View of the Steve Jobs Theater on the Apple Park campus in Cupertino.
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Apple and Google deleted applications that alert people on Thursday when immigration and customs agents are nearby after pressure from the Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The detractors of the technology giants capitulating the Trump administration say that it shows that the president of the president that Trump has on Silicon Valley in his second term.
Apple said he had drawn an application called Ice Since his app store after the “security risks” of the application, have been known to the company. The anonymous application and coming from the crowd is described as “Waze but for ice observations” and claims to serve as an early alert system informing people when ice agents are nearby.
The application was launched in April and collected hundreds of thousands of downloads, but it was only after the Attorney General Pam Bondi put Apple in opinion, demanding that the application be withdrawn from the App Store, that the company made it unavailable.
“We contacted Apple today by asking to remove the Iceblock application from their app store – and Apple did it,” said Bondi In a statement to Fox News.
The Ministry of Justice did not answer NPR questions on its request.
Since the application never had an Android version, it was not on the Google Play Store. However, a company spokesman told NPR that he also “deleted similar applications for violations of our policies”, being online with Apple’s actions.
Iceblock developer Joshua Aaron said he had created the application in response to the immigration application of the Trump administration. After being started from the Apple App Store, Aaron blamed political pressure and swore to fight it.
He argued that the application service was engaged in a type of protected discourse that does not resemble some of the own Apple applications, such as the business mapping application that allows crowdsource users, dangers and police speed traps along the roads.
“Capitulating towards an authoritarian regime is never the right decision,” Aaron said in a statement.
Apple’s action has revived the debate on what is called jawWhen government representatives censor the discourse by intimidation and threats.
Conservative for years accused Biden administration From this tactics on the communications she had with technological companies linked to accounts that spread the disinformation of the cocoat and the elections.
The brief suspension of Jimmy Kimmel by ABC following the comments of the president of the Federal Communications Commission Brendan Carr widely considered by legal experts such as illegal jaw.
Kate Ruane, director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Free Expression Project, said that Apple’s decision should also be considered the freedom of expression of the government’s heavy hand.
“When companies accept administration requests in order to achieve another objective, whether to avoid prices or obtain approval from the merger, they send a message to others that it is normal to do the same,” said Ruane. “What is worse, they erode the promise of the first amendment for all of us at the same time.”
CEO of Apple Tim Cook has made progress to break into Trump, because the administration promulgates an aggressive price policy that could affect Apple’s results, because a large part of its production occurs in China, India and elsewhere abroad.
Cook in August entered the White House and gave Trump A 24 -carat gold plate, a decision that has symbolized the deference of Silicon Valley towards the president.
Trump gave Apple and other technological companies something of a gift too exempt Smartphones, including Apple iPhones, from prices.
“I think that many major organizations are trying to keep their heads metaphorical and act with caution, even when the government acts badly or even unconstitutionally,” said Gautam Hans, professor of law at Cornell University, who thinks that Apple would have a jaw case but does not expect society to pursue it. “Compliance will only encourage government requirements.”
