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Who controls what you can do on your mobile phone? What happens when your device can only run what the government decides is OK? We are dangerously close to this kind of totalitarian control, thanks to a combination of government overreach and technocratic infrastructure choices.
Most Americans have a smartphone, and the average American spends over 5 hours a day on their phone. While these devices are critical to most people’s daily lives, what they can actually do is shaped by what apps are readily available. A slim majority of American smartphone users use an iPhone, which means they can only install apps available from Apple’s AppStore. Nearly all the rest of US smartphone users use some variant of Android, and by default they get their apps from Google’s Play Store.
Collectively, these two app stores shape the universe of what is available to most people as they use the Internet and make their way through their daily lives. When those app stores block or limit apps based on government requests, they are shaping what people can do, say, communicate, and experience.
Recently, Apple pulled an app called ICEBlock from the AppStore, making it unavailable in one fell swoop. This app was designed to let people anonymously report public sightings of ICE agents. In the United States people absolutely have a First Amendment right to inform others about what they have seen government officials doing and where — very much including immigration agents whose tactics have been controversial and violent. Apple pulled the ICEBlock app at the demand of the US Department of Justice. The following day, Google pulled a similar app called Red Dot from the Google Play Store.
The DOJ’s pressuring of Apple is an unacceptable, censorious overreach. And Google’s subsequent removal of Red Dot looks like troubling premature capitulation. While some experts and activists have expressed concerns over ICEBlock’s design and development practices, those concerns are no reason for the government to meddle in software distribution. The administration’s ostensible free speech warriors are trying to shape how Americans can communicate with each other about matters of pressing political concern.
Infrastructure choices
But the government’s overreach isn’t the whole story here. The current structure of the mobile phone ecosystem enables this kind of abuse and control.
Apple’s iOS (the operating system for any iPhone) is designed to only be able to run apps from the AppStore. If Apple hasn’t signed off on it, the app won’t run. This centralized control is ripe for abuse:
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