I would find it very problematic if the US government attempted to interfere with it's citizens downloading whatever software they want. I absolutely do not trust the US government to be the arbitrator of what app's are "safe".
What are your thoughts about China banning anything but local apps/services for domestic use but the rest of the world is OK with allowing Chinese apps/services to compete with the domestic apps/services? I think there is some level of asymmetry here, not sure how best to resolve it without giving up the citizen's freedoms as you expressed. This asymmetry is problematic because western democracies are barred to profit from Chinese market (1.3 billion people) and the Chinese companies which are in bed with the CCP would benefit domestically + internationally. That's unfair I think.
One compromise would be to promote democracies around the world and incentivize apps/services developed, operated and controlled in democratic environments.
Just like you'd buy coffee with Fair Trade [1] mark, one way to incentivize the public would be through marketing - "Made in Democracy" mark on a laptop, a lathe-machine, a watch or what have you.
We should have a non-profit org that promotes manufacturing in democracies. From shirts to iOS apps, it would be interesting to experiment with a "Made in Democracy" or "Developed in Democracy" mark.
I ran this idea through a manufacturing consultant in SF and they were very receptive of it.
In addition to counterfeiting and deception, another problem is in the definition of what constitutes, for example, a "Made in Switzerland" product. According to Swiss law, 60% of the manufacturing BOM cost needs to be domestically sourced [1]. Therein lies the problem of enforcement as well as impossibilities due to the entangled supply-chain with China as well as accountability and prevention of abuse.
Really they are seperate matters of banning in my opinion of speech vs payment as murky and intertwined as they may be. Demonetizing it is far more defensible than banning the speech per se and far less exploitable and narrower scoped to the goals.
Essentially in this case it would make more sense to embargo financial systems from Chinese application developers (putting aside how poorly the attempted trade war have gone in the past) but the apps themselves being technically legal.
I am not sure of the actual cold war legal specifics but it would be like the difference between wiring money to Pravda being illegal funding of the USSR but republishing it in the US to point out what the hell they are saying internally would be protected. (The piracy being allowed is essentially a feature - why privledge enemies with your enforcement absent existing treaties?)
Problematic for whom? The average citizen doesn't realize the threats and has no idea of safe/unsafe, so there must be someone to decide for them. People who are aware of threats, and are willing to accept the risks can surely find their way around the bans.
This is a common sentiment: distrust in the US government. Given that 30% of income goes to the feds, might be time to change the government to be more trust worthy. Good thing elections are coming up.
So it's time to change the system. Ranked choice voting and a third party could make a world of difference. Continuing to give all your money to an entity you don't trust isn't a working plan. It leads to, for instance, the COVID response.
Defeatism around something so critically important to the success of a country isn't a plan.
I was not trying to suggest defeatism, just sick of hearing voting in the current system as a reasonable response to anything. Not saying don't vote, just saying stop suggesting it's the way to fix specific problems. Voting probably won't fix most problems.
Absolutely, one of the big systemic changes we need to effect is a switch to ranked choice voting. There are several other significant changes to the US's voting system that would also be needed. Things like a complete elimination of voting machines, and honestly a full switch to vote-by-mail would probably help.
Of course, the voting system in this country isn't even the biggest problem, some how. Things need to change before next election, not in a few election cycles.
There are many layers of power. You have senators, house representatives, and a president. You also have local (includes police services) and state representatives. The executive branch is just one of many governments you get to vote for.
As long as there isn't a better system, voting for the lesser evil seems like the least one could do. You can continue the fight for a better system when you don't have an actively racist president for example.
I'm not proposing not voting. I'm just sick of hearing it offered as if it's somehow a solution to the increasingly obvious fact that the US government is fundamentally incapable of doing the basic things expected of it by it's citizens, like being trusted to not abuse it's power when doing things like gating access to potentially dangerous software.
Obviously it would be really REALLY nice if there was a trustworthy entity who could do that, but it's pretty absurd to suggest that if we simply vote for the other guy suddenly the US government will be that entity.
>This is a common sentiment: distrust in the US government.
No, this ain't just it. Even if I trusted the current US government (which is already a shaky premise to begin with), I cannot be sure I will trust the US government that will be in place in 10 years or 20 years. And once you give them that power, there is no easy way to put it back in the box.
So, for me at least, it is less about distrust and more of a "freedom" or "systems" sort of an argument. I am ok with the government issuing some sort of an "advisory list" of potentially invasive apps. But no, I don't want government to essentially preventing me from using certain apps due to "privacy concerns", if I am aware of the risks and still want to proceed.
This is the same argument I'm hearing from people who refuse to wear masks. Unfortunately, the freedom of some is a security risk for others.
