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Apple has withdrawn an app created by Andrew Tate after accusations that it encouraged misogyny and could be an illegal pyramid scheme.
Tate created the app, Real World Portal, after the closure of his “Hustler’s University”, which was an online academy for his fans, promising to assist them in making thousands of pounds while helping Tate’s videos on social media, which have been described as misogynistic, to go viral.
McCue Jury & Partners, the firm representing four British women who have accused Tate of sexual and physical assault, claimed that the app deliberately targets young men and encourages misogyny, including members of the app sharing techniques on how to control and exploit women. The firm has also claimed that there is evidence to suggest that the app is an illegal pyramid scheme, with members being charged $49.99 a month to join.
Last week, the Real World Portal app was removed from Google’s Play store after claims that it was an illegal pyramid scheme and encouraged misogyny.
On Friday night Apple also said it had removed it from its app store. It followed a letter from the legal firm asking Apple to consider whether the app was in line with its policies and whether the company was exposing itself to any corporate liability in hosting it on its platform.
Part of the letter, dated 15 September, said: “We are writing because our clients are extremely concerned that you are hosting Tate’s Real World Portal (RWP) mobile application on your Apple Store … In continuing to host RWP, not only is Apple potentially indirectly financing Tate’s alleged criminal activities but is aiding the spread of his misogynistic teachings.”
The firm had claimed that Apple was directly profiting from hosting the app, with the company taking 30% in royalties from apps and in-app purchases.
Four women in their late 20s and early 30s are pursuing civil proceedings against Tate over alleged offences between 2013 and 2016 while he was still living in the UK.
Before the news that Apple had withdrawn the app, Matt Jury, the lawyer representing the women, said: “Andrew and [his brother] Tristan Tate manipulate their significant online following to promote subscriptions to Real World Portal. From there, the benefits to users are entirely reliant upon new subscribers joining the platform.
“There is also significant evidence that this scheme is directly targeting boys and teenagers and, in my view, is nothing more than an exploitative app which has no place on Apple’s platform.”
Tate is awaiting trial in Romania on charges of human trafficking. He and Tristan were charged in June, along with two Romanian female suspects, with human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women. The suspects have denied the allegations.
A spokesperson for Andrew Tate said: “We unequivocally deny the allegations that ‘The Real World’ app operates as a pyramid scheme or perpetuates harmful techniques aimed at exploiting any individuals, particularly women. The user community, which includes a significant number of women within the 200,000-strong user base, can attest to the positive impact and educational value the app provides.
“Accusations suggesting otherwise are unfounded, lacking credible evidence, and seem to be part of a targeted campaign against Andrew Tate, a known supporter and promoter of the platform. ‘The Real World’ maintains a commitment to complete transparency, ensuring compliance with all legal and ethical standards. We invite sceptics to examine the app independently and affirm that it operates in accordance with legal and moral requirements.
“The platform is designed as an educational tool that fosters healthy habit formation, financial literacy, and self-discipline, with thousands of lives positively impacted. The decision by Google Play is being appealed.”
I don’t support them at all. I don’t believe in their cause. I don’t believe in their messaging.
Philosophically I’m against all de-platforming, and I’m pointing out that if you want to prevent yourself from being deplatformed, you have to liberate yourself from app stores which have strong opinions.
So I will provide deplatforming advice to anyone, for any reason, because I believe everyone should have a voice.
On a practical level, it’s the detestable people who demonstrate de-platforming the most often, so we get practical examples with the evil people. Today it’s the misogynistic sociopaths, but tomorrow it could be de-platforming of end-to-end encryption in the UK and removal from all the app stores. My comments would remain just as relevant.
Racists, sexists and homophobes do not deserve a platform from which they can continue to spew their vitriol.
I respectfully disagree, if we think speech is a human right, it has to be for everyone, or it’s for no one.
