Social Media Site Gab Sues Google For Antitrust Violations Following Ban From Play Store (washingtonpost.com)

The social media site Gab.ai is accusing Google of violating federal antitrust laws when the tech giant booted Gab from the Google Play Store, according to lawsuit filed this week. From a report: The legal action is the latest salvo in an escalating battle between right-leaning technologists and leaders against Silicon Valley giants such as Facebook and Google. Gab alleges in the lawsuit that "Google deprives competitors, on a discriminatory basis, of access to the App Store, which an essential facility or resource." "Google is the biggest threat to the free flow of information," Gab chief executive Andrew Torba said in a statement. "Gab started to fight against the big tech companies in the marketplace, and their monopolistic conduct has forced us to bring the fight to the courtroom." Alternative source.

Comments

Re:Monopoly

[Luthair]

Android, unlike Apple has always allowed installation of third party APKs and adding third party stores. Since Amazon operates one its hard to see how Google would be considered a monopoly.

I'm not a lawyer, but isn't anti-trust typically about attempting to use your monopoly in one market to enter another? Doesn't appear to be the case here.

Re: Who is Gab?

[bradley13]

No, it's legit. Their app was in the play store, until some SJW in Google got offended at some post or other. iirc, Google demanded that Gab delete the post, Gab refused, since the only thing wrong with the post was the politics. So Google banned their app.

For those saying that Google's app store isn't a monopoly: tell us, please, what percentage of Android apps are installed from anywhere else.

Re: Who is Gab?

[AmiMoJo]

Why make up bullshit when we can just google (or bing) the real reason?

https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...

It was removed for ToS violations, specifically not having moderation in place to deal with content that advocates violence or hatred against groups of people.

tell us, please, what percentage of Android apps are installed from anywhere else.

Sadly I can't find any stats, but both Amazon's Appstore and F-Droid have been going for years and seem to be reasonably popular. And there is nothing stopping Gab simply offering the app on their own web site too, or are they complaining that they are not popular enough and need free advertising on Play to survive?

Fighting words only exist face-to-face

[Xenographic]

Three points:

• Fighting words must be "face-to-face insults likely to provoke a reasonable person to violent retaliation."
• Online speech isn't face-to-face.
• There's serious doubt about whether the exemption itself is still valid.

Here's a more complete explanation written by an actual first amendment lawyer:

Trope Seven: "Fighting words"

Example: "There are two exceptions from the constitutional right to free speech – defamation and the doctrine of “fighting words” or “incitement,” said John Szmer, an associate professor of political science and a constitutional law expert at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte." McClatchy.com, May 4, 2015.

No discussion of controversial speech is complete without some idiot suggesting that it may be "fighting words."

In 1942 the Supreme Court held that the government could prohibit "fighting words" — "those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace." The Supreme Court has been retreating from that pronouncement ever since. If the "fighting words" doctrine survives — that's in serious doubt — it's limited to face-to-face insults likely to provoke a reasonable person to violent retaliation. The Supreme Court has rejected every opportunity to use the doctrine to support restrictions on speech. The "which by their very utterance inflict injury" language the Supreme Court dropped in passing finds no support whatsoever in modern law — the only remaining focus is on whether the speech will provoke immediate face-to-face violence.

That's almost always irrelevant to the sort of speech at issue when the media invokes the trope.

Source: https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-censorship-tropes-in-the-medias-coverage-of-free-speech-controversies/

Re:Who is Gab?

[spacepimp]

This isn't a SPAM or Troll filter. This is limiting the spectrum of acceptable opinion.

It is simple... If you don't want to be harassed by trolls don't install the application, don't open it up and create an account and read it. Don't want to be annoyed by someones opinion? Don't install the app. What you are supporting is that the book that is offensive is banned from the library. Once you are supportive of those bannings/censorings/limits on free speech then you are no better than book burners or those that seek to control your topics of discussion. Frankly I don't trsut you or the government to decide for me or anyone what is appropriate. The government is not the arbiter of what is correct speech. You are not the arbiter of what should be said, or who has the right to say it or where they have the right to congregate and speak. Yet here you are applauding the censoring of an app you never had install or open or use. How exactly does the app affect you if you don't use it? (it doesn't and it can't) You choose to read or ignore. Instead you took the route that others should decide what application you can use or what you can read. There is no good side to your argument. Thank you for tellng others what they shouldn't be able to install and read. All in the name of not wanting to be trolled or offended. Hope that works out well for you when you need to say something less than popular.

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum—even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate. ~ Noam Chomsky