Content Moderation Strikes Again: Google Won’t Approve Truth Social Android App Over Content Moderation Concerns
from the shut-up-and-sideload-whiners dept
Donald Trump has spent much of this week raging over on Truth Social and passing on nonsense QAnon conspiracy theory bullshit. And now it comes out that Google has so far refused to approve the Android app of Truth Social for the Google Play store, in large part over Truth Social’s failure to moderate violent content on its platform. Google is noting that the problem is Truth Social’s and the ball is in their court:
“On Aug. 19, we notified Truth Social of several violations of standard policies in their current app submission and reiterated that having effective systems for moderating user-generated content is a condition of our terms of service for any app to go live on Google Play.”
“Last week Truth Social wrote back acknowledging our feedback and saying that they are working on addressing these issues.”
NBC reports that Trump Media and Technology Group is pushing back on this saying that Truth Social was a “vibrant, family-friendly environment.” As I recall, TMTG’s CEO Devin Nunes had promised early on that his site would be heavily moderated to create a family friendly environment. However, studies that have looked at how Truth Social moderates have found that it appears to be somewhat arbitrary and capricious. The site is quick to remove criticism of the former president, but not great at banning violent content.
Anyway, this is somewhat reminiscent of Parler, which was removed from the Google Play store (and elsewhere) over its weak moderation efforts.
Of course, even as some are saying that this means Truth Social cannot be accessed on Android, that’s false. You can still sideload apps onto Android phones, even if they’re not in Google Play (this is in contrast to Apple where things need to go through the app store).
I know that some are up in arms about this, but again, this is just kind of basic stuff. If you want to be listed on someone else’s directory, you need to play by their rules. The fact that Android still allows sideloading should make this somewhat uncontroversial — but, of course, Trump’s fans are flipping out, because they’re nothing if they can’t play victim.
Filed Under: content moderation, devin nunes, donald trump, google play, violent content
Companies: tmtg, truth social
Comments on “Content Moderation Strikes Again: Google Won’t Approve Truth Social Android App Over Content Moderation Concerns”
Had Newsy on as background noise and they managed to find a conservative who pointed out that Google was totally within their rights to do this & he was tired of the voices on the far right & far left screaming the government should intervene to demand what content private companies should carry.
I wonder how many death threats hes going to get…
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Oh and he pointed out that they aren’t being denied access to it, they can still log in via their browser.
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Re: Everyone They Disagree With Is A
To modern leftists, nearly any disagreement or insults are considered to be violent speech.
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The only people I see throwing around threats of death and rape are people on the right… jus’ sayin’
Show me the threats against the FBI when they investigated HRC vs when they served a search warrant on your orange turd king.
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i’ma just @@
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To modern fascist fuckwits on the right like you, reality and valid criticisms are just “fake news” because you can’t handle the inconvenient truth that what you and your ilk believe in is just garbage.
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To modern right wingers, nearly any disagreement or insult is justification for violence.
See, I can make wild generalizations too!
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To modern white supremacists like you, ALL speech is violent speech.
Especially those that criticize your position.
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Koby has shown his colors long ago. There was a time when he tried to come off as a voice of reason – and found like every other “reasonable” voice of the alt-right that stormfront talking points simply can not be reasonably expressed.
Every time I see a comment by Koby these days I’m reminded of Sartre’s old saying;
All he’s got these days is showing up and trying to imply volumes of bullshit with a one-liner aimed at “The left”.
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Oh, I know, and everyone knows.
Mass-flagging bad-faith responses do not work on the NeoNazi scum, and my suggestions are not 1A-frieldly, nor are my preffered responses to NeoNazis.
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As someone who is mass-flagged, I actually find it useful since I can use “find in page” in my browser looking for “show” to locate my comments easily. And my posts always get replies, so the flagging is not concealing anything from anyone.
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Yes, but why are you mass-flagged would seem to be the most important question.
