Google sued by Gab over Play Store booting A social network that fancies itself a "free speech" competitor to Twitter is suing Google after its app was removed from the Play Store. Gab – a recently launched social network that says it is "focused on free speech that would provide a platform for conservatives in the West and dissidents globally" and has become a favored …
Google is basically a monopoly at this point and should be regulated like a public utility. And yes, currently as a private company, they have the right in a purely legalistic sense to tell people to fuck off, however if you do not see the wider problem of companies (especially near-monopolies) censoring things they don't like, you have an extremely narrow vision and may find yourself without any right to speak.
One last thing, you are misusing the word "bigot". Bigotry is not an essential characteristic of racists, it is simply the bull-headed attitude of a person who is obstinately committed to his own ideas and unwilling to listen to others (strangely, an attitude one notices a lot from people overusing and misusing the word "bigot").
I don't see why any social network needs a specific app, they rarely offer any improvement from using their website from my phones browser. Then there are some annoying apps which could work fine from a browser but won't let you use outside of their service outside of the app and therefore don't get installed on my phone.
They could side load their app from a website. They could simply use a website, moderated or not. They could run a mialing list, again moderated or not. They could set up a newsgroup on USENET, again moderated or not. They could have their users not violate Google’s Ts&Cs. Launching a lawsuit is not likely to achieve nearly as positive a result as any of the above alternatives.
... several times since the '80's. I've seen this come and go over the last three decades and in every case, i.e. court case, it's been determined that the right of free speech does not apply in a corporate provided service. You comply with their terms and conditions (EULA, whatevah you want to call them) or you don't get to play there. Yet another case isn't going to result in a different result, even if you can tag that corporation as a monopoly, which it isn't in this case as there are other providers of applications and other platforms.
Good luck to Marc on this one. He's good, damned good, on this topic but I see no traction here.
I expect that Android allows side loading (which includes the ability to add a whole other App Store) renders the arguments moot. Google can say "Play is our platform, and we have a reputation to protect, but we're not stopping people from loading this app onto their phones". The plaintiffs may have a better chance with Apple, but the courts are more likely to come down in favour of the platform owner. As far as I'm concerned, it's little different to coming to a party at my place. We have rules. We get to decide who is allowed in, and we may ask a guest engaged in foul, racist, homophobic or anti Semitic language to leave.
Then they should remove twitter. It has the exact same issue of loudmouth trolls and hategroups (like isis) that was used to justify removing gab. If one is against the rules, both are. If one isn't, neither are.
That's the core of gabs case. Google are using their monopoly control of the app market on android to pick winners and losers between otherwise legitimate competitors.
"Then they should remove twitter. It has the exact same issue of loudmouth trolls and hategroups (like isis) that was used to justify removing gab. If one is against the rules, both are. If one isn't, neither are."
See: https://support.twitter.com/articles/20175050
Twitter has a clear policy clear hate speech, rather than being about hate speech. How they police that is another matter. But the policy is in place, and Twitter complies with lawful requests for data on user activities. This likely leaves Twitter well inside the boundarys of Google Play's T&Cs.
@Graham Dawson
Twitter will and do remove users who break the terms. There are a lot of them though, and I imagine policing it is difficult.
Gab themselves say this is their entire purpose, that's not really up for debate. They were created for and exist to provide a platform to those poor people who can't talk/debate without abuse, slurs, racism, threats etc. "free speech" is what they endlessly push. They don't mean free speech [within the laws of the land] they mean "we can say and do as we please, waaah waaah waaah".
So you basically have twitter without even the most blatant wankers removed. Twitter might not do everything it can, but you do see those who go to far disappear forever.
They then show up on Gab where they can continue their ranting and raving but with an additional "the man tried to stop me, I must be important" thing going on.
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""focused on free speech that would provide a platform for conservatives in the West and dissidents globally" "
Free speech of only a certain type isn't free speech. If they want to start a platform that (for some odd reason) allows one type of speech only for conservatives in "The West" and "dissidents" (whatever they mean by this - expect widely varying interpretations) "globally" then they're free to do so, and allow/disallow whatever they want on it as it's their "club" and they make the rules. Free speech doesn't mean that a supllier or retailer must stock and sell your product or service - they have their own freedom to decide that too.
Anyway, be grateful for your brief moment of free publicity before you fold due to lack of interest.
Maybe you'll then wish you'd allowed in the dissidents in the West and conservatives globally as well, or something like that....... this new right ideology's terminology is impenetrable to all but the most fervent followers.
By calling themselves "conservatives", they're eroding the traditional conservatives' rational ideas: that you should earn your living through work; you should understand why things are as they are, rather than blindly change them; that you should be personally responsible for your actions; that you should be charitable, and that you should actively help to look after the less fortunate in your own community.
