The mad king's digital killswitch

Summary

Today's links The mad king's digital killswitch (permalink) Remember when we were all worried that Huawei had filled our telecoms infrastructure with listening devices and killswitches? It sure would be dangerous if a corporation beholden to a brutal autocrat became structurally essential to your country's continued operations, huh? In other, unrelated news, earlier this month, Trump's DoJ ordered Apple and Google to remove apps that allowed users to report ICE's roving gangs of masked thugs, who have kidnapped thousands of our neighbors and sent them to black sites: https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/06/rogue-capitalism/#orphaned-syrian-refugees-need-not-apply Apple and Google capitulated. Apple also capitulated to Trump by removing apps that collect hand-verified, double-checked videos of ICE violence. Apple declared ICE's thugs to be a "protected class" that may not be disparaged in apps available to Apple's customers: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/big-tech-is-silencing-the-ice-watchers-plus-why-a-scholar-of-antifa-fled-the-country Of course, iPhones can (technically) run apps that Apple doesn't want you to run. All you have to do is "jailbreak" your phone and install an independent app store. Just one problem: the US Trade Rep bullied every country in the world into banning jailbreaking, meaning that if Trump (a man who never met a grievance that was too petty to pursue) orders Tim Cook (a man who never found a boot he wouldn't lick) to remove apps from your country's app store, you won't be able to get those apps from anyone else: https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/15/freedom-of-movement/#data-dieselgate Now, you could get your government to order Apple to open up its platform to third-party app stores, but they will not comply – instead, they'll drown your country in spurious legal threats: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:62025TN0354 And they'll threaten to pull out of your country altogether: https://pluralistic.net/202...