
Breaking News: Google Has Removed Gab's Android App from the Google Play Store - DanAndersen
https://twitter.com/getongab/status/898314927697416192
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Boothroid
I think we are at a really worrying time. We need to speak up for free speech.
Actions like this are a form of censorship. A small number of corporations
should not get to decide what software we use. Time and time again we've seen
big companies up to no good. Why the hell should we trust that they have our
best interests at heart? Facism can come from either side.

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CM30
Hmm, this seems like it could be seen as anti competitive, especially if
similar sites which allow similar content (read, most large social media
sites) can get their apps onto the Play Store. Would Google remove Twitter or
Facebook for the same stuff?

Personally, I doubt they would, and that opens up a can of worms where:

1\. The rules clearly don't apply the same to popular apps as they do to less
popular ones (which admittedly also seems to be true of Google's search engine
with websites in general).

2\. Newer competitors to large social sites would have to be stricter on their
content to get accepted onto the Google Play Store, or what not.

Feels very unfair to people running competitors to the large social media
sites, since Google have proved they're willing to unfairly punish them for
the exact same stuff a larger service would get away with.

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alva
Presumably removed due to "hate speech" of the users. Will they be removing
Twitter next?

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DanAndersen
The ability of tech mega-corps to throw their weight around and decide which
services prevail and which ones don't is pretty impressive.

Given the breakneck speed of no-platforming, I fully expect to see (within the
next three months) Google's DNS to refuse to resolve sites on an ideological
blacklist, and then various ISPs will follow suit. After all, "it's their own
private service."

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observation
Could get hit by anti-trust. IANAL of course.

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MollyR
Have other Twitter Clones been banned ?

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sakabasataka
Good. If you want to preach hate, you are free to make your own platform to do
so.

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slater
Good.

