My favorite (and only) podcasting app. I hope someone who works at Google reads this and flag it internally.
This quote really sums up how ridiculous Google is being:
> What Google is asking of Podcast Addict would be comparable to Google asking a web browser app to remove references to all the websites and social media posts that reference the coronavirus unless the reference comes from an official government entity or public health organization.
> asking a web browser app to remove references to all the websites and social media posts
Except usually a web browser doesn't include a index of sites, You go to a another site (Google/Bing) for that. If a browser does include "recommended sites" the landing pages of those sites best keep to Google's and Apples rules. For an extreme example, If Firefox was promoting PornHub on the new tab page we could understand why Google or Apple would tell them to cut it out, but it doesn't stop you from visiting the site.
I'm not saying I agree with what Google have done here (IMO they should re-instate Podcast Addict), Just that I can see why Google could think "recommended podcasts" and podcast indexes come under the "included content" of an app.
EDIT: As others has said here, It's more like Google banning YouTube because it contains video's about covid 19 which don't come from "approved sources" (Though Google did demonetize people for talking about it and de-rank non "approved sources")
I would disagree in saying it's like Google banning YouTube as YouTube both hosts the actual data as well as filters the data that gets put onto the platform.
Yeah podcast app's rarely host the content themselves (though some do mirror the files to their own CDN's and Spotify have recently started doing exclusive podcasts).
It was more that Podcast app's come with a curated list of podcasts and a search feature backed into the application then the actual hosting of the content.
Podcast apps commonly host indexes for the same reason Google or Bing or another search engine ships with most browsers. Users don’t know, and don’t care, about URLs, especially RSS feed URLs. They (we) just want to type in something and tap on the thing they wanted, instant gratification. Most apps generally don’t spider or find their own content, instead they re-index public indexes, the most common of which is Apple’s Podcasts directory formerly from iTunes. As pointed out, Google also has a directory. It’s a convenience for listeners to more easily find shows.
I say this because I remember the days before Apple’s Podcast directory when it was often easier to Google and listen in your browser or copy it on to a music player via drag and drop than it was to remember to launch an app that would do the downloading for you. (Partly because you still had to remember to connect and/or sync the player, and worry about disk space etc.) Nowadays, subscribing and listening via phone is so easy that I probably download 100x the shows I used to and barely listen to 5%. These days I use the apps as sources of possible content to listen to, but I would be really annoyed if some of the content disappeared with no warning, particularly if it was one daily/weekly episode that covered COVID.
But a search app isn't directly a web browser (Though browsing many be a secondary function). But many adult content search apps have been removed from app stores.
An argument there could be that the user still gets to choose which search engine the omnibar gets sent to.
I don't agree with Googles decision (I strongly disagree with it). Just stating that under the letter of the law (of the app stores policies) I can see why app stores feel they have the power to govern the search results in such apps (iirc web browsers have a exception to the clause - /me goes to double check Googles policy on web browsers - brb)
EDIT: With a quick 5 min glance at the policy it looks like Google have been extremely heavy handed because "Any apps referencing COVID-19, or related terms, in any form in their metadata will only be approved for distribution in the Play Store if they are published, commissioned or authorised by one of these entities." But podcasts in their search couldn't be in their play store meta data. (Still digging)
The bar you set was "Except usually a web browser doesn't include a index of sites". And I see a direct parallel with Google holding a pod cast app responsible for the podcasts content as there is to Google which keeps a more complete index of the content of web sites than the podcast app does of podcast contents.
It's more like Google self-banning Google (or Bing) for displaying non-approved content. Searchengines index external sources and display it to the user, which is the same what a Podcast-app does, isn't it?
YouTube constantly recommends me COVID-19 conspiracy videos since I dared to watch one that was popular here in Germany. Basically on every video I watch I have now german conspiracy videos as recommendations. I did neither like the video or did I subscribe the channel.
If you want to watch something one-off, some interesting tidbit outside of your curated feed then doing it in incognito mode is required, otherwise, as you noted you are doomed.
We shouldn’t have to jump through these kinds of hoops. Their recommendation engine is smart enough to discern between a one off video watch and a genuine interest, but youtube gets stuck on recommending conspiracyland videos. It’s at the point where I just ignore the entire section as if it were ads.
I want a tool to work without having to sift through hundreds and hundreds of videos and try to guess which one caused the drift into crazy town.
I have YouTube history turned off along with other publicly visible tracking and this kind of nonsense still happens to me. Their algo is working on more data than just what they make visible to the user.
Yup. It's just what do these recommendations do to the society? If you are suspectible to believe certain content for whatever reasons you are basically doomed as you get caged into an echo chamber that only validates the bullshit that is fed to you.
My feeling is they pushing the extra crazy ones though.
Watching a clearly not well Person argue crazy theories isn't very convincing to healthy people anyway.
On the other Hand people like Dr. Erickson get censored, because they simply dare to question the lock down and argue that there is no evidence supporting it's effectiveness in saving lives.
It might have been correct to say there's no evidence in March (which is not a reason to not do something, we would still be in the Stone Age if every action we took required evidence.). There's plenty of evidence now as we have data for both going into and coming out of lockdown.
There's plenty of weird, contradictory evidence. Many places have come out of lockdown early, been told they're facing certain doom ("Georgia's Experiment in Human Sacrifice" [1]), and then been quietly forgotten when the predicted consequences don't come. It's hard to believe that lockdowns don't do anything at all, but I don't think anyone can honestly say we have definitive proof they were necessary.
I can. R0~5.7 has dropped below 1.0 in many mask-averse stay-at-home regions, which I consider compelling evidence of efficacy in an adverse environment, under common-sense priors informed by the medical literature.
"This number is below 1.0" is not, by itself, an argument that some particular social policy was necessary or effective. An argument that lockdowns were necessary would at a minimum need to address the questions of "would a less strict policy have sufficed" and "will the long-term outcome after lockdowns end be different".
Georgia has 164 deaths per million residents, versus 82 in South Carolina next door and 87 in California. Are you sure you still want to call that a bad prediction?
> On the other Hand people like Dr. Erickson get censored, because they simply dare to question the lock down
Erickson, among other things, makes provably false statements about the prevalence and mortality of covid19. You’re allowed to be misinformed as a private citizen; you’re not allowed to grandstand in public as a physician and spread misinformation. He’s lucky he only got deplatformed, rather than have his license taken.
You make it sound like he was expressing an unpopular interpretation of the data, rather than actively spreading untrue assertions.
> you’re not allowed to grandstand in public as a physician and spread misinformation
For all I know Erickson is saying no one died of Covid or something that ridiculous/obviously false, but labelling statements as misinformation and censoring them instead of retracting endorsements and getting others to realize those statements are false is an aggressive seize of power by authorities over what is or isn’t true.
I realize authoritative knowledge is necessary; not everyone has the time or ability to parse through medical information and come to reasonable conclusions.
But authoritative bodies should have to earn their authority from the public, not use censorious platforms to assert it. The fundamental problem we’re running into now with misinformation is a lack of trust, not a lack of information. Forcing people to listen to sources they don’t trust and blocking sources they do trust will make the situation worse.
If people trust a crackpot more than they trust an established authoritative body, that authoritative body should take a real hard look at themselves in the mirror and ask themselves why that’s the case.
There is a difference between genuine alternative views and just cultish conspiracy content created for clicks that defies any law of physics - is it reasonable to recommend a video from someone who argues the lockdown is not warranted? Why not. Is it reasonable to recommend someone who denies the existence of the virus and want's to sell you his quack treatments? I don't think so.
No, they are saying that having a discussion about how to deal with the pandemic is a little more above board than someone arguing that it's a 5G conspiracy.
It was a little above board to argue that the Earth wasn’t the center of the universe at one time, and it was fervently argued, dissenters were dealt with harshly.
Not saying there is a logical equivalency here, but this type of thinking is exactly why free speech is important, not why it’s dangerous.
Yes 5G masts are the cause of covid and need to be all burned down. Vaccines causr autism. Bringing your kids to the doctor is harmful, give them bleach anemas.
No harm in spreading lies and absurd conspiracies, right?
Two of the 3 things has been portrayed by the President of the US on Twitter. They are not censoring him.
Additionally, no harm? Movies encourage terrible behavior as well, but we are not trying to ban them on Netflix. If there is a movie where they glamorize alcohol or unprotected sex, there is no effort to have them removed from streaming platforms.