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If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
I’m reminded of the deafening silence that inevitably followed any attempt to nail down exactly what ‘conservative values/viewpoints/speech’ it was that got someone banned/suspended/otherwise penalized in a given situation across a plethora of articles and their accompanying comment sections.
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“To modern leftists, nearly any disagreement or insults are considered to be violent speech.”
What a strange way to misspell MAGAt’s.
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"Play by their rules"
Once again, TechDirt is enthusiastic about outsourcing censorship to private third parties not bound by the 1st Amendment because it hates the viewpoints being censored.
As always in these cases, TechDirt talks about what the third-pay censors *can* do, not what they *should* do. A directory of applications that can be installed on hundreds of millions of phones owned by people with enormously varied views should be vetted for programs that are physically harmful – viruses, spyware, fraud – not for programs that present viewpoints that the directory owner does not like.
Google is violating the principles of free speech, but TechDirt likes that because it only wants free speech for speech that it likes, or that it hates but is unlikely to gain traction. Free speech that it hates but is popular it will happily see silenced.
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lol
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You’re just pissy because you can’t behave like a raving asshole everywhere without getting bitch-slapped.
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That is what advocates for free speech are supposed to get upset about, so apparently I am doing it correctly.
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I’m not surprised by your answer since you are incapable of understanding the difference between forcing your entitled assholery on others and free speech.
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TBH, I think Hyman Rosen just spelled “free reach” wrong. It’s an easy mistake for reich whingers like him to make.
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So you’d rather the “censorship” (actually just moderation) is carried out by a party that is bound by the 1st Amendment? Have you thought that idea all the way through?
This has been explained multiple times but you Freeze Peach lot are slow learners it seems. Large internet platforms are not interested in your politics, they only care about shareholder returns. They implement policies they believe will maximise engagement and hence revenue. It turns out the content you’re so desperate to be available is actually not very popular and the majority of people don’t want on their platform of choice.
The projection here is head-spinning.
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People who show they despise free speech (by calling it dedicatory names, for example) are hardly in a position to lecture about it.
Why do you think your “explaining” why companies might choose to violate the principles of free speech is helpful? Of course there are lots of reasons that people hate free speech. But a platform in a society that supposedly values freedom of speech as a foundational principle should set those reasons aside and exemplify that value by not censoring content based on viewpoint.
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Why do you insist on violating the principles of socially accepted conduct?
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Free speech is a higher value. Politely accepting lies and error will lead to disaster, because the physical universe does not care what you think. No matter how devoutly you believe you can fly, if you step out the window you will plummet to the ground. If you want to do that anyway, that’s on you, but if you’re also persuading other people to do the same, those people should be told that you’re dangerously wrong.
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People who show they despise free speech (by calling it dedicatory names, for example) are hardly in a position to lecture about it.
So why are you trying to lecture us about free speech, hypocrite?
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Some of like would like NOT BEING HARASSED, FUCKHOLE.
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Fuckhole? Seriously? You do realize calling trolls that implies they’re worth fucking? 😉
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Trying to remain 1A compliant in the face of worthless, possibly violent and genocidal NeoNazis here.
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You’ve already made it clear you’re aligned with the CCP, DBA Phillip K. Dickcheese, so don’t try and make the implication you’re employed by the US government now.
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Wanting to get onto the platform where the people you want to attack congregate is not something that freedom of speech guarantees, indeed it, via freedom of association, it allow those platforms to ban you.
So long as you can publish your speech where those interested in hearing it can read/view or hear it, you have freedom of speech. Attracting and audience is your problem to solve, except forcing your way into places where other people gather is not an acceptable solution.
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Having the premiere platforms where people gather to speak on every subject under the sun censor opinions based on their viewpoints violates the principles of free speech. In a society that holds up free speech as a foundational value, they should not do that.
Of course, when the shoe is on the other foot, and states set their public school curriculum to silence woke gender and race ideology as is their right, woke ideologues squeal in rage. Then you don’t hear them say that it’s fine, people who want to teach woke ideology can just proclaim their views elsewhere.
