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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.
Either get rid of the enforcement of any of Google's patents and copyright relating to Android, or let Gab on the platform. I don't want my tax dollars enforcing Google's copyright if they don't want to allow freedom of expression. Fine if they want to ban Gab from their platform, but don't expect me to pay for enforcement of their duopoly with Apple.
Apart from a few very early devices sold by U.S. carrier AT&T, essentially all Android phones and tablets have an option to allow installation of applications from outside Google Play Store. This means that Gab can use any or all of three options:
In fact, Android 8 "Oreo" makes this less monopolistic by letting the user designate any app as a store rather than using the system-wide, all-or-nothing "Unknown sources" setting of previous versions.
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Since the post doesn't mention it, I had to look it up. Gab.ai is claiming to be a "Free Speech" competitor to Twitter. Google banned them for "Hate Speech". A lot of users on that site seem to be Alt-Right types.
More information
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-app-store-gab-ban-hate-speech-2017-8
Since Google's Play Store is not the only app store or source for Android apps, how is banning an app from their play store an anti-trust violation? Its my understanding Google has the right to ban apps for any number of reasons. The summary does not say why Google banned the app in question...maybe it is a poor quality app, or violates the terms under which apps are allowed on the Play Store.
Side-load, bitch! Do you speak it?
Google has as much of a monopoly over my installed apps as the tree in my front yard. Yes they damned well do have a right NOT to let you be in their store you frikkin retards. This is like Jimbob's Brand corn snacks trying to sue Walmart for not carrying their corn snacks!
Idiots!
You gotta fight...for your right...to be a white supremacist nazi piece of shit.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Google deserve this. They're becoming progressively more abusive of their monopoly and are using it to censor any opposing views. People are now being denied a voice of the internet due to Google's abusive practices, and it must be stopped. More needs to be done than just this lawsuit, and Google's abuses of the whole market need to be curtailed.
It would have been interesting to see what happened if Gab complained to the EU about the monopoly abuse. The EU would have to balance its love of censorship and far left politics against its desire to repeatedly fine US technology companies. I suspect the end result would be that heads would explode.
Walmart won't sell [my product], Walmart is a monopoly.. similar logic.
Everyone sees google play, but you can download a number of others...
- Amazon Appstore
- Getjar
- Slide Me
- Fdroid
There aren't that many but it's easy to create one's one with a little bit of elbow grease and the purchase of some cloud services. Absent of that, social media clout and side-loading applications.
I don't read AC
Oh the irony..
It's a uuuuuuge conspiracy! Or you could be like the military, congress, the dems, and judges, and just go right the fuck around the big fascist idiots.
If they lose, they are no worse off than before. But the news coverage gives them lots of publicity to promote their business.
Google is clearly just blacklisting them because Google wants to shut them up. The cult leaders at Google are committed to persecuting nonbelievers and heretics.
Didn't the Supreme Court just rule that you can refuse to do business with someone for any reason you want? In that particular case it was cake makers not wanting to make wedding cakes for gay people and conservatives were all in favor of the idea of not forcing companies to serve people they don't like, but now that it's a conservative group whose custom is being refused they suddenly think it's a problem?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
"Google is the biggest threat to the free flow of information," Gab chief executive Andrew Torba said in a statement..."
In other words, you have the freedom of speech but aren't allowed to speak freely, *and* be heard. That is - even if one lives and works in the "most free" country in the world.
Reddit can and does remove subs dedicated to hate speech. If Gab refuses to do so, Google has more of a case against carrying Gab's app than against carrying Reddit's.
Feel free to list on Amazon app store or let users download an APK, Google isn't preventing them from getting on Android, they are just stopping them from listing on Play store which is only one option for Android.
Twinstiq, game news
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Gab is Twitter v0.8 (i.e "free speech wing of the free speech party" Twitter)
Gab gets booted from play store for "hate speech" (aka un-moderated content)
Gab argues that applying the same standard across the board would require google to remove all other social media apps
Google tells them to get fucked
Gab sues Google for abusing its market position
Sorta, but here's the kicker. Their specific reasons were "Gab allows hate" and then a lot of images showing Twitter openly tolerating hate speech came up. So now Google has to explain why they hold a startup to a MUCH higher standard than Twitter, particularly in light of a lot of people noticing that Twitter doesn't even bother to apply its rules fairly.
