Google and Apple Enable Saudi Arabia’s Male Guardianship Policy | Hacker News Reader

Google and Apple Enable Saudi Arabia’s Male Guardianship Policy

medium.com

27 pointsbtilly13 comments

Personally, I think it's a little frightening that the general public seems to have lost interest in the once-hot debate about whether or not platform providers are responsible for the content on their platform. This article assumes that they just are, and thus (logically) assigns blame on amoral store platform developers for hosting immoral content. I fundamentally disagree with the ideas behind this assumption.

There is no more debate. The platforms have chosen to take responsibility for what they host. Every major platform now actively polices their networks and removes content for flimsy political reasons. If Apple has the resources to remove an educational app about the American civil war from their store because it contains a picture of confederate flag, then they can certainly remove stuff like this.

Platforms don't just get to be neutral carriers only when it is convenient for them. They don't get to be neutral about ISIS recruitment videos and child porn, but take a principled stand against political incorrectness and impolite speech.

Even companies like Cloudflare have abdicated their neutrality, they now remove content for non technical and non legal reasons.

They made their bed. I hope they get sued.

I'd like to see the paradox of these platform providers claiming ownership over user-submitted content while simultaneously denying responsibility for said content challenged in court.

If I scrape and republish Reddit content, they'll surely send me a cease-and-desist claiming I'm stealing "their" content. But suppose some of "their" content is legally obscene-- they've made it clear I'm not allowed to republish it because it's "theirs."

I don't understand: is the author asking Apple and Google to ban "text messages" from the government?

My first thought was, "no, ya idjit, there's an app...". Then I clicked the link in the article. Umm, yeah, it looks like you're exactly right. Oh, there might a WebView wrapper or summat that shows up on the app stores, but the whole "we'll text you when your old lady's trying to flee the country" bit operates independently of Apple or Google.

the author wants google to shut down apps, that are legally permitted in a specific country, that disagree with their beliefs.

The app is a general government portal app that purportedly includes the functionality the author describes. It’s a grey area I suppose.

The author is asking tech companies to stop abetting in the oppression of women.

removing the app from their app stores won't do shit though

I never said it would.

While I agree with the general sentiment, I can't quite put my finger on what's off with this text.

It's a bit like saying I'm pro-9/11 because I used a quarter to buy some candies, thus backing our military support of the Saud family in exchange of guaranteed oil trade in petrodollars.

Wouldn't "Find my Friends" (Apple has this) also enable male guardianship policy?

Wouldn't that be Islamophobic though ?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com