Let’s not forget each one of the classes (ethnic minorities, women’s liberation, non cis sexual identities) you mentioned in your post, started off as a censored minority in society, and it’s taken time, and open platforms for their message to get out there and normalize. If we create tools, and normalize silencing people in the minority, it’ll be hard for the next minority group to gain their equality in society. Or at least it will slow it down massively
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That isn’t what was said, but what you inferred.
I’m not saying their causes of equal merit, but I am saying women’s liberation started as a minority position in society, heavily censored, not provided a platform to speak on. They were extremely unpopular.
By creating open platforms, that anyone can use, we don’t have to rely on the people in power allowing voices to be heard. People’s voices can participate, and survive by their own merits.
Every struggle in society, with a equality especially, starts with secret message passing, secret organization, finding a voice. We need to keep the pathways open so that repressed people can have a voice. Unfortunately that means opinions we don’t agree with, as well as opinions we do agree with.
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Then I look forward to a court, following due process, putting a media gag order on them taking down their web presence.
It shouldn’t be left up to the whims of private organizations, to remove somebody from the public discourse.
Part of the reason it was removed is because he was arrested, and because members of the public asked Apple to remove it. This is the government and private citizens influencing a company to deplatform an absolute cunt. And it’s not a whim, that private company has clear and public guidelines for what is allowed on their platform
Agreed. Fully within Apple and Google’s rights to remove any application from their app stores.
This is why I mentioned progressive web apps as a more independent option.
it’s called rule of the house buddy, if you don’t play by the rules you have to fuck off, pretty easy and pretty well established.
question: would you give hitler or stalin a platform?
43 minutes to godwining the conversation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
This is where everyone gets it wrong. Can you say anything you want? Sure, I suppose so. But there are CONSEQUENCES for what you say. One of those consequences is that a particular bit of speech is frowned upon at best, and made illegal at worst. It would be totally fine to yell “Bomb,” on an airplane if there was never a bomb on an airplane, and never would be. But there has been, and there probably will be again, so you can’t yell that without CONSEQUENCES. The consequences that these asshats are facing for their particular brand of bullshit is that they are being silenced, because they should not be saying the things that they are. Plain and simple. Is speech a right? Sure, until it’s abused, and then the rights of the many override the right to speech of the few.
I agree with you, and in your examples I would expect the consequences to come from the judiciary after following due process publicly.
I would not expect the gas company, the electrical company, the water company to turn off utilities for the person who yelled bomb on an airplane. I would expect a court to hand down a decision to rectify that situation.
For our erstwhile plane enthusiast, I would expect them to still get basic utilities even though they’re unpopular. And I would defend their right to have water power and gas Even though they’re a social pariah.
Because Apple, and Google are guardians of the public square on phones, which is how most people use the internet anyway, I think it’s reasonable to point out that progressive web apps are way to survive deplatforming for any organization.
No one has a right to make an app, let alone have that app published by a third party company that has a responsibility to their shareholders, the public, and the government. By your definition, CSAM should be allowed on the app store until a judge orders it to be taken down… That’s not how the internet works, and you know it. The internet is about moderation–self, and imposed. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Reddit, Lemmy, and millions of others must rely on self moderation first, and then impose moderation if that fails. Then, and only then, when moderation at the app/website level fails, do these go to court to get at the root of the problem. I’m sorry that you feel moderation infringes on your right to free speech, but seriously, you have the most paper thin arguments for it.
I must have missed a communicated, I apologize. I do not expect Apple or Google to host anybody’s app at all. They’re allowed their own opinions.
This is why I pointed out progressive web apps as an alternative to using app stores for deployment.
I agree with your position
PWAs are just a shell game for less than savory ideas. I can’t get my app onto a store? That can’t be my fault, it must be the store! I better push that shit myself so that I can make sure everyone gets involved in my pyramid scheme and misogyny. Again, we are into the consequences of free speech, and a PWA will do less to protect you than a store front will. To go back to the bomb analogy, if you built a batch of bombs and took the pallet to Wal-Mart and tried to get them to add you to their vendor list, they’d say “no,” obviously. So, you take the PWA approach and hock them on the street. You are still selling bombs. Just because you took a DIY approach doesn’t suddenly make it OK. Free speech is free speech until it is abused, and then you shut the fuck up and let people live their lives without trying to take advantage of them. The more options we give, the more abuse we will endure. People like Andrew Tate are a stain on society, and I’m totally fine if their right to free speech is taken away. They lost their chance. Give someone else the podium.