[contrast the socialist/liberal position that the state should support those who are not working without question; that many of societies structures are outdated and need to change; that poverty, upbringing and societal deprivation can explain away some crimes; that the state should provide for the less well off, with taxation replacing charity]
The first mistake people make about the "alt-right" is that they're conservatives at all: they're actually radical Libertarians. They don't want to conserve anything: like the radical Left, they want to destroy what's here now (and just like the radical left, they can't come up with anything that wouldn't be at least a thousand times worse that what we've got).
Forget work-ethic and personal responsibility: these dickheads want the whole pie and they want it now; they want to destroy any kind of authority so they can do what they feel like without thought for consequence; and when they screw up, they'll blame "the media/the left/the deep-state/bias/positive discrimination" - basically anyone except their own dumb self. They're the spoilt brats of the 1980s generation that idolised Ayn Rand's philosophy of "I've got mine, so fuck you", but without the benefit their grasping parents had of growing up in modest circumstances, during a period of history where "right on" socially liberal causes were strongly in fashion.
Conservatism is almost the opposite of the "alt-right" in many respects, but in the US, the name "conservative" has been pretty much co-opted by the radical Libertarians, to the point where it's hard to separate them anymore.
(For what it's worth, my own personal politics are left-liberal: socially strongly progressive, but fiscally mildly conservative)
Quote from article "The suit [PDF], filed Thursday in the US District Court of Eastern Pennsylvania, claims that when Google suspended the Gab app from the Play Store, it effectively shut out Gab from any access to Android. This, the suit claims, is because the Play Store has become the only trusted source for Android apps on the market" Unquote.
Trusted? Please tell me Marc, Just how may apps has Google pulled this year when they finally twigged that they were loaded with malware? And only after they had been downloaded umpteen millions of times.
Trusted? Oh puhleeze,
Your lawsuit deserves to fail. Not only because Gob is that desperate for users that it will take any old gobshite regardless of whether their views are offensive or not, but you obviously have no idea of what trust means.
Cheers… Ishy
Trusted? Please tell me Marc, Just how may apps has Google pulled this year ...
We know that, but to the average punter, they are told by Google that "Play Store is the only safe place, use any other store and you are inviting the four horsemen onto your phone" - so the average punter will not consider any other source.
Actually that needs a correction, because the average punter doesn't even know that other sources are possible - if it isn't in Google's store then it doesn't exist. Only well above average punters actually realise there are alternative sources.
On that basis, I'd say that the suit has merit IF they can show that they weren't in violation of any T&Cs.
Analogies to "it's my party ..." etc are not really valid. It's more like one company owning just about every venue in a city/state/country and arbitrarily refusing bookings from an act that competes with one of it's regulars. Even that analogy is a bit weak.
Seems a little like the question, "Do you trust the police?". OMG, some of them are bad, we must abolish the entire concept IMMEDIATELY! Er, no. You work on it, find the problems and work to fix them.
One of the bigger issues is that apps are being allowed to download and execute code that can be changed arbitrarily, allowing payloads to be snuck into apps that are not themselves malicious. So yeah, Google needs to chop that off hard, and maybe look at ways to better vet individual developers who are allowed to do that, at least in terms of being able to nail them to the wall if it's abused.
Also, isn't like 90% of the Android malware in China from third-party stores?
Being an avid "low memory iPhone" user, apps that just do what a website does already are a luxury (ha!) I'm forced to do without.
In an age of responsive javascripted php'd html5'd internets, fast data connections, and powerful telephone browsers, with a semblance of control (firewalling, blocking particular functions, adverts, ability to clear caches, zero memory footprint when offline etc), why would anyone even *want* an app version of a service like this?
A service where freedom of expression, privacy and anonymity are more easily exercised through a browser too.
Gab may as well have a facial ID for login, but even that likely wouldn't ring alarm bells for those users who believe gab is there for its users interests only, while the exact inverse is likely the case!
"Hate speech" has very broad definitions - intentionally so, it seems - so usually means "Right wing". I would have thought Gab have Google bang to rights. I gather that US courts tend to reflect the views of those in power; but on the other hand, the US left has refused to recognise the election of Trump. So it's anybody's guess how this will play out.
That Google is becoming an oppressive monopoly is certainly true; and their cashiering of staff on ideological grounds puts them in a weak position to argue that this was neutral.
We need an internet that is not under the control of a handful of corporations with very strong links to one small segment of the political spectrum.
Just build a, you know, WEB SITE.
Seriously. All these vendors making "apps" for Apple, Android, etc.
Guess what, there is a technology called HTML which is platform independent, and is designed *specifically* for rendering text, images, even animations and videos on a computer screen, be that a desktop computer, a tablet, or a mobile phone. Marvellous what we can do nowadays, isn't it?
Just register m.gab.com and tell Google, and Apple for that matter, to go fuck themselves. Nobody needs to install ANYTHING on the devices. Which means if Google or Apple decide they don't like you, well, fuck them.
It's called the internet.
Most "apps" are nothing but thin wrappers around a browser anyway, with the stock images stored locally on the device.
We have a solution for that, too. It's called a web cache.
Is it me?
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