At one point, saying the world was round would have been an absurd conspiracy. Just because something appears and most likely is inaccurate, doesn't mean that we should have a central fact checking authority. That is some 1984 stuff right there. People can make choices for themselves and do their own research. There is no law preventing people like Sandra Bullock from telling people that baby foreskin is good for their skin, even though most people would know that is disgusting.
i keep an ear/eye on things, and there really aren't many saying that 5g causes covid. it's straw manning really. little bit like the autism thing. there are issues with vaccines that are worth looking at, but people like to lump things into groups, and yeah, even lump it into 'wrongthink' and surf the cognitive dissonance with sarcasm.
There are plugins for Firefox to hide all recommendations and the start page of YouTube. Did this a couple of months back, and it has honestly made me happier and with a lot more control over watchtime etc.
I now live in the Subscription section, and it's great!
> > asking a web browser app to remove references to all the websites and social media posts
> Except usually a web browser doesn't include a index of sites, You go to a another site (Google/Bing) for that.
OK then, it is like asking a search/video/advertising company to remove all such references from its search, and hosted videos, and other properties, and banning their apps & services until they do.
I don't see the youtube app being banned for all the C19 rubbish they are currently hosting and indexing. Or the Google news app for the C19 rubish it is indexing and actively pushing to some people (depending on what the relevant sacred algorithm, hallowed be its name, decides who should see).
What they appear to be expecting Podcast Addict to do is exactly what they themselves have said they can't do. Either it is not possible (this is the case IMO) in which case it is not fair to expect it of PcA, or it is possible and Google are hypocrites of the highest order in this matter.
EDIT: after reading the rest of TFA...
Even worse "additionally, Google isn’t applying these same rules to its own podcast app – Google Podcasts" - we don't even need to argue service equivalence to show that as hypocritical.
Of course this is most likely to be an undesirable side effect of some automated system. I'll give Google that benefit of the doubt if they reinstate PcA immediately and apologise for their cock-up.
> I'll give Google that benefit of the doubt if they reinstate PcA immediately and apologise for their cock-up.
Why? It's not as if no one in Google knew that this would happen. I don't think Grace Hopper's 'Better to ask forgiveness than permission' applies here. Google knew what they were doing when they instituted the rule and their behaviour suggests malice aforethought.
> If a browser does include "recommended sites" the landing pages of those sites best keep to Google's and Apples rules.
You mean sites like the BBC? That's where all the COVID-19 related content I have listened to with Podcast Addict came from. Is the BBC supposed to kowtow to Google's self serving rules and propaganda?
> What Google is asking of Podcast Addict would be comparable to Google asking Google to remove all references to the websites and social media posts that reference the coronavirus unless the reference comes from an official government entity or public health organization.
You can try Pocket Casts [1] who are my favorite and only
Of course that's assuming that they don't get the same play store treatment from GOOG
It's a little too ironic that Goggle, who has countless times made the argument that they aren't responsible/liable for what their users do on a service ("honestly senator its just a platform we provide"), and then here they are the ones calling for some downstream accountability. Not that I agree at all with the logic- you may as well say that a bank is responsible(liable) for the use of any money they lend out ;} -- but its the hypocrisy that stinks to high heaven here!
Don't worry, Pocket Casts is a much bigger developer. They can generate the necessary online outrage to get relisted. It's the small guys that get shafted.
This censorship has been criticized quite a bit for the last several years.
You probably missed our complaints, though, as on sites like HN, Reddit, etc. we were all downvoted into oblivion.
Conservatives who've had this happen to them were just told to suck it up cause the tech companies are muh private corporations, and there are consequences to free speech... or something like that.
Because many times the conversation frustratingly becomes a turtles all the way down slugfest between the loud “it’s their platform and they can do what they want” crowd vs. the equally loud “free speech is an absolute” officiated by the “censorship only matters if the government does it” crowd.
Call this an oversimplification of a nuanced issue if you want. Because it is. I’m not shying from it. Just doesn’t seem all that much different from the amount of nuance that goes into and subsequently comes out of the kinds of flame wars commonly immolating this topic anyway.
This is just opinion though, I wouldn’t encourage anyone try to unearth anything objective out of it beyond what pleasantry is warranted for such idle (and wholly inane) thought.
F-Droid only lists FOSS software, but Google sorely needs competition. Unfortunately, any alternative store is unlikely to succeed since the users only have incentive to use it when Google misbehaves, so all Google has to do is misbehave rarely enough to kill the alternatives off.
I'm glad it works for you. I actually tried to switch in an effort to "more FOSS" my life and ended up compiling a concrete list of usability problems that made using Antenna Pod frustrating for me. And that "usability" word has traditionally been the difference in my life between a commercial product and a FOSS one
* Podcast Addict offers auto skip intro seconds, auto skip outro seconds -- and the seconds setting is per podcast
* P.A. offers "stop after episode" if the sleep timer is active, and also allows not marking the episode as played if that "artificial stop" is active
* in Antenna Pod, "delete and remove from queue" does not clear it from the now playing bar
* the "auto download" appears to be opt-in, not opt-out, meaning one must set it for all 85 podcasts
* the bamboo menu doesn't include "delete" for an episode
* and a few more UI nits that bugged me
This isn't a rant, but rather an observation that the Podcast Addict developer wakes up every day thinking about how to make P.A. better, and that doesn't seem to be true for Antenna Pod
I am not a fan of app stores due to these kinds of ecosystem issues, and could never find any good web only podcast players, so I just made my own. It's public but it only really has podcasts I like in the directory.
AntennaPod[1] (my favorite and only) is open source and distributed through F-Droid, so it can't be arbitrily removed by Google. (And if for some reason it were to be removed from F-Froid, you can compile and install it yourself.)
At what point do industries just band together and develop their own app store? Sure third party app stores have far less visibility, but if all the major entertainment groups and content categories could agree on a single app store then it's hard to imagine them failing.
I don't like this. Podcasts operate on open standards, anyone can launch an RSS feed which can then be played on any app.
Banning this app is like banning web browsers because the allow access "questionable" websites or banning search engines because they index such sites.
I hate how much (dis/mis)information is being spread about COVID-19, but banning an entire podcast app leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Did it? Looking at the Google cache of the Play Store page, the only references I can find to covid, virus or similar terms are reviews saying they downloaded it because of the lockdown and are happy with it.
I've seen so many of these posts saying, Google removes this or that from the store. But until now I did not realize how criminal this is. I know the Dev. Super guy, addresses help questions from thousands of users personally all without the jaded condescending that many maintainers effuse.
To some extent they already are. Whether it’s the EUs “Right to be Forgotten” or US DMCA takedown notices, Google are responsible for removing listings.
To be clear: I also don’t agree with the podcast takedown.
I think a socially good deed would be to take the original tweet https://twitter.com/PodcastAddict/status/1261671685477941253... and respond to it tweeting @FTC , @kenpaxtontx (who is behind the antimonopoly case). Google will reinstate the app soon, but it should help building the antimonopoly case against this evil machine.
Somewhat on topic: a reply to that tweet simply had the captain kirk facepalm gif, and twitter warned me that it may contain sensitive content. Social media is creating a milquetoast society.
Isn't it even worse? Does the app hosts the podcast or merely references them / plays them? More like banning a browser from the store as the browser may be used to display inapropriate content.
I see your intent is an analogy but that’s exactly what they did in Jan-Mar timeframe. They suspended people for acknowledging the virus’ existence. Just CCP style.
These haven't been cherry picked, they're the top 4 results on a DDG search.
Your example only demonstrates that you don't understand the difficulty in censoring content on social platforms as enormous as YouTube; not that Google don't have a policy that prohibits such content.
The one I linked is from a Swedish conspiracy theory channel with 16k subscribers and it has been up for 2 months, gotten 40k views (huge for Swedish language content) and does not try to hide itself at all ("WakeUpGlobe SE" and uses "corona" in the title). It would be trivial for a human to find this.
You can't blanket ban terms otherwise you'd end up accidentally banning far more false positives than a few podcast apps. For example "corona" is a pretty broad term -- it would be like banning Nazi content but using the word "German" from "National Socialist German Workers' Party" as your identifier then wondering why half the German language videos disappear.
> It would be trivial for a human to find this.
Someone literate in Swedish maybe (to gather the context of those key words) but it isn't humans which do this.
Google are big into automation to the extent that they have machines doing their review. You might consider that wrong but then you have to ask yourself how many humans would it take to moderate a platform as large as YouTube. I bet you that whatever number you come up wouldn't be enough and someone else would say "I found another video that was trivial to find, Google don't hire enough platform moderators!"
