What are your thoughts on Apple and Google supporting SA control over women?

6 points by Zecar 7y ago ↗ HN

I just found out about this "Absher" app that Saudi Arabia runs that allows male guardians to control the movements of women via passport control. It's pretty abhorrent to me but I thought it was an internal thing. I found out yesterday that these two companies permit the app to exist in their app stores. I would have expected something like this to be front page news, and I'm surprised Apple and Google and being allowed to get away with this without being crucified in the media, especially for two ostensibly "progressive" companies. What are your thoughts?

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mortivore 7y ago ↗

I'm not surprised, but in this instance it sounds like they aren't directly supporting it. In the case of China, Google has taken steps directly to support China in controlling it's people(Dragonfly). I think if this does become big news I can see both companies removing the app from the app store, but at this point Google is not trying to do good in the world. It's all about the money.

I also don't think the media/journalists care about Saudi Arabia aside from the recent killing of Jamal Khashoggi.