Apple censors WikiLeaks app

Post Reply New Topic

From the way they talked, sounds like Apple may have been pressed by the government, too.

Via BBC News

My favourite part is:

Which is basically the BBC saying "f**k you Apple." Wonder of they might have offended them recently with their proprietary BS?

I thought the very same thing when I read that.

I'm switching to Android soon, anyway, and this just goes to show why I guess. Everything is locked down, and if Uncle Steve don't like it, you ain't gonna get it.

Really, owning an iPhone is like living in North Korea: you have a leader who everyone worships telling you he invented everything, knows everything, and is perfect in every way, and he is the only one fit to choose what you have access to. You are lured in by all these lies of perfection but quickly realise you're now stuck in a dictatorship

In fact, there's a magazine which has internally nicknamed its iPad edition the "Iran edition" because of all the censorship they have to do before Apple accepts it. No joke.

I ditched iTunes a while back because I was sick of the hostage situation. That, and iTunes sucks.

While I don't agree with Apple censoring this app, I don't see what all the hoopla is about this app. Since I have a jailbroken iPhone, I went on Installous and downloaded it. All it is is the official website within an app, nothing more. You can get the same thing just going to the website in Safari. Not like that's censored.

The big deal isn't with the app itself, it's with Apple's reaction to it.

exactly. and I can add in a little bit of a related statement that I feel sums up my thoughts. The government need not stifle free speech on its own, it can rely on the third party, that way they can just point the finger at someone else instead of themselves.

A very good point, and a harsh reality, too.

exactly. All the government has to do to use this techneque is to 'suggest' that things need to be done. It doesnt even have to be obvious. It could be a subtle suggestion such as 'information needs to be used responsibly', and ' the media corporations have a duty to provide a safety net'. You can get even more subtle or more obvious. this is around the middle. In fact the government CAN if it actually needed to, supply tax breaks to companies who 'develop and promote a "safe" internet.

all in all, I am feeling that the situation in the us is soon to hit a boiling point. If the government pulls a very obvious move, which according to my own probabilities ive developed, has a 25-35% chance of happening; its gonna unleash a shitstorm within the internet community for one, and 2) those citizens who are smart enough to realize what is going on are going to take some sort of action. Most likely reaction aside from apathy however would wind up being the creation of a "shadow network" of sorts, mostly populated by hackers, conspiracy theorists, and pirates. The other reactions would be as follows, in order from most probable to least probable.

People will whine and b***h about it but move on with their lives like the dumb cattle they are.
An awareness campaign will try to get noticed and either get silenced or just be ignored.
An awareness campaign will get noticed by the masses and just be derided/lambasted, and then eventually fall apart.
An awareness campaign will get noticed and trigger small scale responses such as rioting and cyberwarfare.
People find out and try for a peaceful solution which doesnt work.
Acts of terrorism happen in response to illustrate a message
People will find out and start an 'real' war for freedom (usually would get started by 'homegrown terrorist groups). It would then fail simply because the military is better trained and has better equipment.
Real war for freedom path 2: hopeful scenario if it does happen, but you end up having mass defection within the military. Hopefully the new government wouldn't be as much of a ret*d, but we all know how human nature is.
The peaceful solution works: but as for the previous example, history will most likely repeat itself because humans are stupid like that.

These arent all of the possibilities, I will acknowledge that. I do believe that a peaceful solution wouldnt really work because of how human nature is. As some people know, I do firmly believe that in order to create you must destroy, as well as In order to instigate true change you must set fire to the hornets nest. Stinging will happen but the instigators must push onwards in order to cause change.

Its just that peace and harmony isn't a part of human nature.

I should hope that, if such a thing were to happen, that there'd be a lot of action against it. More than just a few DDoS attacks, real action, real hackivism, and real awareness. A massive stunt like a major hack would bring a lot of publicity to the issue, then the international human rights organisations will have to take a look.

What are the odds that Apple has at least one lucrative contract supplying something to the government and BigJobs doesn't want to lose any money over this?

I can say that that is a very likely scenario.

I wonder how much government pressure was put on Apple

ruveyn

and/or AT&T, since they're joined at the hip.

No they aren't, Apple just happens to have a contract to sell the iPhone on their network in the US.

The iphone is just a glorified ipod without AT&T in the US. I do think that Apple could be pressured via AT&T in this country.

Take this with a grain of salt, though - I live in California, and I have an iphone and AT&T is my carrier. Perhaps a little resentment is leaking through. I would change carriers if I could.