Plus it's a pretty horrible job being a professional moderator and spending your whole day reviewing the dregs of society. I've read reports where people who've done it had said it's had a very real negative impact on their mental health.
As I said earlier, fixing problems like this at scale is insanely hard. It's one of those things that might seem easy at a superficial level but it's fraught with errors and you can guarantee that whatever decision the moderator makes (be that human or algorithm) someone will be unhappy and claim it's not fair.
Again, I didn’t say I agree with the apps removal, just that Google we’re at least being internally consistent.
With regards to the app removal, do we know it is a Google management decision and not the work of an overzealous app reviewer or an algorithm (the latter being the way Google usually operate)?
The reason I talk about internal consistency is because it is hard getting the right balance between removing stuff that should be vs stuff that shouldn’t and that problem is only magnified when when doing so at scale. So if this were a management then I totally understand the pitchforks but if it’s a false positive an in algorithm then hopefully Google will rectify and we can all go back to moaning about Electron or whatever the next meme is.
I disagree that they are being consistent. An almost-equivalent move would be suspending the entire YouTube app, and making a new entry in the Play Store after they have removed all offending content. But at least YouTube has some ability to remove content, so that would actually make more sense than suspending Podcast Addict which plays third-party-hosted media.
They’re suspending accounts on YouTube and pulling videos, just like they’re doing with apps on their Play Store. They can’t moderate the podcasts posted but they can moderate the apps and videos posted. So of course it’s internally consistent.
The real question is whether it should be consistently upheld without exceptions and the answer to that is obviously “no” because some apps are hubs to user curated content like that podcast app is.
As for your comment about them suspending their entire YouTube app, you talk as if this was a management exec decision rather than rouge judgement that will inevitably get overturned.
Google isn’t a single entity. It’s a collection of people and algorithms all making their own judgements based on Google’s policies. Sometimes they miss stuff they should moderate and sometimes they get overzealous and remove content they shouldn’t. There is such a large grey area and scope for personal judgement that you have to expect some unpopular verdicts from time to time. It’s shit but no two situations are identical so it’s a problem that’s impossible to avoid. The real tell is whether Google reverse the decision once the complaint gets escalated.
It's a great pity all the factual comments about YouTube's COVID-19 video removal policy (or "censorship" depending on your viewpoint) are being down voted while all the anti-Google rhetoric is floating above it.
I get it's cool to hate Google these days and I'm not saying I agree with the removal of the podcast app, however the removal of that app is consistent with how Google have been maintaining some of their other platforms too. This isn't a theoretical point either, it's been well documented in the news and talked to death on here too. So regardless of my opinion of Google (and to be clear: I'm not fan either) I still can't help feeling that all the "Google are hypocrites" remarks being made are completely ignorant of the fact that Google are actually removing content on YouTube as well.
It's a great pity that you treat legitimate disagreement as mindless anger.
"They are removing content on youtube." is a true factual statement.
"They are applying the same standard." is not.
The motivation may be the same, but the types of removal are very different. As long as their own podcasting app is up in its current form, there is a very good argument that they're not being consistent.
> It's a great pity that you treat legitimate disagreement as mindless anger.
I’m not talking about disagreement of these posts (there’s nothing to disagree, the comments were factually accurate), I’m talking about the comments where people say stuff like “Google's rules only apply to their competitors“, which clearly isn’t true (as I’ve proven).
I also don’t agree with you exaggerating my comments to claim I was accusing people of being mindless and agree when I said no such thing.
> The motivation may be the same, but the types of removal are very different. As long as their own podcasting app is up in its current form, there is a very good argument that they're not being consistent.
When splitting hairs there’s a risk you sub-divide the problem so finely that you then can argue nothing is equivalent and I think that’s what’s happening here.
There’s a saying that goes something like “don’t attributed malice to acts of incompetence” which applies here. People are quick to jump on the offensive when it’s clearly a policy that Google follow on their other platforms and it might well be a decision that is overturned upon review.
I don't think it's splitting hairs. Banning video channels and banning apps are very different things. Consistency would ban both apps and any normal web browser, or would have never gone near banning this one.
The equivalent to the youtube bans is when they ban apps that are actually about covid-19. Not apps with internet search.
> I’m not talking about disagreement of these posts (there’s nothing to disagree, the comments were factually accurate), I’m talking about the comments where people say stuff like “Google's rules only apply to their competitors“, which clearly isn’t true (as I’ve proven).
No, the exact opposite of that. Because I was replying to the part of your post that says "It's a great pity all the factual comments about YouTube's COVID-19 video removal policy (or "censorship" depending on your viewpoint) are being down voted"
That is about disagreement, and is not about comments where people say stuff like “Google's rules only apply to their competitors“.
> I also don’t agree with you exaggerating my comments to claim I was accusing people of being mindless and agree when I said no such thing.
You said "factual comments are being down voted" in favor of "anti-Google rhetoric". That's either people being mindless or people being malicious. Maybe I shouldn't have used the word "anger", but I don't think "mindless" is exaggerating what you said at all. You painted the situation as having no legitimate reason to downvote those comments.
I don’t think there is a legitimate reason and I’ve cited how those comments were factually accurate. You might disagree with the comparison but I don’t think we are likely to see eye to on that, which is fine. :)
However I still object to you twisting my words to something far more sinister then they’re clearly intended. That’s simply not good debating.
There were comments with facts, but whether they supported the point being made was arguable. If the facts are irrelevant, it's not a great pity to see a downvote.
And yeah, that disagreement is fine.
But you need to understand that I am not trying to twist your words at all. I see those two things as synonyms. No twisting is intended. And for you to say "far more sinister then they’re clearly intended" sounds like an accusation of deliberate malicious behavior, not even me making a mistake, and I don't appreciate that.
“Disagree” and “hate” are not synonyms. They’re related terms but they don’t mean the same thing and are intended to express different extremes of sentiment.
“Deliberate” and “malicious” is another example of related but terms that are not synonyms.
Whereas “mindless” was entirely fabricated by you.
You can’t just swap out words for more emotive terms and assume that was the writers original intent. Especially when you then go on to use those new, more highly charged words, as part of your complaint against the original comment.
My post was only talking about disagreement as expressed by downvoting. I was not using disagreement as a synonym for hate.
> “Deliberate” and “malicious” is another example of related but terms that are not synonyms.
I wasn't saying they were. I feel like you're greatly misunderstanding my posts or something.
> Whereas “mindless” was entirely fabricated by you.
So what motivation were you implying, when you talked about it being a "great pity that all the factual comments" about the policy were being downvoted?
I wasn't swapping out your own words for other words. You never explicitly said what the motivation was, so I did my best to convert that into words. You're telling me I did that wrong, fine, but it wasn't on purpose. You tell me what words I should use there, to talk about the motivation of those downvoters.
"They're also fighting conspiracy theories on YouTube"
It's too bad google is so insanely incompetent that there are more every day instead of less. It's enough to make you think that they aren't staggeringly incompetent, have talented engineers, and aren't trying to fight conspiracy theory videos that are among the stickiest content on their sites.
It's an insanely hard problem to solve at the scale YouTube operate on. Your comment is equivalent to those armchair critics that moan about national sports teams as if they are their kids Sunday league.
This is my first comment in HN. This is the best productive podcast app ever. The developer is also so helpful with any kind of bugs I reported. I hope this is resolved quickly.
I'm still using BeyondPod. Development is stale and problems start appearing. It has one-two features really unique that I miss with other apps. First and foremost "Smart Playlists"
Podcast Addict shouldn't be banned for non-approved Covid content.
When I tested the version of Podcast Addict with ads, it started reloading ads in the background and going through my battery and data allowance. The developer wasn't able to figure out and fix the problem. Just did a quick search and the last time someone wrote about this problem is a year ago (on reddit). Maybe it is fixed now?
I would be okay with an app being banned for such bug, btw. It's app bugs like this that cause the ever stricter background service restrictions on Android (until it's like iOS and just not possible anymore).
Please tell me again how it was justified to attack Iraq, while we continue to bend over for Saudi Arabia?
The fear is not justified, never has been, and it is not the time to sign away your freedoms and believe whatever government agencies and corporations tell you.
> The fear is justified and the extreme prejudice against Covid-19 misinformation (most of which has an agenda behind it) is warranted.
This is the same stuff that was said during Iraq War. That it was justified. Later, we found out that it wasn't and that we attacked a country even though it was Saudi Arabia that was primarily responsible.
