[dumitrupetrov]

Of course "let's silence and remove everyone that disagrees with us!", i mean c'mon don't censor free speach, let the free market take care of itsef.

You could remove someone who is promoting child abuse, threats, racism (man oh man, did twitter let that NYT editor board woman account stay despite her racist comments), killing and so on, but if you disagree with someone like alex jones, congrats! now move on! (not fan of him, but fan of free speach, i mean i know the price of it and it's not cheap)

[pavlov]

What about Apple's free speech? They're the publisher. Are they supposed to put their logo on content that they don't approve? That's not how a free market works.

[nextlevelwizard]

I now expect Apple to police all content that appears on their platform. If anything that breaks copyright appreas Apple should be held responsbile. They can not hold on to whatever "common carrier" status they enjoy now and still censor people they don't like.

[pavlov]

Maybe you don't know how the iTunes and App Stores work? Apple does "police all content" already.

[amaccuish]

> They can not hold on to whatever "common carrier" status they enjoy now and still censor people they don't like

You've not fully read the comments above that discussed "common carrier". HINT: it was decided that common carrier doesn't really apply in this situation.

[joering2]

No, more like "that's not how apple store works".

You can find fart apps where you press a button and you hear a fart. I doubt by allowing this app in Apple store, everyone all of sudden believes farts = Apple. Or that Apple affiliates themselves with nasty behavior in public, etc.

[pavlov]

Apple manually approves every app and content item on their stores. They are legally the publisher.

[raxxorrax]

> i know the price of it and it's not cheap

maybe cheaper than Apples products...

100% agree with your comment. There are worse people and worse scams, even on Apples platform. But this banning makes for far better PR of course.

Apple might not be the right platform if you like to make decisions yourself and they ban a lot of other stuff too. Their right. Maybe some higher ups were not content with the effect of the man-pills.

[o0-0o]

I agree with you, but Apple also has the right to not be a muppet with Alex’s hand up its ass controlling the mouth. Just like anyone this offends can not purchase Apple product. I think this ultimately hurts Apple though, and is more of a political statement from pinkos. Mature businesses make capital decisions at 51/49 all day.

[WJW]

I think a major part of the calculation for Apple here is that there are also people who will weigh Apples willingness (or not, as in this case) to host this type of content in their decision to buy Apple products or not. Not the true fanboys of course, but interesting economic decisions are always made at the margins. As long as more people shift towards Apple than people shift away because of this, it's a win for them.

[einrealist]

Apple‘s podcast app is not the free market. Its a part of it. And Apple is just acting as a participant of that market by defining whats good and whats bad for their product. And neither is that removal prohibiting free speech, because these crazies can distribute their nonsense by any other means.

[scarface74]

I hate to keep sounding like a broken record, but Apple isn’t “distributing” podcasts any more than Google is distributing web content. Just like you can go to a web page without going through Google’s search engine if you know the URL and you can get to it from Chrome. You can still subscribe to his podcast in the podcast app if you know the URL to the RSS feed. Neither the RSS feed nor the audio files were ever hosted by Apple.

[wavefunction]

Free speech does not also guarantee a platform. It doesn't obligate anyone to promote your speech. Fans of his podcasts can get them elsewhere.

[sergiomattei]

Apple is a company, and they have the right to do whatever they want with their products (offered as a service).

[onetimemanytime]

Wrong on many levels. First, second and third he's a crackpot and a dangerous one, as many people believe him. That said, Apple doesn't have to carry him. In USA, under certain circumstances, I can legally argue that people of X color or religion should summarily shot and not go to jail. That doesn't mean that Apple has to carry my speeches or NYT publish my theories.