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Google Suspends Parler From App Store; Apple Gives 24-Hour Warning (buzzfeednews.com) 652

New submitter yuvcifjt writes: As of Friday 6pm EST (11pm GMT), The Verge reported that Apple and Google are under pressure and receiving complaints to deplatform Parler -- the social media platform favored by the right-wing and extremists -- from their app stores. BuzzFeed has since broken news that Apple has served notice to Parler's executives to implement a full moderation plan within 24 hours or risk being taken off the App Store.

"We have received numerous complaints regarding objectionable content in your Parler service, accusations that the Parler app was used to plan, coordinate, and facilitate the illegal activities in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021 that led (among other things) to loss of life, numerous injuries, and the destruction of property," Apple wrote to Parler. "The app also appears to continue to be used to plan and facilitate yet further illegal and dangerous activities."
Google issued a similar ultimatum, although it suspended Parler from its app store until it implements a moderation plan that addresses "this ongoing and urgent public safety threat."
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Google Suspends Parler From App Store; Apple Gives 24-Hour Warning

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  • by Moryath ( 553296 ) on Friday January 08, 2021 @10:34PM (#60913834)
    by the "overdue by several years" department.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Classical liberals now silent. Maybe smart enough to hold their tongues?

      Meanwhile Leftists don't hesitate to justify tyranny, to silence their political opposition.

      Calling them terrorists, associating them to any small group's actions, how could they speak back when they are deplatformed wherever they once had a voice?
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        Classical liberals now silent...

        Because we've been deplatformed on social media. We foolishly bought the left's argument that "if Twitter bans you, just set up your own platform..." Today's secondary boycott by both app store owners has closed off that option too.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday January 09, 2021 @08:03AM (#60915260)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday January 09, 2021 @09:41AM (#60915452) Homepage Journal

        Calling them terrorists

        ...is incorrect. They are insurrectionists.

        how could they speak back when they are deplatformed wherever they once had a voice?

        Parler still exists. You can still install the app on your Android device if you sideload it, presuming that Parler makes the app available through other means. If they don't, they're censoring themselves. You can also access it via their website. No deplatforming has occurred, even for Apple users when and if Apple bans the app (where there's no sideloading.)

        Typically low-quality AC comment. Disregard.

  • They might end up nuking all of social media.

    Too much to hope for.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday January 08, 2021 @11:26PM (#60914000)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • It's not a real gag. They can use a web browser. Not everything has to be an app.
      • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday January 08, 2021 @11:59PM (#60914148)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • If only we had some hero to teach people how to use their own hosts files.
    • The hazard to free speech comes from the bottlenecks. Twitter, Parler, FB, etc all provide choke points that don't have to exist. What we need is asynchronous, mass communication that amounts to an updated NNTP, where you can subscribe to any source you like and ignore any source you don't.

      Those of you who are cheering when your opponents are gagged are fucking idiots if you don't think it will ever happen to you.

      -jcr

      You're a moron. I would LOVE for it to happen to me. As soon as I incite riots and sedition I WELCOME MY SILENCING. FUCK YOU.

  • by Teppy ( 105859 ) on Friday January 08, 2021 @11:33PM (#60914030) Homepage
    If it's a good idea to ban apps that can display unmoderated content, then what about web browsers that can do the same?
  • It won't survive (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday January 08, 2021 @11:37PM (#60914056)
    any more than the various right wing forums on reddit do. Sooner or later they all get overrun by white supremacists and extremists. r/Conservative manages to survive by ruthlessly moderating. Everytime anything major happens they lock the forum down and only allow a handful of approved posters to post.

    I'm gonna get slagged for this, but I've got Karma to burn. This is inevitable because right wing ideas just plain don't work. The core of the right wing is a mix of Ayn Rand's hero worshiping Objectivism and a fanatical adherence to free markets. Neither of those work in practice. In the real world people with merit get bought out or destroyed by people with generational wealth. Then they corrupt the markets. Meanwhile the need for large standing armies to protect nations means you can't have a small government. You need a large civilian gov't to manage and control the military you use to keep other countries with militaries from coming and taking all your stuff.

    So where's this leave the right wing? Well, their ideas don't work in the real world, this means any nation that adheres to them falls apart. So the people in charge, in order to preserve their wealth and status, turn to bigotry and wedge issues to keep the masses from demanding reform; and inevitably the right wing turns to racism (or some other form of Bigotry, see the Japanese Burakumin) to maintain right wing ideology in the face of failed policy.

    So sooner or later the entire movement gets taken over by racists, and unless they manage to seize control of society as a whole (which they do with frightening regularity throughout history) they keep getting banned. All these bans we're seeing right now are just that process playing out as normal.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Saturday January 09, 2021 @12:26AM (#60914270) Homepage

      Do you hold up communism as a more robust system, with its current world record of 71 years before falling apart (1918 to 1989)? European social democracy, about the same (post WW2 to present)? Switzerland's semi-direct democracy, inspired by the US although infamous for producing Swiss banks (1848 to present)? Or the United States, 230 years and hopefully still counting?

      Honestly, your fiction sucks, and you deserve to get slagged over it. Communists killed far more millions over the last century or so than the right-wing racists you paint as a problem, and immiserated an even greater number. But you don't admit the end point of left-wing extremism, and you probably do not recognize how similar the current environment is to the early stages of many communist revolutions.