Now, they are trying to say that extreme measures, such as censoring people with alternative opinions is justified. Who cares if WHO or whatever else agency disagrees. People are capable of making choices for themselves and doing research. Blocking information, just because it may be inaccurate, doesn't justify it. You then have a centralized power determining what information is accurate like the events that lead to the Iraq War.
> This is the same stuff that was said during Iraq War.
But the person you replied to isn't talking about that.
> That it was justified.
This is like the "they called [genius] wrong" argument. Lots of people claim things are justified. Some of them are wrong, some of them are right. You can't make a blanket judgement.
> Blocking information, just because it may be inaccurate, doesn't justify it. You then have a centralized power determining what information is accurate like the events that lead to the Iraq War.
That fiasco didn't happen because information was being blocked.
This just shows how bad our reaction was. We spent years looking for WMDs and came up empty handed. We should have done nothing, just like this situation. People are getting sick of this s*.
Sssch. We're not allowed to talk about that, remember. Unless your thoughts align with the government, better keep it to yourself, or you will have to be re-educated.
One can equally say the PATRIOT act was justified and saved lives. Many people here agreed with that for years until Snowden etc revealed that it was unjustified.
> One can equally say the PATRIOT act was justified and saved lives.
No, there's plenty of public evidence that lockdowns reduce the spread of COVID-19 and save lives; that's not true for the PATRIOT Act. So this is false, as well as being a red herring...
> Many people here agreed with that for years until Snowden etc revealed that it was unjustified.
I don't think that Snowden and other whistleblowers revealed that the PATRIOT Act was unjustified so much as that what was actually authorized by the PATRIOT Act was a drop in the bucket to what the US government was actually doing in surveillance.
The proximate result of which was Congress expanding surveillance authority to legalize much of what had been being done illegally (authority it is currently in the process of renewing), so clearly it's not even a universal conclusion, even now, that the unauthorized surveillance they revealed was unjustified.
I'm leery of what you may be trying to imply. That I think coronavirus was a conspiracy? No. Please don't head towards slander territory just because someone questions a piece of legislation.
I said "reminiscent", i.e it invokes memories. Hastily enacted, a blunt instrument, huge, sweeping changes to legislation, makes human rights organisations nervous etc.
You don't need conspiracies. Just naive people who think that in times of crisis you need to centralise power and who don't think through the consequences.
What does that mean in the UK context specifically ... for example, the COVID law repeals a reform that was made some years ago, after police finally caught the most prolific serial killer in history. He is believed to have killed perhaps 250 people without being caught, because he was a doctor who was forging death certificates. So the rules were changed to require multiple sign-offs on the cause of death, because multiple signoffs on cremation forms were the only way he was originally detected.
In the COVID panic that rule has been removed. Doctors can now put any cause of death they want without anyone checking them. In many countries there are now widespread reports of elderly relatives being assigned COVID as a cause of death in care homes, when the family members know they repeatedly tested negative and weren't sick.
Even better, the rule that said multiple psychiatry opinions are required to involuntarily commit someone was also repealed. In other words the government anticipated their policies would lead to both mass mental breakdown and civil disobedience; allowing a single doctor to effectively imprison someone indefinitely without any trial or any checks/balances at all, looks like a rather neat solution to that, doesn't it?
All these changes are in a sense well intentioned, the lawmakers believed speed is more important than accuracy. Those beliefs are wrong.
I think the implication is that there is always a block for government over-reach and waiting for a convenient excuse to execute it.
Just as the implication isn't that the PATRIOT act authors did 9/11, they certainly took the momentum of the aftermath of a tragedy to push their pre-existing agenda.
I agree it is being used to reduce freedoms, but I disagree that the parallel to terrorism is very good. Firstly, the risk from terrorism was always going to be sporadic and focused -- it is/was never an effective application of 'force'. For that you need a WMD arsenal like a State. COVID is directly and effectively killing people in massively higher numbers. Secondly, terrorism mitigation was always justified using details and intelligence that the people asking for power (military, intelligence agencies, boarder enforcement) would refuse to share. The public would not be privy to the justifications in the interests of National Security. Again, with COVID, we instead are getting statistics summaries from the government but they are being sourced from public sources of civilian interaction, namely hospitals, research labs, universities. The public can second-source and confirm the justifications. The interventions are currently being couched as temporary with some caveats regarding medical research and immunity. If COVID interventions become overly protracted, we the public can protest along with the current Trumpian crazies (who have the right very basal idea but are utterly confused and probably co-opted with regard to who they are shouting at and when they should have started shouting.) Terrorism threat assessment is privileged process. Quite different IMHO. Unfortunately only "time will tell" if COVID morphs into this secret control state in some way, currently it's all open-source. Until then, all power to the medical and epidemiology bodies and I will shout at anyone getting in THEIR way.
Google has an explicit notice up on YouTube Studio, at least, saying that they'll remove content that might not violate copyright because they are cutting back on human review. (It doesn't seem to occur to them that they could err on the side of not assuming copyright, though.) I'm sure this is part of the same trend.
They can't "err on the side of not assuming copyright". They have to block things first, ask questions later according to various laws and agreements around the world, or they will open themselves up to massive lawsuits, principally from big music labels.
Censorship simply does not scale. A centralized entity cannot get all the details correct, and a larger community has more diverging values. The more Google attempts to police information, the more wrong judgments it makes. It's inevitable.
This is disgusting, Google has become disgusting..
This is exactly why Google and maybe other large corporations absolutely need to get split up. I hope Trump takes action against US tech companies as he have said he would. Very few things would make me happier as an european.
This actually feels like an intentional move by Google to NOT get split up. Don’t worry government, we got your back! We’ll ban things that aren’t approved by you!
No, it's a service to public health to take down crap. People spreading "covid19 is fake" propaganda are literally getting themselves, their parents and friends killed. Freedom of speech also comes with responsibility - the responsibility of not endangering others with your speech. Similar as inciting hatred and screaming "fire" in a crowded restaurant will earn you jail time, people should be happy it's only their YT channel killed and not their sorry asses landing in jail!
I would have no problem if covid19 was taking out only those propaganda spouting idiots from the gene pool, but unlike let's say people ignoring gun safety laws and pointing a loaded shotgun at their feet which then goes off and blasts their feet away but like as with antivaxxers, anything involving infectious diseases also endangers innocent people. Mothers, fathers, children, the weakest of societies.
I am incredibly lucky to not have lost someone close to me to the 'rona, but other people I know have not been that lucky. So every time I hear someone "we gotta open up for the economy!!!" I'd like to throw these idiots in a jail cell and let the keys sink to the bottom of the Mariana Trench out of empathy for those affected by the reality.
Second, this is an index of all podcasts. If you are going to ban index searches google should also ban their own search engine because right now I can search for plenty of corona propaganda using it.
I'm so sick of hearing this "argument" against free speech. Yelling fire is not free speech. Never has been. Inciting hatred is however, and since you're inciting hatred yourself, with wanting innocent people to die or throw them in jail, I hope you live in a country that has free speech laws, or you might be looking at jail time yourself.
> and since you're inciting hatred yourself, with wanting innocent people to die or throw them in jail
I have explicitly stated that I am against innocent people to die as a consequence of people spouting propaganda. As for those to be thrown into jail for spouting propaganda, these are not innocent.
> I hope you live in a country that has free speech laws
I do, I'm German and we strike a sensible balance between freedom of speech and protecting people from deadly propaganda, although I'd like a bit more strict regulations especially forcing social networks to hire actual German people for moderation who understand cultural context and have enough time for a reasonable informed moderation decision.
The yelling fire example is especially nonsensical because that's not a thing that ever actually happens. Maybe this idiom made sense 100 years ago, before automated fire alarms, but today it's an anachronism. The only time it comes up is when someone is arguing against free speech.
If we interpret this expression metaphorically rather than literally, then curiously it would most directly apply to people claiming COVID is dangerous and everyone needs to run out of the building (economy) and then wait for government assistance. If there is in fact no fire, as more and more data implies, then it's the people claiming there's a killer virus on the loose who are crying fire and should - by this logic - be suppressed, with people saying "it's all clear" being the ones who get amplified.
You do realize that google's policy isn't just targeting the "corona is fake news" crowd, right? The wording says any app "referencing COVID-19" not published/endorsed by the government or a public health organization got to go.
If google applied this consistently it should have to ban the following apps: Google Chrome[1], Firefox[1], Opera[1], Google[2], Google News[3], Google Podcast[2], Netflix[4], Youtube[3], Play Store[2, 3], any news/journalism organization (including CNN, PBS, NYTimes, BBC (uk), ARD/ZDF (de)), reddit[3], twitter[3], facebook[3], and plenty plenty more.
