Tag: Immigration

Apple Ices Ice Tracking App

The big chill continues freezing Apple

Apple gave itself another public relations black eye last night by agreeing with U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and pulling the ICEBlock app from the App Store. 404 Media has more on the story here. 

Piece of ice cube melting.

ICEBlock has proven to be a popular, and much needed app in these days when ICE agents are working to fulfill Donald’s Trump mass deportation fantasies with too large of the population cheering him on. It allows users to pinpoint ICE activity on the app for others to see and possibly avoid the area and take precautions.

The developers of ICEBlock are saying they will fight the expulsion, sharing the following email from Apple with 404 Media:

Hello,

We are writing to let you know about new information regarding the latest approved version of your app, which could impact its availability on the App Store.

Upon re-evaluation, we found that your app is not in compliance with the App Review Guidelines. Specifically, we found your app is in violation of the following:

1.1 Objectionable Content
Apps should not include content that is offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust, in exceptionally poor taste, or just plain creepy. Examples of such content include:

1.1.1 Defamatory, discriminatory, or mean-spirited content, including references or commentary about religion, race, sexual orientation, gender, national/ethnic origin, or other targeted groups, particularly if the app is likely to humiliate, intimidate, or harm a targeted individual or group. Professional political satirists and humorists are generally exempt from this requirement.

Information provided to Apple by law enforcement shows that your app violates Guideline 1.1.1 because its purpose is to provide location information about law enforcement officers that can be used to harm such officers individually or as a group.

For this reason, your app will be removed from the App Store. Customers who have previously downloaded this app will continue to have access to it on their devices, but they will be unable to re-download this app from the App Store or restore this app from a backup if they delete it from their device. Additionally, customers will be unable to purchase in-app purchase products and any auto-renewable subscriptions will be canceled. The TestFlight version of this app will also be unavailable for external and internal testing and all public TestFlight links will no longer be functional.

Best regards,
App Review

In a statement to CNBC Apple said:

We created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps. Based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock, we have removed it and similar apps from the App Store.

Apple has in the past pulled other apps from App Stores after government pressure from other countries, always stating that they have to follow the laws of the countries that they operate within. To my knowledge this is the first time this has happened in the U.S.

Apple and its CEO Tim Cook remain under intense scrutiny for blatantly undisguised subservience to the Trump administration on a number of fronts to avoid tariffs and other threats wielded against the company. But they are not bending their knees alone.  AG Bondi pointed out other apps available on Google’s App Store that provide similar services saying “Your move, Google.”

Let’s face it. Both Apple and Google, as well as other big tech and media companies, have proven to be easy (too easy) marks for this criminal regime’s bully boys and girls. Their capitulation has taken the wind out of any progressive sails that these companies previously used to cultivate and build brand loyalty, creating new legacies that will last longer than any zig-zagging line on a profit-loss chart. This latest capitulation certainly continues to put a chill on any good will sympathies users have for these companies and their products.

That said, Apple and Google know well their dominance of the mobile operating system market leaves the vast majority of consumers with little choice in this topsy-turvy new world bound by the inertia of every day life as much as gravity. Certainly there are other options out there, but the number of users willing to jump through the hoops to get away from this capitulating corporate behavior is small, and at the moment I dare say insignificant. That will remain the case because there certainly doesn’t appear to be an opportunity for alternative mobile operating systems to surface, capture attention, and take hold, given the current environment.

Chilling times indeed.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Hinge Moment?

It’s going to be a weekend.

There’s really no way to know if you’re living through a hinge moment of history or not. But these next few days certainly have the makings of one.

Shutterstock 2433622859.

Between the events in Los Angeles, (including what happened to Senator Padilla,) already planned but now growing No Kings protests, Trump’s ego-fluffing birthday parade, and events in the Middle East, the atmosphere is charged. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t feel a sense of foreboding.

There’s no way to know what is going to happen and yet we all know we have to live through whatever comes. It’s almost like preparing for surgery knowing you have a negative reaction to anesthesia.

To be perfectly honest, I think my biggest fear is that we have such fools and imbeciles in charge. There may be plans, there may be desired outcomes. There may be plans to disrupt either. The events I cited above, while all potentially fraught with the potential for danger, all depend on those imbeciles and whatever decisions they are going to make, and the reactions to them.

Sadly, we don’t have to look hard to find them or see their imbecilic behavior.  Apparently, according to the Secretary of Army, there is an American soldier on the moon. The Pentagon is a mess. And the White House, well.. let’s just say I think the faithful is starting to lose a bit of faith in what comes out of there anymore.

Speaking of faith, I don’t have much of it in those elected to be leading voices in opposition.

If so much didn’t hang in the balance, all of this would be laughable. But so much does indeed hang in the balance. Beyond my fears of the imbeciles is how much they relish being cruel. They’ve baked cruelty into the cake they want to stuff down our throats to a point that just being cruel for the sake of it seems to be the entire point, not just a means to an end.

To be honest, while it feels like things are stacked against those, like me, who stand against this imbecilic sadistic regime, I sense that there are still possibilities to erode the ground underneath their plans. I may not be encouraged by the s0-called leaders of the opposition, but I am heartened by what seems to be a growing groundswell of anger among those they think they’re leading.

Things might need to get uglier first, sadly. The saga of human history bears that out. Perhaps these next few days will tell us which way the hinge of history is going to swing. Perhaps not.

See you on the other side.

Photo by Vasylchenko on Shutterstock.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.