And in your example I would expect the court, following due process, in an open opinion, to put restrictions on that person’s ability to sell, and market their bombs.
PWA’s have lots of advantages:
You can do app monetization without giving a cut to an app store which I believe hovers around 30%.
You can push updates at your own schedule.
You can develop once and deploy to every platform with a web browser.
You don’t have to abide by any third parties requirements, but you do have to follow the law of your local jurisdiction. As everyone does
I hope we agree that we don’t want them to ever normalize again. Just like there need to be rules to prevent people from tricking others, there need to be rules to prevent the spread of hatred that we know(!) leads to millions of innocents getting killed.
Let’s say you own a cafe with an open mic night. One day, someone comes in to the open mic night and starts yelling racist slogans and repeating Nazi rhetoric.
You can let them continue because you’re a free speech absolutist, and lose your customers, or you can kick him out.
There is no difference between this and what Apple or YouTube does except for scale.
I agree with you. And I’m not saying Apple, or YouTube or wrong for deplatforming them.
I am pointing out people in this position can take advantage of an open internet to still have a platform for their voice that does not rely on gatekeepers.
So in your example, I kick them out of my club, and they decide to open their own club. That’s their business not my business. That would be the end of my interaction with them
Ok, so Andrew Tate can open his own app store. Problem solved.
Ok, I’ll try to explain the issue with that. Do I have the right to pay someone to kill you? No. Then there’s already a limitation on my speech AND use of private property. How can we reconcile that with free speech? By thinking about why free speech or any human rights matters. I could go on a dissertation here, but I’ll skip what is easy to find online anyway and jump to the conclusion: human rights are positive rights that are intended to protect human dignity (in the philosophical sense of the indivisible and equal worth of all human life), so it follows that free speech only applies to speech that doesn’t go against that goal. If you don’t do this exercise you end up with the Paradox of Tolerance and all human rights crumble like a house of cards.
Right, and in society we have more or less agreed that the people who can exclude somebody’s speech, or make speech disappear, is the judiciary following due process. Private companies are not the judiciary.
So if a court puts a gag order on this organization saying they can’t have an internet presence, that’s fine.
In your example, hiring a hitman against me, I would expect a court to enact protection order, and perhaps even a gag order on yourself. Then I would expect platforms online to honor that gag order if you were to post anyway.
If a private company, took it upon themselves to deplatform you without a court order, I would disagree with thatz even though your speech is against me. I hold this principle very highly, even when it’s against my own individual personal interests, because I want a stable society more than anything else.
A stable society is not one where you can go to all of your neighbors and tell them a random person is a pedophile in order to start a mob in the name of free speech.
A stable society is not one where you can walk into a Walmart and start yelling the N-word but not get kicked out in the name of free speech.
A stable society is not one where you can sexually harass a co-worker without repercussions in the name of free speech.
You don’t want a stable society, you want chaos.
I agree with your individual examples, but I would say a stable society is where any crazy crank can open a newsletter and mail it to people who subscribe to it. And the post office doesn’t get in the way of that. Without a court order.
The post office is a government institution. Apple is not. That is a poor comparison and I think you know that.
I think I may have miscommunicated, I’m not saying Apple needs to keep their app in the store.
I was simply pointing out people in this position could use progressive web apps to avoid a web store completely.
I have no opinion that Apple needs to give a platform to anyone.
Private company’s policy isn’t dictated by anything but what can make them more money, which is by and large public opinion.
Public opinion is that this guy and his ilk are cunts and don’t deserve a platform.