But at least Jair Bolsonaro is still free to put out fake news apps if he wants because he is head of the government...
[1] Allows access to sites such as google[2].
[2] Allows access to "fake news". And it has a covid warning section linking to (thereby endorsing) non-approved sources such as wikipedia.
[3] Displays/Links to a lot of non-government approved journalism and "journalism".
> You have an undying, oft-repeated support for Israel's bloodthirsty apartheid.
I have literally no idea how you're digging up Israel in this story, and while you are correct that I lean towards the Zionist side I'm not a fan of either Netanyahu or Trump's "peace plan" idea.
> Might that be related to the raw, barely-disguised authoritarian hatred displayed in your post?
Authoritarian hatred? I only dislike people who refuse to accept hard scientific truth, and especially people who willingly and knowingly endanger others with a deadly disease. Murder is punished in almost all countries of this world, and people who are trying to deny the dangers of the inarguably worst pandemic in a hundred years are not much short of accessories to murder IMO.
Their automated system/review process is broken with respect to apps that render user generated content.
I've had several requests from Google over the last couple of years to make changes to my app to remove user generated content that is being rendered in the app. Sigh.
Wow, rather Orwellian. The referenced authorities aren't even in agreement on a lot of basics about covid, and had given false information on key aspects earlier. We can also rightfully draw some conclusions about covid, e.g. looking at data, without needing to be an official authority. Google has smart people, so this makes it all the more distressing.
In most of these stories featuring Google abusing their power to remove apps, it's usually a matter of some automated tool gone wrong and the problem is solved a couple of days later. But this time it's different, they are actually asking developers to censor themselves if they are not affiliated with a gov.
It may be automated based on frequency of reports, but either way this is unlikely to be company policy. The people who make these decisions are relatively low-level employees following a company guidebook. The guidebook says it has to go? It has to go. The employee doesn't want to get fired.
>...but either way this is unlikely to be company policy
Perhaps you haven't seen the article because it's behind an Apple News link. There's a screenshot of a message stating company policy as follows:
"Pursuant to Section 8.3 of the Developer Agreement and the Enforcement policy, apps referencing Covid-19, or related terms, in any form will only be approved for distribution on Google Play if they are published, commissioned or authorized by official government entities or public health organizations"
That's not what I meant. I mean, it's unlikely that someone high up in the company decided to snipe this app. It's probably a low-level employee following the formal rulebook a little too much to the letter.
We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. With new diseases or any new phenomena knowledge changes frequently. Oftentimes official organs are lagging and independent voices are at the forefront and have the freshest information.
Unfortunately both of the above can have counter agenda (could have good intentions such as calming hoarding), even worse is that you can have kooks, active disinformation, lulz, etc. There is no good answer to this.
I think our traditional answer was good enough. Trust the people to weigh a wide range of information and opinions. Delegate more detailed analysis and decision making to political representatives and independent institutions.
It's not like there wasn't any anti-scientific rubbish, hate speech and manipulation in book shops, newspapers and on TV. Entire countries used to be run by media barons (literally or effectively).
Regarding Covid specifically, I find it pretty ironic that free speech should be restricted to government officials by an oligopoly of US corporations while the head of the US government routinely spreads anti-scientific disinformation on that very subject (and on others).
I agree. Not only the US but even the WHO is very susceptible to manipulation (it’s not human transmissible, then yes it is, masks don’t work, then yes they do). We also see politics dictate policy (viz Taiwan). Then Gates alarms almost everyone with his “disease free certificates”.
> >...but either way this is unlikely to be company policy
> Perhaps you haven't seen the article because it's behind an Apple News link. There's a screenshot of a message stating company policy as follows:
> "Pursuant to Section 8.3 of the Developer Agreement and the Enforcement policy, apps referencing Covid-19, or related terms, in any form will only be approved for distribution on Google Play if they are published, commissioned or authorized by official government entities or public health organizations"
How does their own browser not run afoul of this policy?
Because policies are written and interpreted by humans that have the common sense to understand that there is no connection between the browser app and the content it displays.
This entire thread is a discussion about Google's automatic tool flagging a podcast browser erroneously. If Google's response was to uphold the suspension then there would be an actual story, but they won't, and so it isn't.
Podcast Addict builds an index of podcasts that it makes available to users whereas Chrome does not influence in any way what content users may want to view.
But your question is of course very apt when it comes to the Google Search app or Google's own podcast app.
There used to be this idea (a good idea in my view) that building a search index is a neutral activity that does not come with any editorial responsibility for the content.
Google used to fight for that idea but unfortunately lawmakers (and I think the majority of the population) have very firmly taken the opposite view.
I think that's what's ultimately at the core of this defensive "when in doubt, ban it!" attitude that was built into automatic content filtering tools and hammered into the heads of reviewers.
There are still gaps - the most glaring one being Google Search - but I think Google has largely given up that struggle in favour of avoiding billions in fines
There have been too many cases of a popular app being bought by scammers and repurposed. They can't exempt an app from being suspended just because it's popular.
I would rather apps be automatically suspended and the install marked as potentially dangerous than have my device goatse'd to a malicious developer for any amount of time.
That can be accommodated. Automatic suspension that lasts 20-30 minutes while someone on the team looks into the case and makes a human judgement.
But a full suspension, on a popular app, without rapid human review? That shouldn't happen.
Also, this wasn't up to the "install marked as dangerous" level. They just prevented new installs. In a situation like that, there's no need to act instantly.
That kind "popularity content" policy will never work because because then scammers will just buy apps with good reputation. This describes the entire browser extension marketplace. Any extension with a good reputation and a broad permission set will sell for a good bit of money.
This isn't as weird as it seems in this new weird world. The "most official" support channel for Spotify is their Twitter handle while their email form is the secondary option.
Letting internet outrage drive the support queue is oddly pragmatic.
But automating something that might eat a kid, versus inadvertently blocking an app access very very different. This why no one is tackling a nanny bot --- repercussions.
573 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 326 ms ] threadWeird that Apple does this proxying... not going to open up that News app.
[0]: https://mobile.twitter.com/PodcastAddict/status/126165151294... [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23207039
Parent could have posted something along the lines of 'ah yes, phishing is something else', but ah well.
This quote really sums up how ridiculous Google is being:
> What Google is asking of Podcast Addict would be comparable to Google asking a web browser app to remove references to all the websites and social media posts that reference the coronavirus unless the reference comes from an official government entity or public health organization.
Except usually a web browser doesn't include a index of sites, You go to a another site (Google/Bing) for that. If a browser does include "recommended sites" the landing pages of those sites best keep to Google's and Apples rules. For an extreme example, If Firefox was promoting PornHub on the new tab page we could understand why Google or Apple would tell them to cut it out, but it doesn't stop you from visiting the site.
I'm not saying I agree with what Google have done here (IMO they should re-instate Podcast Addict), Just that I can see why Google could think "recommended podcasts" and podcast indexes come under the "included content" of an app.
EDIT: As others has said here, It's more like Google banning YouTube because it contains video's about covid 19 which don't come from "approved sources" (Though Google did demonetize people for talking about it and de-rank non "approved sources")
It was more that Podcast app's come with a curated list of podcasts and a search feature backed into the application then the actual hosting of the content.
I say this because I remember the days before Apple’s Podcast directory when it was often easier to Google and listen in your browser or copy it on to a music player via drag and drop than it was to remember to launch an app that would do the downloading for you. (Partly because you still had to remember to connect and/or sync the player, and worry about disk space etc.) Nowadays, subscribing and listening via phone is so easy that I probably download 100x the shows I used to and barely listen to 5%. These days I use the apps as sources of possible content to listen to, but I would be really annoyed if some of the content disappeared with no warning, particularly if it was one daily/weekly episode that covered COVID.
OP’s point stands without modification.
I don't agree with Googles decision (I strongly disagree with it). Just stating that under the letter of the law (of the app stores policies) I can see why app stores feel they have the power to govern the search results in such apps (iirc web browsers have a exception to the clause - /me goes to double check Googles policy on web browsers - brb)
EDIT: With a quick 5 min glance at the policy it looks like Google have been extremely heavy handed because "Any apps referencing COVID-19, or related terms, in any form in their metadata will only be approved for distribution in the Play Store if they are published, commissioned or authorised by one of these entities." But podcasts in their search couldn't be in their play store meta data. (Still digging)
Nothing in the metadata. Pure evil.
