speech and manipulation in book shops, newspapers and on TV. Entire countries used to be run by media barons (literally or effectively).
Regarding Covid specifically, I find it pretty ironic that free speech should be restricted to government officials by an oligopoly of US corporations while the head of the US government routinely spreads anti-scientific disinformation on that very subject (and on others).
Why would google care at this point? Regulators world wide are basically useless. They might sue Google eventually and years later Google might settle for 1% of the profit they made as a result. So why would they ever care?
Should Apple/Google be forced to carry pornographic apps? White supremacists apps? Apps that invade people’s privacy? Which government should hold this responsibility? Should we have an international committee deciding this?
The quicker multinationals like this are broken up, the better. For me personally, this is another reason to try to not use Google or Alphabet, it is not easy, but not impossible (yet).
That said, the SW will of course lag behind commercial offerings. Just see how long it took for desktop Linux to catch up to the major players. But open source system gives me the freedom to turn it inside-out, get rid of things I don't want (even systemd if I felt really strongly about it), repair what I want - be the owner of by phone and not just a cow to be milked for rent. Nah, I can live without WhatsApp. Or I can get a secondary cheap Android phone for such apps.
In the meantime consumers should support other app stores like https://f-droid.org/.
I highly recommend the open source AntennaPod podcast app: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.danoeh.antennapod/
I definitely agree that these enormous platforms should not be allowed to censor us. It's highly authoritarian that the monopolist owners of huge platforms can just shut off dissenting voices. (After all, what else does it mean to only allow government sources that so often lie as in the case with masks or with the safety of reopening?) In any case, you can't stop the conspiracy theories from being promoted by shutting off podcasts when the president of the US is promoting some of them. News is gonna cover it regardless.
It's so transparent; any time there's some crisis, whether it's terrorism or guns or drugs or a pandemic, there are always people calling for us to ignore the actual issues of our system and ram some "fix" through because this time, no seriously, this time it's life or death and we have to act.
Erickson, among other things, makes provably false statements about the prevalence and mortality of covid19. You’re allowed to be misinformed as a private citizen; you’re not allowed to grandstand in public as a physician and spread misinformation. He’s lucky he only got deplatformed, rather than have his license taken.
You make it sound like he was expressing an unpopular interpretation of the data, rather than actively spreading untrue assertions.
Its sad that we are in a situation where a company can dictate what we can install on our computers/smartphones. I know we can sideload apps on android, but the majority of users doesn't care about this and just give away its freedom to really own the device in exchange for the easiest way to operate it. And every day we walk towards lesser control of our property and more dependency of those companies.
Another problem is that developers can, without notice, be locked out of their incomes for whatever reason without ways to properly appeal. Those who can, we should consider supporting the developer Xavier Guillemane on Patreon, at least until this situation gets resolved. The amount of work he put on the app, its probably his main source of income and I wouldn't like if he need to abandon the app development due to this. The lowest tier is just $1.
Examples:
In the EU you don't need to filter pornography the same way as in the US. In the US you don't need to filter personal information (eg individuals' faces) the same way as in the EU.
Or does Google need to ban insults of the Thai king?
Which legislation should apply? Already now China has split the global internet in a China and non-China part...
It isn't just "sketchy" videos. Someone linked me to a video of a dog being rescued, which I watched on my logged-in profile, and it was fine and all, but explaining to YouTube that that doesn't mean I'm interested in hearing about every dog ever rescued (since I didn't know about the 'delete from history' trick) has been a lot of "Never show me videos from this channel" button pushed.
No harm in spreading lies and absurd conspiracies, right?
My computer allows racist pornography and its the greatest invention in the history of mankind. As far as I can tell, iPhones have not lived up to that legacy.
This is the same stuff that was said during Iraq War. That it was justified. Later, we found out that it wasn't and that we attacked a country even though it was Saudi Arabia that was primarily responsible.
Now, they are trying to say that extreme measures, such as censoring people with alternative opinions is justified. Who cares if WHO or whatever else agency disagrees. People are capable of making choices for themselves and doing research. Blocking information, just because it may be inaccurate, doesn't justify it. You then have a centralized power determining what information is accurate like the events that lead to the Iraq War.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/why-georg...
Additionally, no harm? Movies encourage terrible behavior as well, but we are not trying to ban them on Netflix. If there is a movie where they glamorize alcohol or unprotected sex, there is no effort to have them removed from streaming platforms.
At one point, saying the world was round would have been an absurd conspiracy. Just because something appears and most likely is inaccurate, doesn't mean that we should have a central fact checking authority. That is some 1984 stuff right there. People can make choices for themselves and do their own research. There is no law preventing people like Sandra Bullock from telling people that baby foreskin is good for their skin, even though most people would know that is disgusting.
This one seems to make me think that the app itself (or its play store listing) maybe has terms in metadata (to help with searching in the store maybe?)
I’m not talking about disagreement of these posts (there’s nothing to disagree, the comments were factually accurate), I’m talking about the comments where people say stuff like “Google's rules only apply to their competitors“, which clearly isn’t true (as I’ve proven).
I also don’t agree with you exaggerating my comments to claim I was accusing people of being mindless and agree when I said no such thing.
> The motivation may be the same, but the types of removal are very different. As long as their own podcasting app is up in its current form, there is a very good argument that they're not being consistent.
When splitting hairs there’s a risk you sub-divide the problem so finely that you then can argue nothing is equivalent and I think that’s what’s happening here.
There’s a saying that goes something like “don’t attributed malice to acts of incompetence” which applies here. People are quick to jump on the offensive when it’s clearly a policy that Google follow on their other platforms and it might well be a decision that is overturned upon review.
I explain this point more eloquently here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23222167
We need to go back to the web, where anybody could install Apache and off they went. Bandwidth is cheap now. BitTorrent exists.
I hope google and twitter and Facebook and all the rest just hurry up with all this.
Some other ridiculous examples of them becoming the ministry of truth:
There was a joke image going around on Facebook saying: “Arizona beaches packed during coronavirus!”. A joke about Arizona not having any beaches because it’s a desert. Facebook censors this and gives you some creepy warning before your allowed to see it.
Or how about: there is a doctor from the university of Minnesota who is running a large scale, international, placebo controlled RCT for a potential covid prophylactic. Twitter is censoring his links to find out more about the study. HE IS A DOCTOR RUNNING A STUDY AT A MAJOR UNI, and twitter is telling him he is misinformation.
It’s all just disgusting and is exactly what a lot of people feared would happen with these companies.
Pornography and hate speech have plenty of legal precedent. And if I'm honest, if it's legal in a given country, why shouldn't it be available?
