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Google Explains Why It Banned the App For Gab, a Right-Wing Twitter Rival (arstechnica.com)
AmiMoJo shares a report from Ars Technica: When right-wing trolls and outright racists get kicked off of Twitter, they often move to Gab, a right-wing Twitter competitor. Gab was founded by Andrew Torba, who says it's devoted to unfettered free expression online. The site also hosts controversial right-wing figures like Milo Yiannopoulos, Andrew 'weev' Auernheimer and Andrew Anglin, editor of the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer. On Thursday, Gab said that Google had banned its Android app from the Google Play Store for violating Google's ban on hate speech. The app's main competitor, Twitter, hosts accounts like the American Nazi Party, the Ku Klux Klan, and the virulently anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church, yet the Twitter app is still available on the Google Play store. Apple has long had more restrictive app store policies, and it originally rejected the Gab app for allowing pornographic content to be posted on the service -- despite the fact that hardcore pornography is readily available on Twitter. In an email to Ars, Google explained its decision to remove Gab from the Play Store: "In order to be on the Play Store, social networking apps need to demonstrate a sufficient level of moderation, including for content that encourages violence and advocates hate against groups of people. This is a long-standing rule and clearly stated in our developer policies. Developers always have the opportunity to appeal a suspension and may have their apps reinstated if they've addressed the policy violations and are compliant with our Developer Program Policies."
Considering that both the far left and far right regularly advocate violence against the other on twitter and facebook, why aren't facebook and twitter removed as well under the same policy? Facebook also has some degree of soft-core pornography, as well as the various *chan browsers, twitter, imgur, reddit, and nearly every other social media site
Sounds more like targeted anti-right thought police to me... Denial of access to forums of speech that happen to lean politically the opposite of you is still targeted censure(silencing) of free speech, just by a different name. There is nothing illegal that has been done by hosting the app, and you cannot advertise your market as "open" when you take such action.
SJW-infested tech companies interpret censorship as cock, and fellate it.