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Comment by klean92 | Hacker News Reader

Most of the arguments I read here are: it's OK for Apple to do this because they're a closed app, and the same content is on Youtube anyway.

Tomorrow Google says: "We remove this content from Youtube, Apple did it anyway and many of you thought it was OK. We're a company making money too, we're not the Government".

Now what's the argument? The first one to censor is OK, the second one is not?

A few people will still say: they can still use their own player and servers!

Then the UK govt will block them, if one does not ask explicitely their ISP to have a access to it. Then Comcast will throttle them through bad peering.

Then nobody will care anymore if it gets blocked further or not, they're out of most people's reach already.

Welcome to the new 21st century.

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It's an outrage. I recently submitted an incoherent, hate-filled diatribe to the New York Times, and they refused to publish it on the front page! Where is my freedom of speech? I recently submitted a video of my parrot to NBC, and they refused to play it on the nightly news! Where does the censorship end? We're clearly witnessing the erosion of our constitutional rights.

Your comparison is so far off anything, that I have a hard time answering.

Nobody asked Apple to publish the videos on their front page. There is an app that let's people access CCC content in a more friendly/more easy way then say Safari or YouTube.

Apple blocks said app, but does not do so for all the other apps that can show this content. And the reason they give is, that this app shows content, that does show how "secure" some Apple products are. Content mostly from renown security hackers?

So why is CCC-TV banned, but not Safari? Not any other browser? Not YouTube?

Why does Apple get to selectively punish smaller organisations and all the fanboys run to their defences?

btw.: Written on a Macbook Pro, but not from an iOS user.

The point of the comparison is not about placement on a front page (I could complain the NYTimes won't publish my article anywhere on their server), but rather that Apple created and operates a private distribution channel, and it has a right to exercise editorial judgement over that channel.

I don't necessarily agree with their decision to omit CCC-TV, and I think it's a bit silly that they did so. But it doesn't matter: it's their right to do so, and I don't get to force my will on them just because I disagree or think they're being irrational.

I'm glad people are critical of Apple's decision, but not when they claim it's a violation of freedom of speech, or when they falsely equate it to government censorship. I can't support a gross misunderstanding of law, government, or the Constitution that's being invoked, even if we want the same end result.

I know you are writing this tongue-in-cheek, but imagine if the US postal service made it a felony to send a letter to anyone that had "hate speech" (by their definition) in it. Or that you had to be verified and "white-listed" (via SS #, or facebook) to even post your parrot link before it could be rightly rejected.

The reason people get up in arms about these sorts of things isn't that companies should do what they want regardless profit or existing business strategy, it is that once you successfully take a decisive action on something that most people don't care about, it makes it that much easier to do it with something that is important in the future when it is difficult for people to choose another option or vote with their wallets.

The US Postal Service is not a company.

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