Agreed on the last part.
You really think that judges with their own religious and political biases and with lifetime appointments “care about you”?
But the person you replied to isn't talking about that.
> That it was justified.
This is like the "they called [genius] wrong" argument. Lots of people claim things are justified. Some of them are wrong, some of them are right. You can't make a blanket judgement.
> Blocking information, just because it may be inaccurate, doesn't justify it. You then have a centralized power determining what information is accurate like the events that lead to the Iraq War.
That fiasco didn't happen because information was being blocked.
The real question is whether it should be consistently upheld without exceptions and the answer to that is obviously “no” because some apps are hubs to user curated content like that podcast app is.
As for your comment about them suspending their entire YouTube app, you talk as if this was a management exec decision rather than rouge judgement that will inevitably get overturned.
Google isn’t a single entity. It’s a collection of people and algorithms all making their own judgements based on Google’s policies. Sometimes they miss stuff they should moderate and sometimes they get overzealous and remove content they shouldn’t. There is such a large grey area and scope for personal judgement that you have to expect some unpopular verdicts from time to time. It’s shit but no two situations are identical so it’s a problem that’s impossible to avoid. The real tell is whether Google reverse the decision once the complaint gets escalated.
There are no clean actors here, but the difference between the judicial system and the big companies is that the judicial system has people who care about more than just profits.
> Except usually a web browser doesn't include a index of sites, You go to a another site (Google/Bing) for that.
OK then, it is like asking a search/video/advertising company to remove all such references from its search, and hosted videos, and other properties, and banning their apps & services until they do.
I don't see the youtube app being banned for all the C19 rubbish they are currently hosting and indexing. Or the Google news app for the C19 rubish it is indexing and actively pushing to some people (depending on what the relevant sacred algorithm, hallowed be its name, decides who should see).
What they appear to be expecting Podcast Addict to do is exactly what they themselves have said they can't do. Either it is not possible (this is the case IMO) in which case it is not fair to expect it of PcA, or it is possible and Google are hypocrites of the highest order in this matter.
EDIT: after reading the rest of TFA...
Even worse "additionally, Google isn’t applying these same rules to its own podcast app – Google Podcasts" - we don't even need to argue service equivalence to show that as hypocritical.
Of course this is most likely to be an undesirable side effect of some automated system. I'll give Google that benefit of the doubt if they reinstate PcA immediately and apologise for their cock-up.
I have literally no idea how you're digging up Israel in this story, and while you are correct that I lean towards the Zionist side I'm not a fan of either Netanyahu or Trump's "peace plan" idea.
> Might that be related to the raw, barely-disguised authoritarian hatred displayed in your post?
Authoritarian hatred? I only dislike people who refuse to accept hard scientific truth, and especially people who willingly and knowingly endanger others with a deadly disease. Murder is punished in almost all countries of this world, and people who are trying to deny the dangers of the inarguably worst pandemic in a hundred years are not much short of accessories to murder IMO.
The difference is that it is much easier to not be beholden to the private corporations you mentioned than the government. Private corporations don’t have the power of the state to take away my liberty, property or life.
[0]: https://abovethelaw.com/2019/06/explainer-how-letting-platfo...
[1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 (Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material)
How “accountable” are judges with lifetime appointments?
Google is accountable. If they don’t give people what they want, people don’t give them money directly or indirectly.
https://www.cnet.com/news/fortnites-battle-royale-with-andro...
We have a general principle of due process and contract law that can be applied here in insisting that "massive corporations" play nice. Reigning in "massive corporations" doesn't require any new governmental powers.
I'm saying this as someone who leans libertarian but I don't think that is in conflict with the concepts of due process and reasonable contracts. The Devil is always in the details but it isn't an either/or choice.
> Perhaps you haven't seen the article because it's behind an Apple News link. There's a screenshot of a message stating company policy as follows:
> "Pursuant to Section 8.3 of the Developer Agreement and the Enforcement policy, apps referencing Covid-19, or related terms, in any form will only be approved for distribution on Google Play if they are published, commissioned or authorized by official government entities or public health organizations"
How does their own browser not run afoul of this policy?
If this problem is not addressed, the internet may well segregate along national boundaries (just as you describe).
I don't ask Apple for permission to visit a website on my iPhone. Why should I ask their permission to install applications? Would it be so awful if I were allowed to run my own software?
At various times, HN users want the government to decide what gets sold in Apple and Google’s stores and decide what Amazon can and can’t sell. I’ve even seen that they want the government to intervene when it comes to how the game console makers operate. I guess if it were up to them Nintendo should be forced to sell “Debbie Does Dallas” next to “Animal Crossing” in their online store.
Choice is amazing. You had a choice to buy into Apple’s “walled garden” or buy an Android. You didn’t need the nanny state to make that choice for you.
I prefer AntennaPod, another open-source app podcast app that's much less opinionated and has a few more features (but not bloated like most podcast apps).
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.danoeh.antennapod/
It's also available on the Google App Store.
I like how both of these apps actually let you manually set the RSS address, because most don't.
- Twitter app asks users to follow Covid-19 related news as the first item in their home screen after login (and has a separate tab for news related to Covid-19 in Search screen).
- Reddit official app asks users to subscribe to /r/Coronavirus (that subreddit is not moderated by any government).
- Quora android app has a banner at the top that is similar (follow Coronavirus Space - all the content in that topic seems to be generated by users).
- YouTube app currently has a featured video related to Covid on my feed from one of their official Spotlight channels.
I'm sure Facebook has something similar to follow news related to Covid.
So there's no consistency of banning non-official speech on Covid-19
Also this is not the first time it happened. Same thing happened to
- A meme generator app because one of the memes contained word Corona (https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/fn0wzl/app_with...).
- An RSS reader app for showing news related to Covid (https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/ggb3s7/a_week_s...)
- A self improvement app that curates articles (https://reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/gem317/our_app_was_...)
And in all of these examples, app seems to be restored after talking to someone at Google. Shouldn't that be the first thing done by the Google play team (before suspending the app) instead of dev losing all the installs and revenue for the time the app is suspended?
That's why everything has to go decentralized, encrypted, headless, and amorphous. The endpoint should be the end of platforms in favor of protocols and interfaces to those protocols.
Get to work.
The whole point of 230 was to answer that: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider".
Some courts had said that filtering makes the provider a publisher and liable for the content. Congress passed 230 to reverse that.
Agreed. I hope it gets proven effective too. This is a hot button issue for me because a family member needs HCQ for lupus and now cannot obtain it because of the statements of said government official. His words have caused actual harm, and this isn't the first time.
