Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

This is the result of out-sourcing juristic work to private companies:

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.

You really trust the US court system to be impartial?

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?

Please stop. The more we play this tit-for-tat game of political point scoring, the more it causes the whole system to degenerate. It is corrupting every facet of our society, to the point at which we're no longer able to be objective about life and death matters like the current pandemic.

No I’m just amazed that people are willing to give government more power - the same government who would like nothing more than to have more power to intrude on people’s life.

We're advocating moving this power from massive corporations to the government, because at least the government has some accountability, whereas Google has NONE.

You are constructing a false choice.

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.

There is no law that says “play nice”. What laws are they in breach of by only allowing certain products to be sold in their store? Every retailer has the right to decide what is sold in their store. Especially since Android is supposedly “open” and you can sideload.

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.