[samus]

A government agency can tell people whatever it wants, if it doesn't have a legal basis then it has no authority. Unless it doesn't respect the rule of law. It might and probably will follow up its orders with force, but that's still not lawful.

[MichaelZuo]

Did you reply to the wrong comment?

I don’t see how it relates to the prior comment.

[samus]

What is an "argument from authority"?

[MichaelZuo]

Exactly what it sounds like?

An argument that pretends some authority can effect the logic of an argument?

[samus]

What does that mean? A government agency can ask a company to do something. But unless there is legal force behind the order, it is nothing more than a request and can be ignored. In ambiguous cases the lawyers of each side will decide if they want to go to court over the matter. Eventually either the government will fold or the company will give in to the request. Until then it is a matter of opinion.

Of course the government could also exert other means to pressure the company or simply negotiate. But that's outside of the rule of law.

[MichaelZuo]

This doesn’t seem to make sense as a reply. I explained what it means in the second sentence of the prior comment.

You’ve also yet to explain how your comment 3 days ago relates to the comment before that… so there’s no reason for me to go on an unrelated discussion.

[samus]

Oh, on re-reading your comment I find that I actually agree with you:

> It doesn’t matter if every expert concurred, arguments from authority can not lead to opinion X becoming superior to opinion Y.

> At least not in a logically valid way.

But that's not what happened. What happened is that Apple dropped their argument Y without much fighting, which they previously upheld in face of government pressure.