I want a tool to work without having to sift through hundreds and hundreds of videos and try to guess which one caused the drift into crazy town.
Before section 230, there had been a couple of court cases. One held that a particular provider was not liable for anything posted on it, because it did not do any filtering or blocking at all. Another held that a different provider was liable for what users posted, because it did do some filtering and blocking.
Congress felt these outcomes were wrong, and section 230 was specifically meant to make providers not liable for user provided content, regardless of whether or not they did any filtering or blocking.
Apple has less than 50% of the market in the US and 15% of the market worldwide. People chose to use Apple without any coercion from the government.
But back to this case, people can choose to sideload apps on Android. So what’s the problem?
I write this not as a dogmatic free software proponent, either; I have bought apps on the Play Store in the past and would consider doing so if the experience weren't so poor. Dealing with the Play Store has gotten so frustrating (not just due to this issue, but also due to the difficulty of filtering out shovelware and spyware) that I only reach for it as a last resort now.
Are you sure that advocating a "stamp down" won't throw away the baby with the bathwater? In my country, a lot of now very legitimate theories (thrombosis and treatment with heparin, convalescent plasma therapy) were slammed by certain very prominent experts at first ("baloney", "colossal idiocy"). What would've happened if Twitter or Google decided to remove the "controversial" theories?
Also, Twitter now is blocking an URL of a legitimate university promoting a trial with hydroxychloroquine. As you can see, to remove the "batshit conspiracy theories" we are also removing good science.
Feeling a big "NOPE" on that one.
Customers need to make it unacceptable for FAANG to act this way... Good luck on that tho.
Unfortunately, they have been very good at slowly raising the temperature so the frog (read:us) doesn't jump out of the pot.
Can they though? Android does not make it difficult at all to install apps through stores other than their own Play Store. A quick internet search reveals that there are at least a dozen other options for users to download apps to Android phones.
I agree that a devices OS should allow alternative means to install apps, but Android has clearly done this.
If one wants to subject these corporations to regulations, than it seems one should propose regulations. Putting them under the direct purview of a government does not magically make them start working in the best interest of the people (of which nation?). Nor does it mean that they are automatically accountable; see for example the NSA if you want examples predating the current administration.
> Private corporations don’t have the power [] to take away my liberty, property or life.
No, they can only demand you come in for overtime, require you to move where they want you to, or force you to come in while sick, at the risk of taking away your job. A risk which is minor for some of us, but which is the equivalent of a threat of homelessness for others.
"The only winning move is not to play."
> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
Letting internet outrage drive the support queue is oddly pragmatic.
"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."
-Section 230
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Six-Words-That-Created-Interne...
This entire thread is a discussion about Google's automatic tool flagging a podcast browser erroneously. If Google's response was to uphold the suspension then there would be an actual story, but they won't, and so it isn't.
I feel like they're screaming at the top of their lungs asking you to not think of those things as public spaces. I am happy to try to oblige them.
By selectively funding the development of information they favor, YouTube or app stores could be considered in part responsible for the creation of that information, in which case that section would not protect them, because they would then be the information content provider, not merely a provider of an interactive computer service.
If you want to spread an idea now, you won't walk to your local town a square and start talking on a makeshift podium. You'll post a tweet or a facebook post, or make a reddit thread.
Really we need a third group. Corporations aren't individual people, and the legal simplification of modeling corporations as people is problematic. Unfortunately this probably requires a constitutional amendment for the US to change.
If an app in their marketplace is helping spread misinformation about a public health crisis, that app can and should be removed from Google's marketplace.
America is a capitalist society. If you're going to do business in Google's ecosystem, you have to follow Google's rules. Google isn't tolerating COVID-19 misinformation, so if you're an app publisher in Google's ecosystem, you should adopt a similar stance.
Human life is on the line here. Google is doing the right thing.
But your question is of course very apt when it comes to the Google Search app or Google's own podcast app.
There used to be this idea (a good idea in my view) that building a search index is a neutral activity that does not come with any editorial responsibility for the content.
Google used to fight for that idea but unfortunately lawmakers (and I think the majority of the population) have very firmly taken the opposite view.
I think that's what's ultimately at the core of this defensive "when in doubt, ban it!" attitude that was built into automatic content filtering tools and hammered into the heads of reviewers.
There are still gaps - the most glaring one being Google Search - but I think Google has largely given up that struggle in favour of avoiding billions in fines
Aside from the details of 230, I would think long and hard about the unintended side effects of what you’re proposing. Attempts to control what Google and similar can and cannot moderate either results in Google having no moderation power at all (a disaster for the entire internet), or gives the government the power to decide what and what is not protected from Google’s moderation (which is contrary to the point of this exercise).
The best solution would be an emergence of an Android fork and the corresponding platform, but this seems unlikely due to enormous (as in 100bn perhaps) startup capital required.
Do you propose any other constructive solutions?
The problem is, if the developer wants its software to reach the wide audience of the platform, its a obvious choice for him to use what the users perceive as the "official way" of installing software. Sure, you can offer both ways, but if your app is missing from the official store, the majority of users won't even know it exists.
IMHO we, as users and developers, have our share of the blame for problems like this one, and we should be vigilant so Android doesn't become like iOS.
I don't know what "s/o" means but assuming it means the operator of the platform, no, you are not at their mercy, they are at yours. Just go use another platform. If, in practical terms, there are no other platforms for the thing you want, then that's a different problem.
"Coronavirus Live Map and realtime counter - Latest worldwide COVID-19 stats and figures." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRy5_KpPxyM
And there're tons more when you search "covid 19 stats" in YT
This is of course the same issue we all face when opting to pull in an OSS dependency for our own projects (from npm or docker or rubygems or rust crates or...): we need to decide on our own how far to trust the software maintainers.
The android permissions model offers some degree of protection in both stores from hostile software. However, unlike the Play Store which offers only a couple of tags (contains in-app purchases / contains ads), in F-Droid any known "antifeatures" (i.e. association with paid services) are listed explicitly in the catalogue.
As for abandonware (or other software that F-Droid drops for practical concerns), users could still acquire the code and build it themselves, which means that a developer stepping away from a piece of software does not mean a user needs to say goodbye.
I agree with you though, the inherent problem is that they are private spaces and should act like it. That means developing the ability to interoperate with other private spaces (some sort of federated protocol would be required), and not having monopolies on distribution (being able to acquire iOS apps from 3rd party channels, for instance).
By extension, if anyone is considering legislation to enforce freedom of expression on social networks, I'd propose a different track—break up the largest of the social networks (namely Facebook at this point) and force them to interoperate.