It's beyond fucked up what Google is doing.
https://www.youtube.com/feed/history
I want a tool to work without having to sift through hundreds and hundreds of videos and try to guess which one caused the drift into crazy town.
"The only winning move is not to play."
You also get to see just how low the lowest common denominator of society is for the default recommendations.
On the other Hand people like Dr. Erickson get censored, because they simply dare to question the lock down and argue that there is no evidence supporting it's effectiveness in saving lives.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/why-georg...
Erickson, among other things, makes provably false statements about the prevalence and mortality of covid19. You’re allowed to be misinformed as a private citizen; you’re not allowed to grandstand in public as a physician and spread misinformation. He’s lucky he only got deplatformed, rather than have his license taken.
You make it sound like he was expressing an unpopular interpretation of the data, rather than actively spreading untrue assertions.
Such as?
For all I know Erickson is saying no one died of Covid or something that ridiculous/obviously false, but labelling statements as misinformation and censoring them instead of retracting endorsements and getting others to realize those statements are false is an aggressive seize of power by authorities over what is or isn’t true.
I realize authoritative knowledge is necessary; not everyone has the time or ability to parse through medical information and come to reasonable conclusions.
But authoritative bodies should have to earn their authority from the public, not use censorious platforms to assert it. The fundamental problem we’re running into now with misinformation is a lack of trust, not a lack of information. Forcing people to listen to sources they don’t trust and blocking sources they do trust will make the situation worse.
If people trust a crackpot more than they trust an established authoritative body, that authoritative body should take a real hard look at themselves in the mirror and ask themselves why that’s the case.
So you're saying we should censor the President of the United States from Twitter?
Not saying there is a logical equivalency here, but this type of thinking is exactly why free speech is important, not why it’s dangerous.
No harm in spreading lies and absurd conspiracies, right?
Additionally, no harm? Movies encourage terrible behavior as well, but we are not trying to ban them on Netflix. If there is a movie where they glamorize alcohol or unprotected sex, there is no effort to have them removed from streaming platforms.
At one point, saying the world was round would have been an absurd conspiracy. Just because something appears and most likely is inaccurate, doesn't mean that we should have a central fact checking authority. That is some 1984 stuff right there. People can make choices for themselves and do their own research. There is no law preventing people like Sandra Bullock from telling people that baby foreskin is good for their skin, even though most people would know that is disgusting.
I now live in the Subscription section, and it's great!
> Except usually a web browser doesn't include a index of sites, You go to a another site (Google/Bing) for that.
OK then, it is like asking a search/video/advertising company to remove all such references from its search, and hosted videos, and other properties, and banning their apps & services until they do.
I don't see the youtube app being banned for all the C19 rubbish they are currently hosting and indexing. Or the Google news app for the C19 rubish it is indexing and actively pushing to some people (depending on what the relevant sacred algorithm, hallowed be its name, decides who should see).
What they appear to be expecting Podcast Addict to do is exactly what they themselves have said they can't do. Either it is not possible (this is the case IMO) in which case it is not fair to expect it of PcA, or it is possible and Google are hypocrites of the highest order in this matter.
EDIT: after reading the rest of TFA...
Even worse "additionally, Google isn’t applying these same rules to its own podcast app – Google Podcasts" - we don't even need to argue service equivalence to show that as hypocritical.
Of course this is most likely to be an undesirable side effect of some automated system. I'll give Google that benefit of the doubt if they reinstate PcA immediately and apologise for their cock-up.
Why? It's not as if no one in Google knew that this would happen. I don't think Grace Hopper's 'Better to ask forgiveness than permission' applies here. Google knew what they were doing when they instituted the rule and their behaviour suggests malice aforethought.
You mean sites like the BBC? That's where all the COVID-19 related content I have listened to with Podcast Addict came from. Is the BBC supposed to kowtow to Google's self serving rules and propaganda?
> What Google is asking of Podcast Addict would be comparable to Google asking Google to remove all references to the websites and social media posts that reference the coronavirus unless the reference comes from an official government entity or public health organization.
Of course that's assuming that they don't get the same play store treatment from GOOG
It's a little too ironic that Goggle, who has countless times made the argument that they aren't responsible/liable for what their users do on a service ("honestly senator its just a platform we provide"), and then here they are the ones calling for some downstream accountability. Not that I agree at all with the logic- you may as well say that a bank is responsible(liable) for the use of any money they lend out ;} -- but its the hypocrisy that stinks to high heaven here!
[1] https://www.pocketcasts.com/
You probably missed our complaints, though, as on sites like HN, Reddit, etc. we were all downvoted into oblivion.
Conservatives who've had this happen to them were just told to suck it up cause the tech companies are muh private corporations, and there are consequences to free speech... or something like that.
Call this an oversimplification of a nuanced issue if you want. Because it is. I’m not shying from it. Just doesn’t seem all that much different from the amount of nuance that goes into and subsequently comes out of the kinds of flame wars commonly immolating this topic anyway.
This is just opinion though, I wouldn’t encourage anyone try to unearth anything objective out of it beyond what pleasantry is warranted for such idle (and wholly inane) thought.
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.danoeh.antennapod/
F-Droid only lists FOSS software, but Google sorely needs competition. Unfortunately, any alternative store is unlikely to succeed since the users only have incentive to use it when Google misbehaves, so all Google has to do is misbehave rarely enough to kill the alternatives off.
[0]: https://github.com/AntennaPod/AntennaPod/
* Podcast Addict offers auto skip intro seconds, auto skip outro seconds -- and the seconds setting is per podcast
* P.A. offers "stop after episode" if the sleep timer is active, and also allows not marking the episode as played if that "artificial stop" is active
* in Antenna Pod, "delete and remove from queue" does not clear it from the now playing bar
* the "auto download" appears to be opt-in, not opt-out, meaning one must set it for all 85 podcasts
* the bamboo menu doesn't include "delete" for an episode
* and a few more UI nits that bugged me
This isn't a rant, but rather an observation that the Podcast Addict developer wakes up every day thinking about how to make P.A. better, and that doesn't seem to be true for Antenna Pod
Now is the perfect time to get more censorship in place, be it for commercial or policial reasons.
[1] https://f-droid.org/app/de.danoeh.antennapod
Banning this app is like banning web browsers because the allow access "questionable" websites or banning search engines because they index such sites.
I hate how much (dis/mis)information is being spread about COVID-19, but banning an entire podcast app leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
If this is the first time you hear about it, the safest place to obtain it is the author's Google Drive: https://twitter.com/PodcastAddict/status/1262047866614247425
So is this a metadata issue, or a content issue?
Edit: Here's how the page looked the day before takedown, no hints here at least of them doing anything like that: http://web.archive.org/web/20200515172150/https://play.googl...
And even if they were, couldn't a general app say something along "listen to your favorite sports podcasts, ted talks or get the latest news about X"?
To be clear: I also don’t agree with the podcast takedown.
this is google's mantra these days. do they do anything well anymore?
To be clear: I’m not defending Google, I also don’t agree with the podcast takedown.
Here's a few citations:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52388586
https://fee.org/articles/youtube-to-ban-content-that-contrad...
https://www.theblaze.com/news/youtube-will-remove-any-corona...
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/youtube-ramps-up-actio...
These haven't been cherry picked, they're the top 4 results on a DDG search.
Your example only demonstrates that you don't understand the difficulty in censoring content on social platforms as enormous as YouTube; not that Google don't have a policy that prohibits such content.
> It would be trivial for a human to find this.
Someone literate in Swedish maybe (to gather the context of those key words) but it isn't humans which do this.
Google are big into automation to the extent that they have machines doing their review. You might consider that wrong but then you have to ask yourself how many humans would it take to moderate a platform as large as YouTube. I bet you that whatever number you come up wouldn't be enough and someone else would say "I found another video that was trivial to find, Google don't hire enough platform moderators!"
Plus it's a pretty horrible job being a professional moderator and spending your whole day reviewing the dregs of society. I've read reports where people who've done it had said it's had a very real negative impact on their mental health.
As I said earlier, fixing problems like this at scale is insanely hard. It's one of those things that might seem easy at a superficial level but it's fraught with errors and you can guarantee that whatever decision the moderator makes (be that human or algorithm) someone will be unhappy and claim it's not fair.
With regards to the app removal, do we know it is a Google management decision and not the work of an overzealous app reviewer or an algorithm (the latter being the way Google usually operate)?
The reason I talk about internal consistency is because it is hard getting the right balance between removing stuff that should be vs stuff that shouldn’t and that problem is only magnified when when doing so at scale. So if this were a management then I totally understand the pitchforks but if it’s a false positive an in algorithm then hopefully Google will rectify and we can all go back to moaning about Electron or whatever the next meme is.