      • You're strawmaning (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday January 09, 2021 @10:15AM (#60915542)
        I never once mentioned communism. You're using it because Americans have been taught for over 100 years that communism is bad.


        And that's just it, there's too much change too fast. Marx underestimated the speed of progress. He wasn't Hari Seldon. So his theories didn't work. That said, they were theories. Like any theory that is wrong we shouldn't just throw our hands up and shout "Welp, that's it, nothing's possible, nothing can ever improve, back to the Dark Ages with us lot!".

        I'm a Progressive. That means I favor progress. At the moment that means strong Democratic Socialism with the goal of creating a kind of "Super Citizen" who is extremely well educated, intelligent, doesn't fall for dumb schemes, etc, etc. Given what we know about the rate of scientific progress and how things played out since Marx that seems to be the correct answer.

        I'd like to think that the people here on /. (a science and technology forum) still believe the goal should be a Star Trek style Utopia. I realize we've all gotten older, and with that comes fear on conservatism (not right wing, conservative, there's a difference) but I'd like to think we can push back against that tendency and remember what the goal of the human race *should* be.
  • Safari (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bert64 ( 520050 ) <bert@@@slashdot...firenzee...com> on Friday January 08, 2021 @11:51PM (#60914120) Homepage

    When are Apple going to be removing Safari?
    It too can be used to access objectionable content or to plan illegal activity.

  • Selfishness? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bb_matt ( 5705262 ) on Saturday January 09, 2021 @12:39AM (#60914330)

    I don't pretend to really understand the events that have occurred in the USA recently - exactly what makes people support a person who is clearly immoral and mentally unstable. A person who probably hates most the people who support him, considering them "low class".

    But my underlying theory is that the level of selfishness in wealthy democracies has reached epic proportions, making this situation possible.

    Mobs get whipped up for all sorts of reasons - many of them entirely legitimate.
    In this case, however, the mob has been whipped up because their man lost a free and fair democratic election (well, as free and fair as it can be...).

    The main rally cry seems to be along the lines of "freedom".
    Freedom to not have to wear a mask. Freedom to carry firearms. Freedom to ... do anything we want! - and "Screw You if you don't like it!"
    Freedom to tear down democracy because you don't like the result?

    In other words, people prepared to tread all over others to get what they want, using Freedom as an excuse.
    "It's a dog eat dog world, the fittest survive, it's freedom man!"

    To me, this is what so much rhetoric from the so called "right" stands for - pure selfishness.
    It's a base instinct that is effectively taking humans right down to a base level. "Keep your hands off my stash, or I'll fucking shoot you, man!"

    There's some insane baggage along the lines of "Protecting ourselves" - yet so many of the "foes" are bogeymen, propped up stories, fabrications and outright lies.

    As humans, we should be better than this - and indeed, we are. The ratio of bad apples to 'not bad apples' tips in the favour of the latter, but as everyone knows, keep enough bad apples in a barrel for long enough and the rot sets in.

  • by TerminaMorte ( 729622 ) on Saturday January 09, 2021 @12:58AM (#60914416) Homepage
    It's an odd feeling, seeing how slashdot has changed over the years. Would have never expected people rejoicing over censorship, but here we are.
  • LMAO (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sjames ( 1099 ) on Saturday January 09, 2021 @03:21AM (#60914814) Homepage Journal

    It's really REALLY funny that the same people who routinely reject the idea that private companies should be forced to do business with or hire LGBT, cater to low income people, charge fair interest rates or basically do anything socially helpful rather than just raking in as much cash as they can suddenly shout "THERE OUGHTTA BE A LAW!!!" when their pet app gets kicked.

    If you (and you know who you are) really believe businesses should be unregulated and free to do whatever the hell they want, then take your lumps and move on.

  • I'm amazed. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by meerling ( 1487879 ) on Saturday January 09, 2021 @03:40AM (#60914840)
    I am completely amazed at how many people would rather make up a non-existent conspiracy to silence them than look at the actual reality that corporations will protect their profits over anyone elses conveniences. Yes, parlor was just a convenient communication app that was heavily adopted by extreme right wingers.

    What the parlor users did has the companies that distribute, or distributed parlor freaking out over liability concerns.
    Even successfully defending against one of those will cost a fortune.
    There is no way that parlor is worth even a single percent of one of those lawsuits to the corporations.
    So naturally, the yeet the figuratively live grenade.

    That's not a conspiracy, that's called capitalism.

    By the way, the Free Speech enshrined in The Constitution of the United States has never been legally accepted to give carte blanche to say anything, and it only restricts the government, not private individuals, small businesses, or even huge corporations.
    Why do so many people not understand these things? I know they used to teach this stuff in school.
  • by lamer01 ( 1097759 ) on Saturday January 09, 2021 @11:27AM (#60915780)
    Google is banning an app which is basically a UI. The real machinery for the app resides in servers outside of Google's purview. The app/ui has no offending capabilities or behaviour. In addition, the fact that the app owners choose their own flavour of moderation is no different than any other social media choosing their flavour of moderation. We as techies should be opposed to this behaviour by Google.

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