Android Wikileaks apps are doing well

Filling the void left by Apple's purge of free speech

By Nick Farrell

Thu Dec 23 2010, 11:11

ANDROID-BASED Wikileaks apps are doing rather well after Apple purged all mention of the website from its Apps Store.

Yesterday Apple decided to join Amazon, Bank of America and Mastercard in their futile efforts to help the US government attempt to silence Wikileaks. Jobs' Mob purged any Wikileaks related applications from its App Store on the grounds that they were allegedly "endangering lives".

The role of censoring applications comes naturally to Steve Jobs' walled garden. After all Apple is now part of the establishment and apparently does not want to offend it.

However it seems that the more liberal Google is having no problems shifting Wikileaks related apps. But that might be because Wikileaks' cable revelations have so far notably omitted any mention of Israel.

Google, which operates the second-largest online mobile applications store, has kept more than half a dozen Wikileaks apps available on its Android Marketplace that make it easier to access the confidential US government documents.

Some of the Android programs provide direct access to the WikiLeaks cables, and one of them even alerts users whenever a new leaked document from the WikiLeaks repository is made public.

John Bumgarner, CTO of the US Cyber Consequences Unit has warned that by nailing its colours firmly to the US government's mast, Apple risks being a target of hacktivists who want to defend Wikileaks.

The move has angered some of Assange's supporters, but few of them appear to be Apple users. Reuters has been reporting tweets from Anonymous members who say things like, "This is exactly why I would never purchase an iOS device" and "more Apple censorship".

Apple fanbois would never support Wikileaks over Jobs' Mob anyway. Free-speech is just something that other people do, who are probably Microsoft or Linux users, although the fanbois will fight to the death to parrot abuse at anyone who disagrees with Steve Jobs.

Read more: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1934263/android-wikileaks-apps-doing#ixzz18wTtI1Tc 
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