Apple Pulls 'Damus' From Its App Store in China

9to5Mac is reporting that Apple pulled the Damus app from its App Store in China on Thursday, "with the developers being informed that the Nostr app 'includes content that is illegal in China.'" Apple rejected the app multiple times, applying the app review guidelines that would apply to a social networking service. In reality, all Damus does is provide access to Nostr feeds, so it would be more accurate to consider it akin to a web browser, with the developers having no control over, or responsibility for, the content of those feeds. Damus finally made it into the App Store this week.

Apple has now pulled Damus from the App Store in China. Damus developer William Casarin posted a screengrab of the notice, which claimed it included illegal content....

The app doesn't contain any content at all. It would be like banning Safari because it can be used to access the websites of terrorist organizations.

China is crucial to Apple's success in the region

[saloomy]

and they will punish them for publishing content in their App Store. Apple is a foreign company operating there, so they are already in a bad spot. Besides, Apple should be following the laws of any jurisdiction they operate in. Do we really want corporations to be the vessels of of our public policy debates? Of course not. They have shareholders (which includes pension funds for teachers and public workers, it isn't all robber barons) that they are responsible for and have to act on their behalf.

If we want policies in china changed, we (citizens) must object and speak up. Not companies.

Re:

[sabt-pestnu]

Two objections:

1) in the US, at least, companies also have a mask they wear where they are persons themselves, and representatives of other persons: shareholders, sometimes customers. In this capacity, they have every expectation of being able to object to policies.

2) "shareholders including pension funds that they are responsible for" is a separate mask - a "profit engine" - which Apple wears, but not all companies do.

Do you prefer companies that behave like those depicted in Fallout, hiding their proble

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Just saying they should "comply with local laws" without any regard for what those laws are is wrong. If the local law says that they must hand over phone of two men holding hands to the morality policy when the phone detects them, they should not comply and if necessary pull out of that country. To comply would be participating in the persecution of gay people.

That was the reason given for why Google doesn't operate in China. Data entered into Google search is sensitive and could lead to human rights abuse

Re: China is crucial to Apple's success in the reg

[saloomy]

The company should have the conversation about that, and maybe they decide not to go into that market. But imagine a Chinese company that thought to itself, we canâ(TM)t have private unvetted conversations. The state is all good and all proper, and our devices should spy on Americans despite their local laws. That speculative country decided gay actions are against their laws. That is terrible, but that is their country. We should condemn it, but our companies are not the vehicle to do so

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Is there any evidence that Byte Dance broke US law? Or rather, broke it intentionally, more than Facebook and the like?

Re:

[saloomy]

I don't believe so, which is why I am not in favor of banning TikTok. We do not need our government to treat us like children and take away whatever it feels we should not have access to. Publish security reports? Sure. Warn about the dangers? Absolutely. Publicly denounce? Why not. But ban?? No way, Jose. That is overreach. In our free society, we should be free to do things that are not good for us.

time to add slide loading!

[Joe_Dragon]

time to add slide loading!

Predictable

[backslashdot]

Nostr Damus should have known.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

For others wondering

[dohzer]

damus is "A twitter-like nostr client for iPhone, iPad and MacOS."
nostr is "A decentralized network based on cryptographic keypairs and that is not peer-to-peer."

Re:

[x_t0ken_407]

Thanks for this bc I'd never heard of either before haha

Chinas point if view

[gnasher719]

From Chinas point of view, this isnâ(TM)t like Safari which can be used to view websites of terrorists, but it is used exclusively for websites hosted by terrorists.

Now that is Chinas point of view. So can Apple refuse to remove it, if it breaks local laws?

Re:Chinas point if view

[physicsphairy]

As a valuable market presence they certainly have leverage to negotiate, such as other companies have used [slashdot.org]. Is there any evidence of Apple putting up a fight?

Frankly the US need to make it illegal to deal commercially under foreign governments in such a way as to facilitate what would be considered a violation of rights in the US. We are in the ridiculous position where our own entities such as the NBA, Disney, Google, etc. kowtow to China even on American soil because China will reach to punish them but we won't.

China is working to replace anything western with domestic copies anyway, and we're just glibly throwing away any influence we might temporarily have.