Where your argument falls apart in the internet age, public policy or private policy, is that it’s so easy for this ooze, this tar, this black filth to fill into dark crevasses, one’s you don’t think of, don’t imagine, because they are naturally borne of their time. We don’t have time to even make public policy before they happen and become problems.
We have things like incel communities because these people feel lost, and have banded together to feel some sort of connection because of their joint feelings, but these feelings have a negative direction that leads to them being deeply troubling.
In a normal community these would be nipped in the bud because it wouldn’t travel very far without negative reaction, but with the internet people can find their pockets, positive and negative, and relish in those communities, for better or for worse.
So because a natural word of mouth community can’t rid the spread of these ideals, and our systems of governance, especially internationally, can’t keep up with them, we’re supposed to just let them spread because the internet has this new electric borne free speech?
If the idea can’t stand the germination through natural lifecycles, then why does it deserve to stand an unnatural one?
And so I posit, why does a private entity need to wait for a public one to make a decision, when the general public at large has already made it.
I must have miscommunicated earlier, I do not believe Apple or Google should be required to host anybody’s applications. They’re private entities and they’re allowed their private opinions.
I brought up progressive web apps as a way for de-platformed organizations to side step app stores completely.
To borrow an analogy, I would not expect a grocery store to be compelled to carry a conspiracy theory journal, but I would expect the post office to have no opinions about mailing that journal to subscribers.
He can make his own website. Look up LAMP and get to work. You can’t actually be deplatformed from the entire internet so this argument is moot.
Whilst I understand your point Iggy/miles sonkin the defacto leader is on record of saying the following when talking of treatment of women:
Let’s not kid ourselves this is Pavlovian conditioning!
I can’t see why anyone would allow them to retain access to anyplatform.
Looks like a cult, acts like a cult, it is a cult!
k
so you’d be the person to give the nazis a platform
“I’m not saying they deserve a platform, they deserve a web app” - jet the absolute doofus
Exactly, both sides should be heard.
One sides says that women should be able live without being in constant fear of assault and harassment, and the other says that women are pieces of meat , to be used and thrown away.
Both have equal merit, and should definitely be in public discourse.
The huge problem with everyone shifting from Reddit is there is the echo chamber and hive mind is going to build back up with it. Most people can’t seem to be nuanced enough to appreciate your comment because they’re seething so much over who the subject is. Liberty is deserved amongst all, not just those you agree with.
You know what? I am fine with a hive mind that collectively decided nazis should be punched and andrew human trafficker tate should be deplatformed.
Sounds like you’re on par with the nazis yourself there buddy. Keep advocating violence and censorship 🤌
Fuck off with that “antifascists are the real nazis” shit.
Lol way to rebuttal yourself. Truth is, you’re no different. But hey, I’m an ancapper, I must be fucked up for thinking every individual has the same rights. 🙄
Also, legitimate question here…what has Andrew Tate factually done that makes him a Nazi and/or fascist?
Appreciate your post. I find it incredibly ironic too, because the fediverse, and Lemmy specifically are open platforms designed exactly against deplatforming as well.
We are all communicating on the platform designed exactly for this scenario. I appreciate that people are going to react and have their own strong opinions, but we’re standing on the foundation of freedom that extends to everyone.
The fediverse (Lemmy included) deplatforms people all the time; it’s called defederation and it’s built into the core of the architecture.
Even platforms built on openness, such as Lemmy, understand the need to not provide a platform to violence, bigotry, and exploitation.
In the sense that an organization can run their own Lemmy instance, even if other people don’t connect to that instance. It censorship resistance. An isolated let me instance still works. They have their platform.
Just like IP routing can survive many routers being destroyed, Lemmy can survive many people disagreeing with each other. That’s what I mean by open, censorship proof, deep platform proof.
People defederating from each other is a feature, and I totally agree with it.
You’re being reasonable. That doesn’t fly here my friend.
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”
Evelyn Beatrice Hall, 1906