Apple blocks out daylight to poverty-hit families in London apartment block | Hacker News Reader

Apple blocks out daylight to poverty-hit families in London apartment block

independent.co.uk

9 pointsfortran7710 comments

Ads, like peacock plumes, are a net drain on society. Unlike peacock plumes, they look ugly. It's time to severely restrict them by law. Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, and Alaska all banned billboards - the move isn't even close to unprecedented.

I doubt Apple has anything to do with it. More likely they used an agency that chose the location, and even that agency was probably unaware of who or how would be affected by the ad.

If Apple didn't buy the ad, it wouldn't be there.

Then some other ad would. It is just a clickbait to blame a large corporation for everything bad on the planet. The landlord is an asshole, Apple is not to blame here. I would say the same if it was any other ad.

I think if a company gets to enjoy the benefit of a behavior, it bears the responsibility of its consequences. A giant picture of an iPhone has materially impacted the lives of these people, in order to improve Apple's bottom line - this rightly lands on their doorstep, even if they didn't intentionally do this.

Everyone involved here shares some blame, but the insult is especially magnified when one of the parties is the richest company on the planet.

I assume that if did have anything to do with it, you find that to be a problem, yes?

One of the problems of our economic system is that we can "sell" our bad things - wash our hands of responsibility and it be someone else's problem.

We can buy clothes made from slave labor, or sweatshop labor, and ... are we responsible? Did we have anything to do with it?

We can buy electronics containing tantalum, which funds the war in the Congo. Are we responsible? Did we have anything to do with the deaths of millions?

It seems like many people can be responsible for this. Eg, the council, for providing substandard housing. But afters of "austerity", they probably don't have the resources, so can we blame that austerity-mongers? Or go back to the Thatcher-era and the selling off of council housing?

Really, this isn't simple finger pointing, but the indictment of the system - "a 'shocking indictment' of inequality in the 21st century", to quote the article.

I think the landlord has absolutely no right to block the windows, I see it as a human rights violation. Unless the tenants signed the lease when an ad was already hanging there.

Are there any other human rights that you can sign away?

In any case, it's clear from the article that the tenants here didn't agree.

Why can't Apple be partially at fault? Perhaps not in a legal sense, but in a moral sense.

Couldn't they agree to only work with ad companies which don't violate human rights? And set up compliance oversight?

Or, agree to pay more taxes in order for the government to have the resources to do that? (Or rather, not fight having their taxes raised for this purpose.)

The tenants did not freely enter into a contract. They are being "temporarily" housed there, with rent paid by the local government, as they were made homeless. This is why they are being mistreated - they are stuck where they are with no bargaining power, and nobody has any incentive to make their life easy. The landlord will keep getting paid regardless.

I’m blaming the landlord. Wonder if he’s violating city housing laws by selling the space.

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