That seems a lot more practical than forcing private companies to hold up public standards of free speech.
Contact the FTC, because this is an example of Google leveraging a non-arms-length arrangement to interfere with and exclude competitors to their own products Google Podcasts and YouTube which directly violate the policy they are applying to Podcast Addict.
There is no legitimate business function served by this inconsistent conduct, and it looks like a textbook case of single-firm anticompetitive conduct.
Source: https://twitter.com/DrToddLee/status/1261442201369939968
> It would be trivial for a human to find this.
Someone literate in Swedish maybe (to gather the context of those key words) but it isn't humans which do this.
Google are big into automation to the extent that they have machines doing their review. You might consider that wrong but then you have to ask yourself how many humans would it take to moderate a platform as large as YouTube. I bet you that whatever number you come up wouldn't be enough and someone else would say "I found another video that was trivial to find, Google don't hire enough platform moderators!"
Plus it's a pretty horrible job being a professional moderator and spending your whole day reviewing the dregs of society. I've read reports where people who've done it had said it's had a very real negative impact on their mental health.
As I said earlier, fixing problems like this at scale is insanely hard. It's one of those things that might seem easy at a superficial level but it's fraught with errors and you can guarantee that whatever decision the moderator makes (be that human or algorithm) someone will be unhappy and claim it's not fair.
Much more often (as here), these companies are 1) making decisions in a way that allows them to abstract away and thus ignore the nuances of individual cases 2) putting the burden of implementation on underpaid workers who are not equipped to make these decisions and 3) reacting to any noticeable pushback by moving 200% in the opposite directions.
Locating the problem in Political motivations overlooks the economic incentives that monopolies have to 1) lobby/appease the people in power 2) use political opportunity to squelch competition and 3) treat their workers as disposable commodities.
We already have a situation in which two companies effectively decide what can go on anyone's cellphone (sideloading is not and will not be a meaningful solution for any more than a fraction of a percent of users).
This is unhealthy behavior towards the open web, which Google seems to work aggressively towards its full control through web browser, ads, and cloud computing.
Every nation should have the right to impose whatever restrictions it sees fit on companies wanting to distribute content to that nation.
Is it a pain to do this for the content distributor? Of course! But national sovereignty is far too important to be traded for ease of content distribution.
Of course, there is a problem (which some may consider a benefit) with the design of the Internet itself: there is no easy way to define what it means to distribute content to a particular country. But probably using national IP blocks is going to generally be good enough for many use cases.
The government regulation that might be called for in situations like this is regulation that puts a few limits on corporate control of massive platforms, not regulation that just transfers that control to other entities. Make locking down platforms too tightly illegal: relax laws about reverse engineering, mandate side-loading. I don't think we need to take away Google or Apple's rights to say what they will and won't sell in their own digital storefronts, but I don't think those rights should necessarily extend to control over what users install on their own devices. The problem is when those are the only legal storefront (e.g., Apple's iOS App Store), or other storefronts are highly undiscoverable.
In practice it's a little murkier than that, but the way you presented it makes it sound like the system is just stacked to the benefit of the smaller states over the larger, when that is not the case.
Our bandwidth for holding government accountable is so limited as to be useless. Consider the federal gov't, since I think it's what you're mostly talking about anyway. We get to vote for
* 1x Presidential primary every 4 years, from a field of, let's say, 8 to be generous: 3 bits
* 1x President every 4 years, from a field of 4 at best: 2 bits
* 2x Senator primary every 6 years. Let's again say a field of 8: 3 bits
* 2x Senator every 6 years. Let's again say a field of 4: 2 bits
* 1x Representative primary every 2 years. Again, very generous field of 8: 3 bits
* 1x Representative every 2 years, field of 4: 2 bits
That gives us 5.4 bits/year of bandwidth to actually hold our elected officials accountable. Yes, we can write letters and stuff, but that doesn't really allow us to hold them accountable. 5.4 bits in a year is nowhere near enough to express our feelings on the myriad of topics that the government is fiddling with, so we have effectively zero control over those things.
Compare that with private sector. Even for entities like Google, we've got huge latitude to vote with our feet. We can use DuckDuckGo, etc. Our choices as consumers provides a comparatively enormous bandwidth.
However in reality the company acts conservitively and bans content that violates in Thailand for the US. "it's their platform". That's the same case as in the US. (See the article earlier talking about the CCP protest comments on youtube.)
[1] https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/no-benefit-fro...
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.danoeh.antennapod/
F-Droid only lists FOSS software, but Google sorely needs competition. Unfortunately, any alternative store is unlikely to succeed since the users only have incentive to use it when Google misbehaves, so all Google has to do is misbehave rarely enough to kill the alternatives off.
The equivalent to the youtube bans is when they ban apps that are actually about covid-19. Not apps with internet search.
> I’m not talking about disagreement of these posts (there’s nothing to disagree, the comments were factually accurate), I’m talking about the comments where people say stuff like “Google's rules only apply to their competitors“, which clearly isn’t true (as I’ve proven).
No, the exact opposite of that. Because I was replying to the part of your post that says "It's a great pity all the factual comments about YouTube's COVID-19 video removal policy (or "censorship" depending on your viewpoint) are being down voted"
That is about disagreement, and is not about comments where people say stuff like “Google's rules only apply to their competitors“.
> I also don’t agree with you exaggerating my comments to claim I was accusing people of being mindless and agree when I said no such thing.
You said "factual comments are being down voted" in favor of "anti-Google rhetoric". That's either people being mindless or people being malicious. Maybe I shouldn't have used the word "anger", but I don't think "mindless" is exaggerating what you said at all. You painted the situation as having no legitimate reason to downvote those comments.
Even more in reality than your example, YouTube is censoring content the US or China or maybe Russia doesn't like everywhere, and it is not censoring content that Thailand or Uzbekistan or wherever else doesn't like even in those countries.
But if the US were to impose a no-censorship policy on YouTube (or at least a no-censorship-except-our-censorship policy), you would probably see some fragmentation to appease both the US and Chinese governments. And if a few dozen other countries did the same, with true force behind their decisions, you would either see YouTube retreating from those countries (perhaps opening the way for local alternatives), or many more YouTube front faces. Either way, there may be some advantages compared to the current system.
> the Internet and other interactive computer services offer a forum for a true diversity of political discourse
> to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services
The law was not intended to protect a near-monopoly throwing its weight around in the political arena, or a duopoly blocking competition with their own apps.
And if that interpretation did somehow give the government the power to decide what is and what is not protected, that would still be an improvement over the present situation, because the government at least answers to the people and the Constitution, and right now nothing is protected.
