Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content
This is the result of out-sourcing juristic work to private companies:<p>If we treat Android, Window, Twitter, Facebook, as public spaces/goods, then private companies should not have a say in what is allowed/not-allowed on their platforms. This is work for the courts and police to decide and enforce.<p>If we treat those platforms as private. Then we are playing in s/o's backyard. You are totally at their mercy. They have every right to kick you out if they don't like your face. It's their property. You are a guest.<p>I think we need constituted digital public spaces and platforms with:<p>- democratic footing (users are in charge)<p>- public ownership<p>- division of power (politicians =!= judges =!= police)<p>- effective policing<p>In such a system it would be for independent courts to decide which Apps can be distributed
and which not. Those courts would be bound to a constitution/body of law, which applies to all parties a like.<p>Yes, this will be expensive. Yes, you will have to give up some privacy.
But you will be a citizen in a society, and not a stranger playing in a backyard.<p>Maybe the current platforms can be coerced into a system which approximates the above.
But I have my doubts.
I hope in 200years people will have figured this out, and will look back to this age as the digital dark ages.