> I can’t say for sure that preferring web versions of services helps with censorship
The linked article isn't enough to convince you? Look up Gab or Parler. (Yes, I find most of the speech there reprehensible. No, I don't think they should be denied the right to publish and distribute an app.)
Using a social media app instead of a website, as most people do, means that everything you are seeing has essentially been pre-approved by Apple and Google.
If the tide swings even a little further to the right on X, expect the X app to be banned as well. I was secretly hoping that it would be banned when Musk took over just to remind the right of why centralized app stores are a terrible idea. But with ICEBlock the left has finally been alerted to that fact as well, which might be even more beneficial to the cause of software freedom in the long run, since the left is generally less afraid of the proper solution to this problem, regulation.
In the meantime, keep using web apps instead of native apps.
They also bent a knee to previous Democratic party administrations and will bend the knee to them again the next time the Democratic party is in power. Large tech companies aren't interested in spending money and poltical capital fighting censorship demands of anyone who is likely to have power within the US government.
And therein lies a problem. Each 'side' has no problem with it as long their team is not affected. Just yesterday -- on AM radio of all places -- I had democratic pundit openly wondering how Epstein's list is going to be used against them after spending a fair amount of political capital pushing for its release. It is all a game and, sadly, we are getting played. In such an environment, it is hard not to become cynical.
There is a huge difference between a president using the “bully pulpit” and threatening to take away a network’s broadcast license because they said something he didn’t like. That was a road too far for even Ted Cruz who criticized both Trump and the FCC.
A democratic president also didn’t accept personal bribes from companies to allow a merger to go through (Paramount) or accept bribes from other companies that were afraid of retaliation - Meta, Google, Twitter and Disney.
The current administration has carved out outs for companies that bend a knee when it comes to tarriffs. This is the worse case of false whataboutism yet.
AWS isn't the only way to host a website, and his been an obviously bad choice for hosting something controversial since it denied service to Wikileaks.
Which reminds us of the difference between AWS and Apple -- Amazon Web Services is the web and the web is an open platform. If AWS denies you, you go sign up at any of their competitors or buy your own servers and plug them into the internet. If Apple denies you, iPhone users can't get your app, and if you go sign up at a competitor or buy your own servers, they still can't get your app.
> As far as X being banned, if you haven’t heard Tim and every other tech CEO bends a knee anytime Trump and conservatives asks him to.
That's because they currently control the government. Now think ahead by more than two days and consider the possibility that the other party might win an election again someday. What should you do right now when you're in control of the government to prevent yourself from getting screwed the next time that happens?
So now you just have to get deplatformed by Cloudflare, AWS, Fastly, Azure, Radware, Google, Akamai, F5, Imperva and every other DDoS protection company in the world all at the same time while simultaneously suffering from a DDoS attack that never lets up or your site immediately comes back.
Meanwhile a DDoS attack is a crime, so Apple doing something with the equivalent effect is now something you're equating with the commission of a crime.
The linked article isn't enough to convince you? Look up Gab or Parler. (Yes, I find most of the speech there reprehensible. No, I don't think they should be denied the right to publish and distribute an app.)
Using a social media app instead of a website, as most people do, means that everything you are seeing has essentially been pre-approved by Apple and Google.
If the tide swings even a little further to the right on X, expect the X app to be banned as well. I was secretly hoping that it would be banned when Musk took over just to remind the right of why centralized app stores are a terrible idea. But with ICEBlock the left has finally been alerted to that fact as well, which might be even more beneficial to the cause of software freedom in the long run, since the left is generally less afraid of the proper solution to this problem, regulation.
In the meantime, keep using web apps instead of native apps.