Other posters have rightfully pointed out that the internet is indeed open and free (for the most part), but good luck getting all of your friends to agree to use your new DIY whatsapp clone. Effectively, everyone who doesn't know how to standup their own website is completely at the mercy of these technology companies now.
Furthermore, the channels of communication most people use are now being forced through these tech companies because of recent events. The amount of control sitting under Google at this very moment is sickening.
Seriously think about it. If Google went completely AWOL, how much damage could they do to the world? How much control do they actually have over every Android handset and web user experience? I feel we need to start looking at Google in terms of the worst-case scenario, and then start planning policy around that. There is just too much at stake now.
You are creating a test for platform vs. publisher that is not in the law. The law as linked does not even prohibit the censorship of political opinions, and in fact states that internet service providers may block constitutionally protected speech. It may be intended to free the Internet up for political discourse, but that doesn’t mean we get to totally ignore the text of the law and make up what we think it should be doing.
> The law was not intended to protect a near monopoly throwing its weight around
It wasn’t intended to do that, but that’s what it does. You don’t get to ignore the text of the law because you think it’s not acting the way you want it to. Legal systems work off the text of the laws, not what you think they should be doing.
Also, there are damn good reasons why I advise caution in these areas; unintended consequences are the norm and not the exception here. Section 230 wasn’t designed to protect monopolies, why do you think that trying to make Google “fair” wouldn’t have other unintended consequences?
Besides, if your problem with Google is that they’re a monopoly, why not use anti-monopoly laws? You can target Google specifically with those without the risk of putting all internet speech under the jurisdiction of the courts.
> And if that interpretation did somehow give the government the power to decide what is and what is not protected, that would still be an improvement
It might feel cathartic to use the power of government to force Google to do what you feel is expedient right now, but it’s something we’ll all come to regret. Understand that the nature of democracies is that people you disagree with will one day wield power, giving them the ability to control speech on the Internet is not a wise long term strategy.
There's a clear distinction between "publisher" (information content provider) and "platform" (interactive computer service) in the law. But the law provides no test for which category a particular entity falls into, so we have to provide this. No one is claiming that the proposed test is the current test, just that it's a good test, consistent with both the letter and the spirit of the law.
> That doesn’t mean you get to change what the law does on your own
Of course I don't. But the courts do, and when they do so, they consider the legislature's intent. If an interpretation is consistent with both the wording and intent, even if it isn't the original interpretation, it's possible to convince judges to adopt it.
> It might feel cathartic to use the power of government to force Google to do what you feel is expedient right now, but it’s something you’ll come to regret.
That sounds like fear mongering. If we can trust the US government to do anything, its to respect the first amendment. And if the day comes when we can no longer trust the US government to respect the first amendment, then this discussion is pointless, because at that point we'll have lost all freedoms.
But it's clear now that we cannot trust Google to respect freedom of speech. Of the two, in this narrow case, the government is more trustworthy than Google.
However I still object to you twisting my words to something far more sinister then they’re clearly intended. That’s simply not good debating.
But a full suspension, on a popular app, without rapid human review? That shouldn't happen.
Also, this wasn't up to the "install marked as dangerous" level. They just prevented new installs. In a situation like that, there's no need to act instantly.
> The term “interactive computer service” means any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions.
> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
These two combined mean that you cannot find a way to consider Google to be a publisher under section 230. If they meet the definition of an Interactive Computer Service, then they cannot be a publisher under 230.
> But the courts do.
The courts have not weighed in on this aspect of Section 230, but they taken a very expansive view of the level of immunity that it grants. Particularly interesting here would be Blumenthal vs. Drudge, which granted AOL Section 230 immunity even though the content in question was written by AOL’s contractor, which is probably closer to the line than moderation.
Outside the courts, the general legal consensus is that Section 230 does not require impartiality or neutrality at all, based on both the text of the law and the congressional record around when it was passed.
> That sounds like fear mongering. If we can trust the US government to do anything, its to respect the first amendment.
Or, you know, it’s in line with the past few centuries of liberal democratic tradition to limit the power of the government in the area of free speech. The point of the 1st amendment is explicitly to get the government out of the business of deciding what is and is not acceptable speech. You would put it back into that process.
Also, you probably shouldn’t trust the government too openly here. Ever heard the phrase “shout fire in a crowded theater”? It comes from a supreme court case that jailed somebody for protesting WW1 (Schenck v. United States). That bad precedent stood for 50 years. Just saying.
Of course, there are so, so, so many practical problems with just saying “Google cannot block anything that’s protected speech.” Pornography is protected, violent videos are protected, hate speech is protected. Much of the internet becomes completely inoperable if you set the bar at protected speech; surely we’ve all seen enough poorly moderated forums to predict that.
It’s easy to imagine a scenario where Google can block “obscene” speech but not political speech. But where is that line? And who do you trust to have permanent, hegemonic power to decide what is and is not offensive for the entire Internet? Remember that we got into this mess partly because one group of people decided that another group of people’s political opinions were offensive; do not assume that they wouldn’t use the power of the government to suppress each other given the opportunity.
Public protests/rallies/marches do bring about change in government/government policies. Many politicians do care about their public image, and are susceptible to manipulation based on public pressure.
>Compare that with private sector. Even for entities like Google, we've got huge latitude to vote with our feet. We can use DuckDuckGo, etc. Our choices as consumers provides a comparatively enormous bandwidth.
Okay, so agreeing with you for the sake of argument - they provide a bandwidth, in theory, but what is the pointif nobody actually uses it? It is "effectively" zero accountability. No mass exodus from Google/Apple/Microsoft/Facebook/Twitter/Whatsapp/TikTok/insert bad company/...
What's the constitutional argument against the current legislation of the CDA?
To be more clear, Google and other web publishers already enjoy immunity for content posted by other users and services. That is the default state of things under American law.
What section 230 does is preserve their immunity even if they exercise editorial discretion over some of the content that other users/services post. Without section 230, they would still have immunity. But they'd lose it as soon as they did any moderation at all of user-provided content.
So let’s say this mythical law is passed where you give the government more power over private business. The actual execution of the law is going to be carried out by unelected regulatory agencies where your main recourse is unelected judges.
Maybe this depends on the laws of a country. Also, IMHO either a company offers their services to everyone or to no one. There are, of course, exceptions that aren't really exceptions. Creative work in an "exception". For instance, French painter Monet was so popular that he could choose his customers.
Yes, they can win. The problem isn't that you're "too loose" or "too strict". The problem is that you have different users with different views of whether the same things is acceptable. You win by restricting your user base to people who agree on what should and shouldn't be allowed.