So TL;DR this is now a potential case of collusion under anti-trust law to suppress competition to Twitter which puts it in a far more serious, long term possibly criminal, light.
not having moderation in place to deal with content that advocates violence or hatred against groups of people.
And this is the big one. The U.S. Supreme Court has held for decades that the First Amendment does not protect fighting words.
Racists complaining about discrimination? Excuse me while I cry myself silly.
White Supremacists and other right-wing snowflakes whine when google doesn't want to associate with them.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/12/pro-trump-ceo-gets-booted-from-y-combinator/
Three points:
Here's a more complete explanation written by an actual first amendment lawyer:
Source: https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-censorship-tropes-in-the-medias-coverage-of-free-speech-controversies/
Copyrights are a crime against humanity. They lock up culture and knowledge that rightly belong to all sentient beings.
Glancing through the cesspit that is the commentary segments I can't help but point out how many leftist are parroting the 'Gab.AI is full of hate speech' line when in reality Gab's TOS has very clear regulations on what levels of content and speech is allowed. And we have documented examples of them being applied when someone violates them.
Now if you want to argue that Gab WASN'T following any sort of law or regulation that's documented, then so be it. But always citations will be required. But so far I have seen little to no concrete evidence that they have ever been used for the dissemination of illegal content outside of random assholes in the commend sections of cesspits like /. itself.
You win the stupid award today. Filtering an entire social media platform because fascist leftists say it's a troll platform is indeed fascist. In fact it's extreme fascism.
go troll somewhere else SJW
and the Nazi horse whose dick they love riding.
GOOD!
I hope Gab takes their lunch money and shits in their cornflakes.
It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of ideological bigots.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
If I wanted to keep close tabs on the ultra right, I would make certain that there is a very good App for them to use. Same for the ultra left. Such a strange world. Let them have all the free speech they need to hang themselves.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
That's only true for overly long copyright terms. Copyright, at least the version descended from the English version, was meant to promote learning by giving a limited monopoly in exchange for the work going into the public domain. The crime is that the limited time keeps getting extended with the goal of copyrighted works never going into the public domain, basically theft from the public.
Another crime is that everything is automatically copyrighted for the same indefinite length.
The original 14+14 year length wasn't unreasonable for books in the 18th century, with the need to register, including a small fee, weeding out all the trivial works from copyright. Having to deposit a copy of the work also ensured that it would be available to the public.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
google is going to disable installation of apps from other sources
Android 8 "Oreo" does lose the "Unknown sources" checkbox. In its place, as described in the article I linked previously, it offers the user a "this is a store" checkbox for every app installed on a device. If the user has marked a particular app as a store, the app can call the APK installer. This way, the user can set Google Play Store, Amazon Appstore, and F-Droid as stores but nothing else, and no other app can install APKs.
If you're referring to Android P, I'd be interested to see your source for this.
A few points:
* As part of the US Code, it's still subject to First Amendment scrutiny. The courts have to decide if, in the context of some case, prosecution under that statute would violate someone's First Amendment rights even if the statute itself is considered constitutional in general.
* Cases that truly satisfy it would fall generally under the "true threat" exemption, not "fighting words", because as I've just said, "fighting words" are face-to-face rather than "interstate or foreign commerce." These are legal terms and the distinction is important. "Fighting words" has a precise legal meaning and is in no way a synonym for "true threat."
You can find more information here and here on what "true threat" means, both described by a respected first amendment lawyer. Here's a snippet that more or less summarizes things. Note that the writer of the quote below was referring to then-President Obama, who was in power at the time these articles were written:
This might seem like a minor quibble, but it's actually very important to get things like this straight in law. The two exemptions have different elements and mean very different things that should not be conflated. This kind of stuff is why you should always hire a lawyer if you're reading this for something other than idle curiosity, rather than doing internet research on your own. You will come to incorrect legal conclusions if you fail this kind of distinction.