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Relatedly, Eyes Up has been removed from AppStore by Apple. Unfortunately 404 Media are softbanned on HN and the ones reporting here.
Apple Banned an App That Simply Archived Videos of ICE Abuses
https://www.404media.co/apple-banned-an-app-that-simply-arch...
It's not, I see it on the front page all the time. Lots of times the topics they report on get flagged, though. My favorites has a lot of 404 links. My understanding is if there's an archive link it should be fine.
By baobun 2025-10-0821:48 "Softbanned" here means that it comes dead-on-submission without any users actually flagging it, requiring vouches from multiple other users to get back to baseline.
Those submissions you saw likely either had enough vouchers lurching new with showdead or a mod blessing.
EDIT: See sibling comment. In dangs words, they are banned.
By garbagewoman 2025-10-104:13 It is banned, apparently because it is paywalled and doesn’t allow people to use paywall bypass links, which isn’t true and so the reasoning doesn’t make any sense, so clearly there is a different reason
I asked ChatGPT and it linked me to a post dang responded to.
It’s related to their paywall.
By JumpCrisscross 2025-10-0823:471 reply That policy deserves re-evaluation. I don't pay for 404 Media. But they're breaking stories on this issue. Banning them de facto bans discussion of not only Apple's App Store monopoly, but also Cupertino's capitulation to this administration.
By estimator7292 2025-10-093:292 reply If their articles are so important, why don't they allow everyone to see them?
By DangitBobby 2025-10-093:59 Because they need money to continue to exist
By JumpCrisscross 2025-10-094:27 > If their articles are so important, why don't they allow everyone to see them?
Most people read the news to be entertained. They aren’t making decisions of consequence, they aren’t civically involved and they don’t know anyone who does either. For these folks, TV and free news is fine.
The minority of decision makers, on the other hand, value information directly, but are not numerous enough to sustain investigative journalism through ads. They won’t pay, however, if they can get what they need for free.
So you wind up with an ecosystem of emotionally-triggering free slop and deeply researched, potentially at risk to the journalist, and paywalled journalism. The latter is impactful in part because it reaches people the former would not.
By garbagewoman 2025-10-104:14 Their paywall is no different to any other paywall, so it is clearly not because of the paywall
Why don't citizens have the right to track federal agencies? Don't they serve us? Apple is capitulating to autocratic rule.
By NaomiLehman 2025-10-0912:293 reply I'm gonna steelman an argument I don't hold: What about CIA? Revealing the identity of a CIA operative is a crime.
I'm just responding to the part "Don't they serve us?"
> Intentionally disclosing the identity of a U.S. intelligence agent, including a CIA officer, is a federal crime under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), which can result in up to 10 years in prison and fines. This law applies to individuals with authorized access to classified information and those without access who intentionally expose agents, knowing their actions could harm U.S. foreign intelligence operations.
By ratelimitsteve 2025-10-1020:43 But intelligence and law enforcement aren't the same thing, and the CIA is specifically prohibited from operating domestically. Valiant attempt, but talking about law enforcement (again, as opposed to intelligence) activities that take place in public is a matter of settled law. We decided that you're allowed to warn people that the police are around, even if it will help people get away with crimes, as a first amendment matter when we decided that police can't make it illegal for you to flash your lights at an oncoming driver to warn them (https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/headlight-flashing/). There's no steelman for this, Apple is just trying to preemptively comply with an administration that considers civil rights inconvenient.
By angry_octet 2025-10-1021:35 Revealing the identity of a CIA officer is not a crime unless you hold/held a clearance or it is part of a 'pattern of activities' designed to reveal such identities. Regular people have freedom of speech.
Such a law protecting ICE would not withstand scrutiny by the courts.
By Crushable-E 2025-10-0914:241 reply I mean sure, but ICE is not an intelligence agency or holds classified information.
By throwawaylaptop 2025-10-0914:453 reply They're some kind of law enforcement agency that is on a mission to capture people breaking laws.
If your local sheriff is on their way to serve a warrant of some kind, and you call the person and warn them to leave or alert them to destroy evidence, is that going to go well? I don't think it should.
By nxobject 2025-10-0921:09 The analogy doesn't quite match up –
– Parent is talking about making public the identities of ICE employees, doing things in public, which is by far and large true of your local sheriff;
- Individuals are reporting the presence of ICE in the area. A deliberate ambiguity is maintained about what ICE does beyond "detain people" -- whether as "collateral damage" or targeted. Intervening with the two gives us two very different circumstances.
Please stop calling ICE law enforcement. Yes, they enforce something but it's not the law.
By throwawaylaptop 2025-10-100:002 reply What is it they are enforcing then? I once showed up in Vietnam without my tourist visa approved correctly (long story). Let me tell you, they take that stuff very seriously. Canada won't even let you visit Canada if youve had a DUI in recent years. A semifamous comedian wasn't allowed entry into Canada 20 years after he got charged with some form of statutory rape at 18. (He and two friends, 18 to 20, pressured a 16 year old into sex. Heavily contested). Yet we are supposed to let people in without documentation? Without background checks? What kind of insanity is that.
By bdhe 2025-10-101:01 Let's also talk about the how of the enforcement not just the what.
Would you be saying the same thing if you HAD a valid Vietnamese tourist visa and was snatched off the road and detained for several hours without access to a lawyer in terrible conditions by unbadged masked "agents"?
https://abcnews.go.com/US/lawyer-us-born-citizen-detained-ic...
By manuelabeledo 2025-10-1112:29 The examples you mentioned would not fall into ICE scope of action, but CBP.
> Yet we are supposed to let people in without documentation? Without background checks? What kind of insanity is that.
Let me tell you that, in my experience, the US very much enforces all these requirements, to the point where foreigners have to pay the US government hundreds of dollars for the _chance_ of getting a temporary visa. And again, ICE has nothing to do with the process.
Everybody knows the sheriff, their face is everywhere, and they actually get voted in, and out of office.
By throwawaylaptop 2025-10-1720:15 What does this have to do with calling a criminal telling them that the sheriff is on their way to their house to serve a warrant?
Yes - you have the right to observe public actions of federal agencies and agents and to report on them.
However a private entity, including Apple, is free to censor whatever they want on their platforms.
For example, I have the right to voraciously criticize or praise the current Administration or the prior Administration without government interference. However if you own a grocery store you are generally free to ban anyone wearing, or not wearing, a garment criticizing or praising either Administration (or any specific combination of praising or criticizing or referring to the current Administration or the prior Administration). Political views, unlike race or religion for example, are not a protected class under federal law even in a public accommodation such as a grocery store.
By fsflover 2025-10-116:46 > a private entity, including Apple, is free to censor whatever they want on their platforms
In case of the duopoly, when the consumers have no practical choice of the platform, this should be illegal, too.
By deepfriedchokes 2025-10-1021:40 They do it in China? Customer needs and wants are profit driven decisions.
By mieses 2025-10-117:30 Should non-citizens also have the right to track federal agencies?
By IT4MD 2025-10-1021:07 Apple and Tim Apple are here for profits. <---period.
They could not care less if you, the customer lived or died, as long as your check clears.
Source: Tim Apple sucking up to Trump like he's the antidote. This is even more ironic considering Tim's sexual orientation and Mango Jabba's take on "the gays".
By JumpCrisscross 2025-10-0823:481 reply There's a national security argument for the EU banning non-European app stores.
By 827a 2025-10-1021:16 100%. There is even a very strong national security argument for the US Government allowing Apple this level of control over the hardware that ~200 million Americans carry.
