It's legal for entities outside the government to censor things. IANAL so if I'm wrong let me know. But my understanding is that censorship is perfectly fine for any company.
I find undesirable to buy a phone where a company can arbitrarily decide what I am and am not allowed to run on my device. Because economies of scale make things cheaper if many people want them and because I generally believe in fighting the power of arbitrary or harmful corporate decisions, I try to convince others of the importance of this "feature" (really it's more of a lack of an anti-feature).
Luckily you can still sideload apps on Android. The day they remove that feature is the day I take the time to figure out how to use an alternate OS.
Yes. NYT is making an editorial decision. Google publishing an app is much more akin to you making a phone call - they are the carrier, nothing else, because they control the end of line.
Phone companies also have terms of service. Here’s AT&T’s:
> AT&T may immediately terminate all or a portion of your Service or reduce or suspend Service, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes (a) is illegal, fraudulent, harassing, abusive, or intended to intimidate or threaten; (b) constitutes a violation of any law, regulation, or tariff (including, without applicable policies or guidelines (including the Acceptable Use Policy), and AT&T may refer such use to law enforcement authorities without notice to you.
Parler wasn’t pulled from Google’s app store for discussion of Conservative policy. It was pull for hate speech, incitement, and for the illegal conspiracies being plotted. Plus Parler isn’t enforcing their own terms of service.
If it was just politics then Google would also pull New Republic magazine.
Apple has said that they need to step up their moderation game and they can get back into the App Store. I’m guessing that would be good enough for Google as well.
