Photo from Valery Marchive (LeMagIT)

Summary: The Tim Cook-led company continues to the tradition of Steve Jobs, who openly promoted censorship as portrayed it as a positive thing

The Internet needs free speech and net neutrality, which usually guarantee that one can practice freedom online (anonymity is a bonus). Censorship giant Apple (in particular app censorship [1, 2] that Richard Stallman recently alluded to) is showing its true spot again.

Apple's well-hyped products are clearly broken [1], as many people report the same issues. How does Apple deal with it? It deletes these reports [2]. How convenient. Make the evidence vanish, eh? That's a typical Apple response. Well, the person who is popular enough to make it go viral is Larry Lessig, who also considers quitting/eliminating his dependence on Apple [3]. Well played, Apple!

"Apple is probably far worse in that regard than Microsoft and Google."Internet policy is being written here in Europe (with some public feedback [4] and lobbying from European public interest groups [5]) and perhaps it is time to punish large companies that so shamelessly engage in censorship. Apple is probably far worse in that regard than Microsoft and Google (yes, Google censors also but hardly as much). Apple believes it can get away with it all, but its arrogance is going to alienate its biggest fans. To make matters worse, Apple keeps customers with real issues in the dark; this forms fertile ground for class action lawsuits. ⬆

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Wow, or from the When-Apple-Became-the-Borg Department

   I upgraded my iPhone (“what, you have an iPhone” — ok, you win, sin #1) to iOS 7.0.3. It killed wifi. I went to the Apple discussion site to see what the community had to say about it. Seems there are lots of people who had the same problem. I followed the recommended fixes — including reinstalling the system software and “restoring” from a back (which, in Apple-land, doesn’t really mean restoring, but means giving you the beginning of a restoration, which, with a couple more hours of tinkering, get you back to where you were) — but nothing worked. Wifi came back for an hour. It’s gone again.





2. the slaughter continues — Apple’s latest deleted comment:





3. Keynote, we hardly knew you

   I’ve been experimenting with Prezi, and so we’ll see if that’s an alternative. But I wonder whether there are any serious Free Software developers keen to do a rev of either Open or Libre Office’s slide app? I don’t have the cycles for an extensive commitment to this. But I’d be really keen to participate in a project to think about key improvements to make either really competitive.





4. Internet Governance: I want your views!

5. Internet Needs an Uncompromising "Marco Civil" in Brazil!

   Major organizations from all around the world, defending free speech and freedoms online, signed this open letter initiated by La Quadrature du Net. It encourages for a swift adoption, in Brazil, of an uncompromising "Marco Civil de Internet" that would truly guarantee freedoms online. The vote is scheduled on Tuesday. (Your organization can still sign the letter, after its publication, by sending an email to signature (AT) laquadrature.net)