Any government is only as good as the trust people place in it. A trusted government invites trust-worthy candidates, is held to a higher standard of transparency, etc. If you want a government that you can trust, you may want to write to your congress-people and ask, for instance, that they ban corporate funding of elections (through those ridiculous dinners), Super PACs, etc. By the people, for the people, after all.
It isn't similar at all. What are the serious downsides of the mask requirement? I guess a little bit of inconvenience, but there is nothing fundamentally terrible that it can directly lead to, which isn't the case with app bans.
Like, first they made us wear masks, what's next? Kind of literally nothing, there is nowhere further to push this specific requirement towards. And the requirement itself is very specific and leaves no room for ambiguity. This law doesn't give the government any power to make arbitrary decisions. Neither does it require trust in the government. It is just a very specific one-off thing. The effects of this law remain within the specific scope of what this law was intending to do and have no room to escape.
With app bans, you can easily imagine tons of "worst case" scenarios, where they ban arbitrary apps they don't like or don't want people to use. Why? Because the right to ban apps includes a lot of room for ambiguity. It gives power to the government to decide which apps they want to ban, based on their own criteria that don't need to align with reality or what people want. Given how digitized our lives are these days, this is an insane amount of power that can be used fairly arbitrarily. And it relies solely on your trust in the government acting in the interests of their populace at all times.
P.S. Mind you, my sentiment on app bans by the government doesn't apply to app bans for super specific scenarios, like certain app bans on work devices for groups of people with access to classified info. For example, banning WhatsApp and TikTok on work devices for active military and people working on classified contracts for the government? That's a fair game, because the reasoning makes sense, and there is way more at stake than just "personal data" or something like that. And the devices aren't even personal, in the first place. And, it is something you can sort of choose to do by working on classified projects. You have agency over this and can take concrete steps to avoid this ban affecting you. Blanket banning apps for everyone in the country? Yeah, I am not a fan of this.
No it isn't comparable at all. Mask requirements are far less exploitable for other purposea than censorship. The far out worst case for abuse is considering an uncovered face public nudity.
You would think that mask requirement is far less exploitable but I hear from libertarians that the government is not allowed to do so (granted, this is state government we're talking about).
This conversation we're having is a little moot, however. The US has already banned online communities advertising sex work, despite them being a great resource for workers looking to better filter their clientele.
> You would think that mask requirement is far less exploitable but I hear from libertarians that the government is not allowed to do so (granted, this is state government we're talking about).
Sounds like they are just arguing out of the constitutional purist principle and not out of practical realities. Which isn't the same argument I had in my original comment addressing app bans.
My argument against blanket app bans by the government was all about practicalities of it and very real potential (bad) outcomes that can come from it. Not from some constitutional purist perspective of "they don't have this power cause muh constitution, hence why I disagree with it" (which, in case of masks, is very debatable in the first place, because it isn't clear-cut at all whether constitution grants them that power, but given the pretty much non-existent exploitation potential with mask requirement laws, I am not worried about it at all).
> In some countries, people trust their government to do the right thing.
In some countries, some people trust their government to do such things, and it may even be majority of people. That doesn't help the portion of citizens that get such decisions imposed on them against their will.
Then people are fucking morons. There are no two ways about it - abusable power will be abused. Hell "security risk" as a rationale is a vague layer to shield from criticism of policies. Since it is implicitly the magical special pleading wand known as "national security".
You might think so, but I would point to the fact that the US democracy is being attacked via social means from Russia, and possibly other governments. Then you have municipal governments having their networks locked down by ransomware from foreign agents. Not to forget how many acts of espionage take place through our internet. Might not be a bad idea to limit the amount of foreign access to local data.
My examples are not apps, but a threat is a thread.
The US government was founded upon the idea that the US government is not to be trusted. That's why our constitution features a separation of powers and contains a non-exhaustive list of things the government is explicitly not allowed to do. If the government were trustworthy, such restrictions would not be necessary.
With whom shall we fill the seats? The only party truly interested in liberty is the Libertarians. I doubt they can get their act together to provide a reasoned, unified platform. They need more than sound bites and a guy in an oversized hat or boot. I like them. I lean that way. I vote for the candidate for president, but they are not a good party.
While I share your skepticism toward the US government, phone apps are different from books and even from websites; I don’t trust apps made by a company subject to CCP influence and/or control, nor do I think the usual arguments against censorship apply.
The average citizen is dumb enough to not be able to discern spyware from innocent apps.
It is the duty of the government to protect its citizens from foreign influence and banning apps is a legitimate exercise of the govts power in fulfilling that duty.
However, I wouldn't oppose there being a "cyber martial law" if there was some sort of "cyber declaration of war" that would enable the US government to declare software/hardware products from another country to not be used in native soil (while in "cyber war").
The US doesn't have to allow a malicious player to map their whole infrastructure and technology usage habits.
Democracy is very hard, why would the US have to allow other countries to be able to have such a strong profile and possible blackmail on its citizens?