Re:

[nicubunu]

Safari can be used to view any website, Damus can be used only to display Nostr content. Is more like a government asking The Pirate Bay to be blocked, even if TPB has some legit torrents.

Re: Chinas point if view

[guruevi]

So should Iran be able to tell Apple to block Grindr from the App Store?

Re:

[keltor]

Hate to be the bearer of bad news ...

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

It's a Twitter clone but with encryption. They don't like it because they can't break the encryption, or force the operator to cooperate with them.

Chinese law says that internet service operators must assist security services with access to data. In order to comply, Apple assists them with access to things like iCloud accounts and iMessage conversations.

So?

[bn-7bc]

if this papens to much Iphones might be less desirable for the Chinese, so they might considder not buying aniphone next time a phone refresh is due, if enugh potential Aple costumers do so Apple will see revenue from China drop, if it drops enugh rgey might start to argue with the CCP. So Chinese Apple users: if this and other app takdowns itk you wrote with your wallets. Untill that happens I wil lersonnaly lokk at this as a storm in a teacup

Re: So?

[Pinky's Brain]

Apple's market power gives Chinese lucky enough to work for a multinational the most relative freedom. Everything else is worse.

Corporate VPN (with the server outside China obviously) + iOS + fraudulent website warnings turned off is the most freedom and privacy a Chinese is going to get. Without a plausible deniable reason to use a secure VPN best not even try.

Re: So?

[dwater]

Try a roaming sim from Hong Kong, like many people in southern mainland China do - well, those who care anyway, which isn't so many in the grand scheme of things.
Service is provided by CMCC (ie authorised by Chinese government), and roams inside mainland China for no extra charge. It's available in some other countries too, but not the USA since you guys banned CMCC, so USians in mainland China need to use a vpn or something... sucks to be you.

Re:

[keltor]

Not sure if you realize that the Apple App Store is actually the most permissible store already in China.

BS

[nicubunu]

I am anti-censorship and anti-Apple, pro-sideloading and such, but the article is bullshit. It blames Apple for applying social network rules on Damus, arguing it not really a social network but more akin to a web browser. But go to their website, damus.io, and you can read 'The social network you control'. Go to Github to see Nostr, you can read 'censorship-resistant global "social" network once and for all'. Of course social network rules will apply to something that call itself a social network.

Re: BS

[Pinky's Brain]

The Web is a social network, in both cases the client and servers have no corporate links.

Of course they could just make a proper Web client, but they want the appstore download statistics for marketing purposes.

Re:

[coofercat]

They could make a web client, but then it's got to be loaded from a server - and so it ceases to be "censorship resistant" and/or "decentralised" which are a couple of their core features.

However, it turns out that if you're on an Apple platform, you most definitely can be censored, so they've kinda failed whichever way you look at it. I can't see Apple having much of a choice here though - an app that claims to be specifically for getting around censorship isn't ever going to go over well in China.

Re:

[Pinky's Brain]

Sorry, I meant to say web app. It uses websockets, so a progressive web app would work fine for it.

Re:

[diffract]

This is slashdot so they have to sensationalize the story against China, even when it doesn't make sense

Safari has warning lists though

[Pinky's Brain]

Safari has no block lists, but it does at least have warning lists (though in China they are a VPN tripwire).

Any way, the Web and email were grandfathered in. Expecting the same level of freedom for other protocols is from either China or Apple is fantasy.

You wanted to play in their fascist controlled walled garden, take the lumps.

Not a social network?

[bloodhawk]

Not a social network? Perhaps someone should tell damus this then as that is exactly what damus claims it is and is designed to evade censorship. So definitely seems to fall squarely within the appropriately removed list. Not that I agree with China, but Apple have no real choice here and I say that as someone that also hates all things apple.

No it's not..

[SuperDre]

It would be like banning Safari because it can be used to access the websites of terrorist organization

No it's not, as safari can be used by the user to get whatever generic content from the internet, whereas Damus only retrieves a specific type of content (nostr). It's more like a facebook or other social media app which shows specific type of content, and they also need to have moderation in china for the content its app is showing, they can't just show every content which are available on facebook.

Faulty Logic

[TomGreenhaw]

So anybody can sell heroin because they didn't actually make it, they are just a pipeline for it?

China is within its rights unless I'm missing something.