The worst acts by powerful organizations are almost always done under the guise of 'helping people'. Nobody oppresses you for the sake of oppression. They'll do it under the banner of some good intentions.
Google shows why merely collecting the smartest minds from around the world in one place is not good enough on its own. They need proper leadership and strong values to guide them ... two things Google has long lacked.
Note the word "another" in "another information content provider". The law plainly doesn't protect them for content they are responsible (even only in part) for creating, and by paying for some content and not other content, they're taking an active hand in choosing what content is created. In other words, they are, in part, responsible for the creation of that content.
> where is that line?
That's a question to be answered by democracy, not in a corporate board room.
And private control of the means of communication has never been unrestricted. Surely you're familiar with the regulations that once governed the television networks.
There is case law to the contrary. AOL was granted 230 immunity when the issue at hand was about what a contractor of theirs said.
> That’s a question to be answered by democracy, not in a corporate board room
Or we could encourage a proliferation of choices on the internet, rather than handing whichever party is in power the right to suppress the speech of the other.
I'm talking about preventing Google from exercising that power, not giving that power to the government. No one is proposing to repeal the first amendment.
I'm very much in favor of a proliferation of choices on the internet, but we don't really have that at the moment, and we need regulations that cover the situation we actually find ourselves in, not the ideal situation.
"Users" is a tricky word here.
When you have democracy, and you say "users are in charge", what you really mean is "whatever group of users can get a majority is in charge".
What it perhaps sounds like you're saying, which isn't true under democracy but is desirable, is "individual users are in charge", i.e. you are in charge of your own data and content.
Edit: I guess the first two could use some labels as well, provided the labels aren't legible to parental controls or other nannyware.
And even if you strip Google’s immunity from civil damages away, you are handing power over all internet speech over to the courts and anyone with enough time and money to use them. From a citizens perspective there is very little difference between censorship via the first or third branch of the government; both represent the erosion of the first amendment.
The positive studies suffer from the same issues, by the way. Especially controls are pretty bad.
These studies can't give the answers that a proper randomized controlled trial (against placebo), like the U of Minnesota one (but there are a few others) can.
Some studies focus on mortality, but I doubt HCQ helps there: like remedisivir, the measure should be time to symptom clearance / hospital discharge. Time of administration also matters a lot (see again the NEJM paper on lopinavir / ritonavir, a failure, then the Lancet paper that gives more insight at earlier time points). One study I've read gave HCQ at 16 days post symptom onset (median): that time is definitely too late for any antiviral therapy.
I reiterate: I have no personal interest in having HCQ succeed. What I want to see is good science.
But since you brought up the limited number of choices, I would like to mention that we find ourselves in that situation again today in the smartphone and online video markets, although for different reasons. And that's relevant because regulation is only necessary when the free market fails to provide the choices and freedoms we expect.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2018/08/06/636030043/youtube-apple-and-f...
Section 230 did not preserve any rights at all, it created entirely new ones. Companies were previously able to enjoy common carrier immunities, if they behaved like common carriers. Section 230 granted them those immunities without giving them the obligation to behave like common carriers.
It's hard to argue that the legislature in 1996 were imaging the future we would have in 2020 where the vast majority of content is controlled by such a small collection of companies, and where those companies often operate a lot like a cartel when it comes to moderation of that content. Section 230 is really the only example we have of common carrier immunities being granted to non-common carriers. The reason you don't see that more often is because it creates exactly this set of problems. It's clear that section 230 has had impact far beyond the scope of the 1996 legislation, the world has changed significantly since then, and those problems really should be addressed.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prod....
Broke: culture war over general purpose computation.
Woke: culture war over general purpose content distribution.
A) I must vote for the Democrat candidate because the Republicans are evil and they'll subjugate women and minorities.
B) I must vote for the Republicans because the Democrats are evil and they'll turn us into a bunch of commies.
There is no room in today's political debate for even mention of finer points of free speech philosophy, when all we can do is scare people into voting for the lesser evil.
Many politicians do care about their public image, and are susceptible to manipulation based on public pressure.
And this is no less true in the private sector.
- as a consumer, I am expected to install every podcast application that hosts podcasts I like.
- they usually don't expose RSS feeds because god forbid someone uses a third-party, general-purpose, RSS-based podcast application.
Is there even any evidence that this app was banned because they "don't like" it? I mean, come on. This surely got flagged by an automatic system that thought it was a covid app. Google and Apple and social media and basically everywhere are absolutely flooded with apps and content designed to scam people by using fear of the pandemic. The need for a heavy hand to prevent this is real.
The world you want where people are free to talk about covid on every forum is a world where everyone's terrified grandparents are being scammed out of their savings. Scams like that were literally front page news on this very site not 15 hours ago!
Now... if they don't reinstate the app, then there's an argument. But I think the direction of the cuts made by Occam's Razor are really clear in this case: this is a false positive from a scam detector.
There's no other solution to this problem. If they suspend Podcast Addict, realistically, they need to suspend every other podcast app on the store. Then they need to start filtering out all podcasts with episodes about coronavirus on their own podcast app, or their need to suspend that too.
And that's before considering that there's a lot of valuable discussion about the virus happening that isn't coming out of the CDC or whatever other official source you're adamant about following. I'm not talking Joe Rogan. I'm talking PBS, NPR, 538, JAMA, etc. At some point all you're doing is suppressing legitimate journalism (and yes, there's a fuckload of legitimate journalism on podcasts) or even academic sources (yes, they exist as podcasts too).
I don't see what benefit you're getting from suppressing freedom of speech in such a draconian way when there's so much unnecessary collateral damage. All you're doing is making it harder for legitimate coverage to reach people ... which seems like shooting yourself in the foot.
Even beyond journalism, there's a lot of "slice of life" episodes talking about how people are affected by the virus day-to-day. How people's lives have changed. How they're coping. Why would you be in favour of suppressing that?
Call this an oversimplification of a nuanced issue if you want. Because it is. I’m not shying from it. Just doesn’t seem all that much different from the amount of nuance that goes into and subsequently comes out of the kinds of flame wars commonly immolating this topic anyway.
This is just opinion though, I wouldn’t encourage anyone try to unearth anything objective out of it beyond what pleasantry is warranted for such idle (and wholly inane) thought.
It becomes progressively more inconvenient once some of those people with complaints can subpoena you or fine you millions of dollars or exclude you from large markets.
So your next best option is hamfisted moderation.
Tuning things costs money and time,[0] it's generally easier to just shoot the moon on either false negatives or false positives.