The real question is whether it should be consistently upheld without exceptions and the answer to that is obviously “no” because some apps are hubs to user curated content like that podcast app is.
As for your comment about them suspending their entire YouTube app, you talk as if this was a management exec decision rather than rouge judgement that will inevitably get overturned.
Google isn’t a single entity. It’s a collection of people and algorithms all making their own judgements based on Google’s policies. Sometimes they miss stuff they should moderate and sometimes they get overzealous and remove content they shouldn’t. There is such a large grey area and scope for personal judgement that you have to expect some unpopular verdicts from time to time. It’s shit but no two situations are identical so it’s a problem that’s impossible to avoid. The real tell is whether Google reverse the decision once the complaint gets escalated.
Google is actually applying the same standard in this case (or at least attempting to). They're also fighting conspiracy theories on YouTube.
I get it's cool to hate Google these days and I'm not saying I agree with the removal of the podcast app, however the removal of that app is consistent with how Google have been maintaining some of their other platforms too. This isn't a theoretical point either, it's been well documented in the news and talked to death on here too. So regardless of my opinion of Google (and to be clear: I'm not fan either) I still can't help feeling that all the "Google are hypocrites" remarks being made are completely ignorant of the fact that Google are actually removing content on YouTube as well.
Here's a bunch of citations that proves this and the GP comments are actually correct despite the down votes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23220864
"They are removing content on youtube." is a true factual statement.
"They are applying the same standard." is not.
The motivation may be the same, but the types of removal are very different. As long as their own podcasting app is up in its current form, there is a very good argument that they're not being consistent.
I’m not talking about disagreement of these posts (there’s nothing to disagree, the comments were factually accurate), I’m talking about the comments where people say stuff like “Google's rules only apply to their competitors“, which clearly isn’t true (as I’ve proven).
I also don’t agree with you exaggerating my comments to claim I was accusing people of being mindless and agree when I said no such thing.
> The motivation may be the same, but the types of removal are very different. As long as their own podcasting app is up in its current form, there is a very good argument that they're not being consistent.
When splitting hairs there’s a risk you sub-divide the problem so finely that you then can argue nothing is equivalent and I think that’s what’s happening here.
There’s a saying that goes something like “don’t attributed malice to acts of incompetence” which applies here. People are quick to jump on the offensive when it’s clearly a policy that Google follow on their other platforms and it might well be a decision that is overturned upon review.
I explain this point more eloquently here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23222167
The equivalent to the youtube bans is when they ban apps that are actually about covid-19. Not apps with internet search.
> I’m not talking about disagreement of these posts (there’s nothing to disagree, the comments were factually accurate), I’m talking about the comments where people say stuff like “Google's rules only apply to their competitors“, which clearly isn’t true (as I’ve proven).
No, the exact opposite of that. Because I was replying to the part of your post that says "It's a great pity all the factual comments about YouTube's COVID-19 video removal policy (or "censorship" depending on your viewpoint) are being down voted"
That is about disagreement, and is not about comments where people say stuff like “Google's rules only apply to their competitors“.
> I also don’t agree with you exaggerating my comments to claim I was accusing people of being mindless and agree when I said no such thing.
You said "factual comments are being down voted" in favor of "anti-Google rhetoric". That's either people being mindless or people being malicious. Maybe I shouldn't have used the word "anger", but I don't think "mindless" is exaggerating what you said at all. You painted the situation as having no legitimate reason to downvote those comments.
However I still object to you twisting my words to something far more sinister then they’re clearly intended. That’s simply not good debating.
And yeah, that disagreement is fine.
But you need to understand that I am not trying to twist your words at all. I see those two things as synonyms. No twisting is intended. And for you to say "far more sinister then they’re clearly intended" sounds like an accusation of deliberate malicious behavior, not even me making a mistake, and I don't appreciate that.
“Deliberate” and “malicious” is another example of related but terms that are not synonyms.
Whereas “mindless” was entirely fabricated by you.
You can’t just swap out words for more emotive terms and assume that was the writers original intent. Especially when you then go on to use those new, more highly charged words, as part of your complaint against the original comment.
I can also see for your post history ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229973) that you don’t like it when you feel misquoted yourself, so why do the same to others?
My post was only talking about disagreement as expressed by downvoting. I was not using disagreement as a synonym for hate.
> “Deliberate” and “malicious” is another example of related but terms that are not synonyms.
I wasn't saying they were. I feel like you're greatly misunderstanding my posts or something.
> Whereas “mindless” was entirely fabricated by you.
So what motivation were you implying, when you talked about it being a "great pity that all the factual comments" about the policy were being downvoted?
I wasn't swapping out your own words for other words. You never explicitly said what the motivation was, so I did my best to convert that into words. You're telling me I did that wrong, fine, but it wasn't on purpose. You tell me what words I should use there, to talk about the motivation of those downvoters.
> I can also see for your post history ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229973) that you don’t like it when you feel misquoted yourself, so why do the same to others?
What a weird flex. They weren't quoting me at all.
It's too bad google is so insanely incompetent that there are more every day instead of less. It's enough to make you think that they aren't staggeringly incompetent, have talented engineers, and aren't trying to fight conspiracy theory videos that are among the stickiest content on their sites.
"Coronavirus Live Map and realtime counter - Latest worldwide COVID-19 stats and figures." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRy5_KpPxyM
And there're tons more when you search "covid 19 stats" in YT
About that long, though I had commented before that.
When I tested the version of Podcast Addict with ads, it started reloading ads in the background and going through my battery and data allowance. The developer wasn't able to figure out and fix the problem. Just did a quick search and the last time someone wrote about this problem is a year ago (on reddit). Maybe it is fixed now? I would be okay with an app being banned for such bug, btw. It's app bugs like this that cause the ever stricter background service restrictions on Android (until it's like iOS and just not possible anymore).
The fear is justified and the extreme prejudice against Covid-19 misinformation (most of which has an agenda behind it) is warranted.
This particular case may go too far, but that has no bearing on whether the other efforts against misinformation are too extreme.
Please tell me again how it was justified to attack Iraq, while we continue to bend over for Saudi Arabia?
The fear is not justified, never has been, and it is not the time to sign away your freedoms and believe whatever government agencies and corporations tell you.
This is the same stuff that was said during Iraq War. That it was justified. Later, we found out that it wasn't and that we attacked a country even though it was Saudi Arabia that was primarily responsible.
Now, they are trying to say that extreme measures, such as censoring people with alternative opinions is justified. Who cares if WHO or whatever else agency disagrees. People are capable of making choices for themselves and doing research. Blocking information, just because it may be inaccurate, doesn't justify it. You then have a centralized power determining what information is accurate like the events that lead to the Iraq War.
But the person you replied to isn't talking about that.
> That it was justified.
This is like the "they called [genius] wrong" argument. Lots of people claim things are justified. Some of them are wrong, some of them are right. You can't make a blanket judgement.
> Blocking information, just because it may be inaccurate, doesn't justify it. You then have a centralized power determining what information is accurate like the events that lead to the Iraq War.
That fiasco didn't happen because information was being blocked.
It’s badly affected air travel and who knows what changes will result (or what contracts for pointless bio-security theatre have been made)
In the UK, a 300+ page law was basically pre-written and enacted very quickly, reminiscent of the early anti terrorism law.
We have set up a bio security unit, currently headed by the security services.
UK has a “threat level” system for coronavirus similar to the terror threat level.
The government talk about it in threatening terms such as it being everywhere and it not going away.
If you are against measures you can easily be accused of wanting old people to die.
The UK was absolutely petrified of it at the beginning shown by the very successful self policed lockdown.
Definitely some similarities
No, there's plenty of public evidence that lockdowns reduce the spread of COVID-19 and save lives; that's not true for the PATRIOT Act. So this is false, as well as being a red herring...
> Many people here agreed with that for years until Snowden etc revealed that it was unjustified.
I don't think that Snowden and other whistleblowers revealed that the PATRIOT Act was unjustified so much as that what was actually authorized by the PATRIOT Act was a drop in the bucket to what the US government was actually doing in surveillance.
The proximate result of which was Congress expanding surveillance authority to legalize much of what had been being done illegally (authority it is currently in the process of renewing), so clearly it's not even a universal conclusion, even now, that the unauthorized surveillance they revealed was unjustified.
I'm leery of what you may be trying to imply here. This isn't some conspiracy thing, is it?