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You’re confused. No need for that though, because it’s very simple…
You’re not being “censored”; you’re just being “booed off the stage”.
'The consequences of my own actions, we meet again...'
Strange, I thought republicans were big on ‘law and order’ and following the rules laid out for you, you’d think ‘if you want to show up on our store you need to follow our rules’ would be a simple ask, all the more so since they getting rid of violent content should be a top priority for such a ‘family friendly’ platform.
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“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” — Frank Wilhoit
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After following that link, my question has been answered: no, Frank Wilhoit didn’t predict Jim Crow laws. 😉
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When the rules are wrong, following them is not a virtue.
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Question: how is it that you sense no cognitive dissonance between demanding that ‘men’ (actually transwomen) refrain from entering female-only spaces “where they’re not welcome,” and demanding the right to force your way onto platforms where you’re not welcome?
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To Hyman Rosen, his beliefs are the only true beliefs, and those include the right to tell everyone who disagrees with him how wrong they are.
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Telling others that they are wrong is totally ok, insisting that you are entitled to force yourself upon others against their wishes isn’t. It’s an important distinction that Hyman Rosen doesn’t want to understand. His version of free speech is just a form anarchy.
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On a society that values free speech, telling others they are wrong is OK, and platforms should not be censoring opinions based on their viewpoints. Telling platforms that they are violating principles of free speech is not the same as forcing them to stop doing that. It is criticidm in the hope that it will spur them to change.
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I do not demand the right to force my opinions into those platforms. I assert that in a society that has free speech as a foundational value, those platforms should not be censoring opinions based on viewpoint. It is up them whether or not they wish to continue violating the principles of free speech. Criticism is not force.
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…and just before the midterms!
How convenient!
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It’s convenient that they can’t be bothered to follow the rules of the platform they want to get on? Not sure why you would frame it that ways but I guess you could with some stretching.
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It’s possible that AC meant convenient for the voters rather than convenient for the GOP. 😉
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Actually, this story has been unfolding for months — and it fits the pattern of so many of Trump’s outraged (petulant?) complaints:
Ie: Trump and his team were approached about the problem long ago, refused to do anything about it, and lied about it. Team Trump f*cked around, and found out; the inevitable consequences were pretty much exactly as warned and predicted.
Really, it’s essentially the same story as we see with the stolen TS:SCI documents, just on a rather less dramatic stage set.
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Person with authority in a situation: Here’s a problem, fix it.
Trump: No!
Person with authority: Fix it or we’ll do it for you.
Trump: You can’t make me!
Person with authority: Fine, we’re fixing it ourselves and you’re the one who’s going to pay for that.
Trump: This is uncalled for and completely unjustified political discrimination, how dare they do such terrible things to me with no warning or reason whatsoever!
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i feel like this was some Bob the Angry Flower that i missed.
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Never heard the name before, what’s that?
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Bob the Angry Flower is a somewhat famous comic strip.
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Thanks for clearing that up.
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You’re welcome. BTW, ‘somewhat famous’ refers to the fact that Bob the Angry Flower has a Wikipedia article. I’d never heard of it before, either.
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That just shows hypocrisy on Trump’s part. He saw a problem of “mass illegal immigration” from Mexico, and decided to build a wall to “fix” it and charge the Mexican government for it.
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How is it that these poor, oppressed people haven’t already installed the app?
i mean, i get how they couldn’t manage to side-load it, poor creatures.
Actually quite accessible on any platform
“You can still sideload apps onto Android phones, even if they’re not in Google Play (this is in contrast to Apple where things need to go through the app store).”
Or you could use the even simpler method of visiting the website with your phones browser, which would even work on an iDevice.
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NBC reports that Trump Media and Technology Group is pushing back on this saying that Truth Social was a “vibrant, family-friendly environment.”
Because there’s nothing more family friendly than people screaming threats like, “I’m gonna rape and kill you and your entire family!” amirite? FYI, Mike, it is now possible to sideload apps onto iDevices, although it’s still not as easy to do as it is on Android and Windows devices, amongst others.