[0] and given conflicting preferences from different powerful groups, is arguably impossible anyway
Or, "I tend to go with philosophers from Voltaire to Mill to Popper who say the only solution is to let everybody have their say and then try to figure it out in the marketplace of ideas. But none of those luminaries had to deal with online comment sections."
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread...
EDIT: I should add, Podcast Addict is my go-to. I get how this can happen, but this is all really annoying and I feel for Xavier Guillemane and all the other users. Here's hoping the massive press blitz on this gets a quick reversal in this case, and Google finds a way to prevent it for apps with less visibility. Maybe we can enforce tuning by getting as upset as possible at the false positives.
I tend to think that it contributed to Trump's election, because it has the effect of creating massive polarization.
You can't segregate sites by viewpoint and thought filter everything in favor of one side or the other and expect it not to devolve into extremist conflict.
But the people doing this didn't want to admit that they caused the problem to begin with, so instead they double down.
Google could write a public blog post saying "We've sacked all our internal moderators and censors, so if you have any complaints about something being unfairly deleted, or not deleted, then vote for a better government next time."
We could then watch the rhetorical gymnastics of some governments saying that of course it would be a terrible infringement of human rights to have a government decide what people can watch and say online, without any sort of due process, not to mention the terrible mental health effects on government workers having to review all the potentially harmful content.
And yeah, that disagreement is fine.
But you need to understand that I am not trying to twist your words at all. I see those two things as synonyms. No twisting is intended. And for you to say "far more sinister then they’re clearly intended" sounds like an accusation of deliberate malicious behavior, not even me making a mistake, and I don't appreciate that.
Like any other regulation, it harms small businesses disproportionately to the costs it imposes on large ones. There are plenty of examples of regulations that are appropriate to apply to large businesses, but much less appropriate to apply to small ones. Luckily, this incredibly old problem has been solved many times over through the idea of having regulations apply to companies after they reach a certain size. There is little harm to society in allowing small content distributors full editorial control over their distribution channels. There is significant harm to society in allowing that same level of control to entities which control an enormous majority of modern content distribution.
This trope that "the internet wouldn't exist without Section 230" is just an overused excuse that people peddle out to distract from the fact that regardless of how important it was in 1996, as the internet has changed, this law is now responsible for an entirely new category of very serious problems, that really weren't envisioned at the time it was written. It also ignores the fact that these problems can be easily fixed without removing the elements of it which have been beneficial to the growth of online services.
I say this sarcastically now, but web browsers will definitely become tools of censorship in the near future. Chrome itself will start blocking non-approved content. The Internet will no longer allow the distribution of any and all information, but only what is "approved".
Public ownership does not solve censorship. See: the CCP.
Effective policing does not solve censorship. The police will be tools of whoever and whatever is funding them.
The only way to combat censorship is through decentralised and distributed platforms that are made publicly immune to takedowns, censorship, and prosecution.
It astounds me that people are happy to accept that free speech in the US only applies in public spaces, while handing over control of the best places for spreading information to private companies. What's the point in that? "Free speech only applies to public space! Private companies can censor who they want! proceeds to make sure the information superhighway is entirely owned and controlled by private companies".
But public control doesn't work either. We've already seen government around the world censoring information in the "public interest".
Decentralisation, and distributism are the only ways.
Looks like the appeal was accepted[0]. As well, Google's SVP of Android/Chrome/ChromeOS/PlayStore apologized to the Podcast Addict team[1].
[0] https://twitter.com/PodcastAddict/status/1262541050817605632
[1] https://twitter.com/PodcastAddict/status/1262562502417641473
Apologies to Podcast Addict fans today. We are still sorting out kinks in our process as we combat Covid misinformation, but this app should not have been removed. Carry on with your podcasts, folks! ️
https://mobile.twitter.com/lockheimer/status/126255336932064...
Some people in the comment section only recently feeling the censorship done by china affecting them but imagine other non-US countries that get censored by American companies all the time.
My best guess is that the source for the info used to ban PA would be the reviews, i.e. someone posted a review mentioning "great podcasts about corona" or something. But I can't imagine it's that simple, because then I can just put "corona" in any review and get somebody's app banned.
Unless Google has some other way of tracking PA's content?
I don't think people realize how ridiculous they sound when they reach this far just to get Google to do whatever the user wants with Google's service. It's a very millennial/zoomer/i-only-know-life-since-Google-has-existed point of view. It implies that people don't think they can fairly live a human existence without using Google (which is the truly disturbing thing about all this).
I mean, jesus. Nobody has forced you to use any of Google's services, you literally do not need to use any of their services at all. And there are alternate service providers. We didn't even go this far with Ma Bell, an actual monopoly.
If this is about "boo hoo I can't make money off of their platform", why not the same complaint about literally any other business? It's a much more reasonable thing to fight for, say, right to repair, than right-to-make-an-app-that-will-be-published-no-matter-what-by-Google.
At the moment, the best comparison I can come up with is food trucks. Say you own a giant empty lot. You offer it to food trucks to come and sell their food in your lot. It's a big success. You make money, the food trucks make money. Then one day, you want to kick out a food truck, for whatever reason. And they say, this is so unfair. We should form a government committee to manage this parking lot because the owner of the lot won't let me sell hotdogs here anymore. Even though they could just, you know, do what they do somewhere else, and still make basically the same living.
Before them, politics was still very cutthroat but not polarized along party lines.
Podcast Addict is not only the best podcast client but one of the best apps available.
Sorry I don't have anything substantive to add to the conversation, just wanted to add my vote for Podcast Addict.
“Deliberate” and “malicious” is another example of related but terms that are not synonyms.
Whereas “mindless” was entirely fabricated by you.
You can’t just swap out words for more emotive terms and assume that was the writers original intent. Especially when you then go on to use those new, more highly charged words, as part of your complaint against the original comment.
I can also see for your post history ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229973) that you don’t like it when you feel misquoted yourself, so why do the same to others?
You mean sites like the BBC? That's where all the COVID-19 related content I have listened to with Podcast Addict came from. Is the BBC supposed to kowtow to Google's self serving rules and propaganda?
Why? It's not as if no one in Google knew that this would happen. I don't think Grace Hopper's 'Better to ask forgiveness than permission' applies here. Google knew what they were doing when they instituted the rule and their behaviour suggests malice aforethought.
Or is Google leaving their process unchanged in the hope that the next thing to be unreasonably suppressed will evoke less outrage?
Google is a publicly listed company. Members of the public, either directly or indirectly partially own Google. Google has a duty towards its shareholders. Isn't that some accountability?
