@bastianallgeier "Too big to fail" doesn't work in that governmental environment.

@bastianallgeier Yes. I also find the news that Google did this more shocking than Apple, because of their announced restrictions on "sideloading" (https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/26/android_developer_verification_sideloading/). Google are obviously not the good guys, but at least Android was somehow more open than iOS, until now... in the future, if Google decides they want to ban a developer, they will have all the cards to do so! and then we'll have no alternative systems (recognized by banks, etc)

@bastianallgeier
You cannot trust corporations of any sort. Corporations are creatures of law, and governments control law.

@bastianallgeier
There was a fairy tale?

Who the absolute fuck would have believed that?

@bastianallgeier

Instead of talking about everything that's stupid about #Apple and #Google, we should be promoting #opensource #smartphones and #Fdroid and co.

@bastianallgeier
And use stopice.net. It's not an app, it's web-based, so no corporation can shut it down.

@bastianallgeier Well, doesn't this remind you of some very recent happening?

@bastianallgeier Corporations are people - very very bad people, the sort of people who commit war crimes.

@bastianallgeier
1. Americans have ICE getting them used to people being disappeared.
2. Americans have Hegseth calling for an end to rules of engagement for the military.
3. Americans have Trump calling for the military to be deployed in US states against US citizens.
4. Tech bros that control America don't want Americans to be able to track any of this.

Put it together what have you got? 🤔

The powers that be want to gun down Americans inside the US without any consequences...

@bastianallgeier Puts a different shade on why Google are planning to require author registration for all apps in the nearish future, doesn't it.

@bastianallgeier
All of this but at the same time, corporations are made up of humans. Why can't enough of those humans have a sense of solidarity with other humans?

@bastianallgeier and IBM and others helping build China's surveillance system.
http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/2025-09-09-SiliconValleyEnabledBrutalMassDetentionAndSurveillanceInChinaInternalDocumentsShow

@bastianallgeier
24 days ago a man was assassinated while simply talking to people because the shooter believed that the man willing to talk to people was a nazi and a fascist.
Two weeks later, a gunman using the very apps that you referring to shot up an ICE facility, killing one migrant and wounding two others.
Perhaps continuing to compare people to nazis is not a great idea.
And perhaps the tech companies aren't removing the apps because they suddenly agree with the current administration.

@bastianallgeier I was saying to someone yesterday that people love to talk about Mercedes, BMW, Beyer, etc's, involvement in Nazi Germany, but don't put two and two together with Google or Apple or Microsoft or whoever.

Fascism is the purest form of capitalism

@bastianallgeier
Sorry Apple users, you bought yourself into a very expensive (ie high corporate profits for billionaires) consumer brand cult that has throttled use, installed "updates" that cause features not to work to make you buy new phones, spied on you, exploited vulnerable workers overseas, bent to foreign dictators, and treated you no differently than other cell phone manufacturers but with an air of elan, exclusivity and sophisticated branding that you cling to, just as you're manipulated to do. It's the Elizabeth Holmes syndrome.

Buy whatever phone you like, just stop pretending Apple is different - it's not. We all live with our contradictions, our choices -- that's normal, but Apple isn't different as a for-profit corporation whose goal is profit, not people and not product. The product iteration is a means to profit, as is subservience to authoritarians.

Ask Trump. He knows greed is what matters to corporations. Including Apple. The only way to send Apple corporate a message of rebuke is to use your power to cost them more than Trumpism. Like Disney subscribers who also believed the Disney brand, be direct, give up your Apple subscriptions, buy a cheaper android.

@bastianallgeier
They are the government

@bastianallgeier

Honest question here, how come these tracking things are being done with apps vs. just simple web pages? seems like you can host a webpage anywhere in the world and not need to distribute any sort of app.

@bastianallgeier corporate social responsibility was a psyop to divide the Occupy movement after the 08 financial crash. That’s my hot take

@bastianallgeier
I think you missed the memo after the social media bosses were browbeaten by Republicans in Congress because of their supposed liberal bias they we're happy to toe the MAGA line.

@bastianallgeier that fairy tale is PR strategy to deter any chat about increasing taxation of corporations, as they are purely profit driven and they will say absolutely everything and bribe anyone.
And yes, it has been "corporations is how money talks and peace is guaranteed" propaganda forever. Similar to GOP strategy, it just doesn't hold any water anymore.

@bastianallgeier on that theme, “IBM and the Holocaust” by Edwin Black is a phenomenal book.

@bastianallgeier

Fascism always helps government-aligned corporations.

@bastianallgeier thats why we need @fdroidorg !

@bastianallgeier someone should publish an app to find and highlight Music Festivals as you see them pop up in your neighbourhood.

@bastianallgeier Hello

@bastianallgeier
I haven't experienced the features of these now-blocked apps. Other apps, like Google Maps and Waze, have for years alerted users to police presence. They're not blocked. They've also been used to manually track #ICE activity.

This blocking, complicit with the fascist plots of the #convictedFelon #sexOffender #DonaldTrump regime, will be circumvented somehow. Online censorship is treated like a network outage: Traffic will be routed to bypass it.

@bastianallgeier Thank you! It's exhausting to watch centrists unwilling to be disillusioned, thinking this is a ceo problem or that Apple has lost its way as a company. Corporations have always had only one value, shareholder value. Also, Steve Jobs would have done the exact same thing.

@bastianallgeier This highlights how easily “corporate responsibility” gets used as a cover while control stays the priority. Big tech often frames restrictions as protection, but history shows how profit and power usually drive these choices. Maybe the real discussion should be about transparency and accountability instead of expecting morality from corporations.

@bastianallgeier But "Blocking sideloading will keep your device secure". This is what they mean by secure - under their control.

@bastianallgeier Ah . I guess I have my afternoon research defined

@bastianallgeier TAX THE RICH LIKE THE NON RICH ARE TAXED!