I said "reminiscent", i.e it invokes memories. Hastily enacted, a blunt instrument, huge, sweeping changes to legislation, makes human rights organisations nervous etc.
What does that mean in the UK context specifically ... for example, the COVID law repeals a reform that was made some years ago, after police finally caught the most prolific serial killer in history. He is believed to have killed perhaps 250 people without being caught, because he was a doctor who was forging death certificates. So the rules were changed to require multiple sign-offs on the cause of death, because multiple signoffs on cremation forms were the only way he was originally detected.
In the COVID panic that rule has been removed. Doctors can now put any cause of death they want without anyone checking them. In many countries there are now widespread reports of elderly relatives being assigned COVID as a cause of death in care homes, when the family members know they repeatedly tested negative and weren't sick.
Even better, the rule that said multiple psychiatry opinions are required to involuntarily commit someone was also repealed. In other words the government anticipated their policies would lead to both mass mental breakdown and civil disobedience; allowing a single doctor to effectively imprison someone indefinitely without any trial or any checks/balances at all, looks like a rather neat solution to that, doesn't it?
All these changes are in a sense well intentioned, the lawmakers believed speed is more important than accuracy. Those beliefs are wrong.
Just as the implication isn't that the PATRIOT act authors did 9/11, they certainly took the momentum of the aftermath of a tragedy to push their pre-existing agenda.
I don't buy the "evil monopoly" narrative as what does this accomplish for Google?
This is the inevitable result.
This is exactly why Google and maybe other large corporations absolutely need to get split up. I hope Trump takes action against US tech companies as he have said he would. Very few things would make me happier as an european.
I would have no problem if covid19 was taking out only those propaganda spouting idiots from the gene pool, but unlike let's say people ignoring gun safety laws and pointing a loaded shotgun at their feet which then goes off and blasts their feet away but like as with antivaxxers, anything involving infectious diseases also endangers innocent people. Mothers, fathers, children, the weakest of societies.
I am incredibly lucky to not have lost someone close to me to the 'rona, but other people I know have not been that lucky. So every time I hear someone "we gotta open up for the economy!!!" I'd like to throw these idiots in a jail cell and let the keys sink to the bottom of the Mariana Trench out of empathy for those affected by the reality.
>the 'rona
Please just don't.
Second, this is an index of all podcasts. If you are going to ban index searches google should also ban their own search engine because right now I can search for plenty of corona propaganda using it.
I'm so sick of hearing this "argument" against free speech. Yelling fire is not free speech. Never has been. Inciting hatred is however, and since you're inciting hatred yourself, with wanting innocent people to die or throw them in jail, I hope you live in a country that has free speech laws, or you might be looking at jail time yourself.
I have explicitly stated that I am against innocent people to die as a consequence of people spouting propaganda. As for those to be thrown into jail for spouting propaganda, these are not innocent.
> I hope you live in a country that has free speech laws
I do, I'm German and we strike a sensible balance between freedom of speech and protecting people from deadly propaganda, although I'd like a bit more strict regulations especially forcing social networks to hire actual German people for moderation who understand cultural context and have enough time for a reasonable informed moderation decision.
If we interpret this expression metaphorically rather than literally, then curiously it would most directly apply to people claiming COVID is dangerous and everyone needs to run out of the building (economy) and then wait for government assistance. If there is in fact no fire, as more and more data implies, then it's the people claiming there's a killer virus on the loose who are crying fire and should - by this logic - be suppressed, with people saying "it's all clear" being the ones who get amplified.
If google applied this consistently it should have to ban the following apps: Google Chrome[1], Firefox[1], Opera[1], Google[2], Google News[3], Google Podcast[2], Netflix[4], Youtube[3], Play Store[2, 3], any news/journalism organization (including CNN, PBS, NYTimes, BBC (uk), ARD/ZDF (de)), reddit[3], twitter[3], facebook[3], and plenty plenty more.
But at least Jair Bolsonaro is still free to put out fake news apps if he wants because he is head of the government...
[1] Allows access to sites such as google[2].
[2] Allows access to "fake news". And it has a covid warning section linking to (thereby endorsing) non-approved sources such as wikipedia.
[3] Displays/Links to a lot of non-government approved journalism and "journalism".
[3] e.g. https://www.netflix.com/de-en/title/81273378
Might that be related to the raw, barely-disguised authoritarian hatred displayed in your post?
>people should be happy it's only their YT channel killed and not their sorry asses landing in jail!
>I would have no problem if covid19 was taking out only those propaganda spouting idiots from the gene pool,
>I'd like to throw these idiots in a jail cell and let the keys sink to the bottom of the Mariana Trench
I have literally no idea how you're digging up Israel in this story, and while you are correct that I lean towards the Zionist side I'm not a fan of either Netanyahu or Trump's "peace plan" idea.
> Might that be related to the raw, barely-disguised authoritarian hatred displayed in your post?
Authoritarian hatred? I only dislike people who refuse to accept hard scientific truth, and especially people who willingly and knowingly endanger others with a deadly disease. Murder is punished in almost all countries of this world, and people who are trying to deny the dangers of the inarguably worst pandemic in a hundred years are not much short of accessories to murder IMO.
A million clueless searches vs a few informed dissenting voices, which is more troubling for authoritarian regimes?
You can search all you want, but can you share what you have learned?
Welcome to our "new normal".
On it you can listen to a podcast about Covid 19 from a media company that is not a government agency or health organisation.
I hope Google understands the slippery slope they are treading and its implications and consequences.
Podcast Addict's UI was a bit too full for the simple use I do of podcasts.
Wait. Is this from the app apk or from dynamic content displayed on the app?
If it's the former, it's fair enough, if it's from the latter it's just another SNAFU by Google.
I've had several requests from Google over the last couple of years to make changes to my app to remove user generated content that is being rendered in the app. Sigh.
Why are you posting an Apple News link that is a redirection to the original source, instead of the original source?
It could still be reversed if they feel public opinion swings the other way. That wouldn't mean it's automation gone wrong.
I doubt it'll stick.
Perhaps you haven't seen the article because it's behind an Apple News link. There's a screenshot of a message stating company policy as follows:
"Pursuant to Section 8.3 of the Developer Agreement and the Enforcement policy, apps referencing Covid-19, or related terms, in any form will only be approved for distribution on Google Play if they are published, commissioned or authorized by official government entities or public health organizations"
Unfortunately both of the above can have counter agenda (could have good intentions such as calming hoarding), even worse is that you can have kooks, active disinformation, lulz, etc. There is no good answer to this.
It's not like there wasn't any anti-scientific rubbish, hate speech and manipulation in book shops, newspapers and on TV. Entire countries used to be run by media barons (literally or effectively).
Regarding Covid specifically, I find it pretty ironic that free speech should be restricted to government officials by an oligopoly of US corporations while the head of the US government routinely spreads anti-scientific disinformation on that very subject (and on others).
> Perhaps you haven't seen the article because it's behind an Apple News link. There's a screenshot of a message stating company policy as follows:
> "Pursuant to Section 8.3 of the Developer Agreement and the Enforcement policy, apps referencing Covid-19, or related terms, in any form will only be approved for distribution on Google Play if they are published, commissioned or authorized by official government entities or public health organizations"
How does their own browser not run afoul of this policy?
This entire thread is a discussion about Google's automatic tool flagging a podcast browser erroneously. If Google's response was to uphold the suspension then there would be an actual story, but they won't, and so it isn't.
But your question is of course very apt when it comes to the Google Search app or Google's own podcast app.
There used to be this idea (a good idea in my view) that building a search index is a neutral activity that does not come with any editorial responsibility for the content.
Google used to fight for that idea but unfortunately lawmakers (and I think the majority of the population) have very firmly taken the opposite view.
I think that's what's ultimately at the core of this defensive "when in doubt, ban it!" attitude that was built into automatic content filtering tools and hammered into the heads of reviewers.
There are still gaps - the most glaring one being Google Search - but I think Google has largely given up that struggle in favour of avoiding billions in fines
.... surely
But a full suspension, on a popular app, without rapid human review? That shouldn't happen.
Also, this wasn't up to the "install marked as dangerous" level. They just prevented new installs. In a situation like that, there's no need to act instantly.
If the developer is lucky enough to hit the front page of HN.
Letting internet outrage drive the support queue is oddly pragmatic.
If google’s automations are broken and they harm the world then they need to be responsible and fix them or replace them with people.
Agreed on the last part.
Isn't the elimination of human judgement one reason we all hate bureaucracies?