I know that not everyone owns Google stock. But I'm guessing hundreds of thousands of people do.
My post was only talking about disagreement as expressed by downvoting. I was not using disagreement as a synonym for hate.
> “Deliberate” and “malicious” is another example of related but terms that are not synonyms.
I wasn't saying they were. I feel like you're greatly misunderstanding my posts or something.
> Whereas “mindless” was entirely fabricated by you.
So what motivation were you implying, when you talked about it being a "great pity that all the factual comments" about the policy were being downvoted?
I wasn't swapping out your own words for other words. You never explicitly said what the motivation was, so I did my best to convert that into words. You're telling me I did that wrong, fine, but it wasn't on purpose. You tell me what words I should use there, to talk about the motivation of those downvoters.
> I can also see for your post history ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229973) that you don’t like it when you feel misquoted yourself, so why do the same to others?
What a weird flex. They weren't quoting me at all.
- 1. Wow, I'm never building an Android app if I can build a web app instead.
- 2. There is no way I am ever switching from an iPhone to an Android phone if apps get censored like this (although I'm sure Apple does similar things).
the ISPs are a concern. these can turn into an even more dangerous monopoly. can there be a new internet? home antennas? or maybe a way to somehow remove ISPs from the equation. a free flow.
If you can get by without a separate mobile app, do so. And if you need some functionality, consider pushing for that to be a part of the web standard and contributing to whatever projects can make that functionality accessible through the browsers.
When I tested the version of Podcast Addict with ads, it started reloading ads in the background and going through my battery and data allowance. The developer wasn't able to figure out and fix the problem. Just did a quick search and the last time someone wrote about this problem is a year ago (on reddit). Maybe it is fixed now? I would be okay with an app being banned for such bug, btw. It's app bugs like this that cause the ever stricter background service restrictions on Android (until it's like iOS and just not possible anymore).
What about things like google search suggestions being manipulated to hide unfavorable suggestions, but only for certain candidates? I remember seeing this happening real time after trying it one day per a reddit post and then a few days later per another reddit post that such suggestions had stopped showing.
The invention of the tools may have been orchestrated well outside of political leanings, but once invented and handed over for employees to use their application has follow political leanings.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/travel/arizona/road-trips/20...
[1]: https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/ and
Talk about impact.
Truth is in the eye of the beholder
The problem is that right now the government will jail an individual and fine them many years worth of income but will not punish a corporation even a 1/100th of the penalty. Equalize that can be done by either granting or removing power from the government.
Not saying there is a logical equivalency here, but this type of thinking is exactly why free speech is important, not why it’s dangerous.
That was certainly a thing that happened, but as far as I know Rupert Murdoch never got Gore Vidal blacklisted by book publishers or whatever.
It's one thing to say your piece, something else to stop the other guy saying theirs.
From your mouth to God's ears friend. I can't tell you enough how maddening it is to observe the way technology has evolved since the time I first encountered the net in 1998. My vision of the future was and remains a server in every home, powerful enough to handle all your digital communication/entertainment needs. Everyone with their website and domain, email etc. What a world that would have been! Well so much for that. All we did was bring back the AOL model in a different skin. The AOL guys must be so mad now, they were just too ahead of their time!
> Section 230 did not preserve any rights at all, it created entirely new ones. Companies were previously able to enjoy common carrier immunities, if they behaved like common carriers. Section 230 granted them those immunities without giving them the obligation to behave like common carriers.
It's kind of funny for you to open with "this is not true" and then go on to agree with everything I said. What part did you think wasn't true?
Well, of course there are nuances to anything, but CEOs are not elected by the public. They don't have "opponent" CEOs trying to milk their scandals in public ads for getting a job. Its different. Anyway, this conversation has totally gone off topic ! We'll just have to agree to disagree on some things, although I suspect we have more points that we agree on than not.
* Podcast Addict offers auto skip intro seconds, auto skip outro seconds -- and the seconds setting is per podcast
* P.A. offers "stop after episode" if the sleep timer is active, and also allows not marking the episode as played if that "artificial stop" is active
* in Antenna Pod, "delete and remove from queue" does not clear it from the now playing bar
* the "auto download" appears to be opt-in, not opt-out, meaning one must set it for all 85 podcasts
* the bamboo menu doesn't include "delete" for an episode
* and a few more UI nits that bugged me
This isn't a rant, but rather an observation that the Podcast Addict developer wakes up every day thinking about how to make P.A. better, and that doesn't seem to be true for Antenna Pod
I said that in the world without section 230, you start with immunity from responsibility for content provided by other parties, and you lose that immunity if you moderate those other parties' content.
Whereas, in the world with section 230, you start with immunity from responsibility for content provided by other parties, and you keep that immunity if you moderate those other parties' content.
On the other hand, you've provided the counterpoint that everything I said is absolutely correct, and I should be ashamed of putting out such ridiculous misinformation.
You are trying to disagree as strongly as you possibly can -- despite the fact that you agree with me in full. What's going on?
Do we stop putting people in prison if they have a child? Either we have to punish children by depriving them of a parent (potentially putting them into foster care) or we have to allow family status to be a factor in sentencing individuals (institutionalize discrimination on a protected class)?
Currently when we punish someone, little thought is given to secondary victims. I don't see why we would make an exclusion for corporations.
For all I know Erickson is saying no one died of Covid or something that ridiculous/obviously false, but labelling statements as misinformation and censoring them instead of retracting endorsements and getting others to realize those statements are false is an aggressive seize of power by authorities over what is or isn’t true.
I realize authoritative knowledge is necessary; not everyone has the time or ability to parse through medical information and come to reasonable conclusions.
But authoritative bodies should have to earn their authority from the public, not use censorious platforms to assert it. The fundamental problem we’re running into now with misinformation is a lack of trust, not a lack of information. Forcing people to listen to sources they don’t trust and blocking sources they do trust will make the situation worse.
If people trust a crackpot more than they trust an established authoritative body, that authoritative body should take a real hard look at themselves in the mirror and ask themselves why that’s the case.
Also they might want to avoid doing business in countries that support software patents and are over litigious over that (eq. USA).
But this limitation is pretty much artificial - the only thing you need to do from the EU is buying the image. This can be achieved via an EU based VPN (reportedly the built in VPN in Opera works) and AFAIK any mainstream payment card will work (does not have to be from an EU country).
Once you got the license and installation image, there are no real EU specific limitations. I have used Sailfish OS twice while on a trip in Japan and all worked just fine - repo access, etc. Also from the download statistics from OpenRepos (a community package repository for Sailfish OS), you can see there is a lot of users from countries that are not officially supported: