For anyone that’s ever uncertain if a product is on the BDS and/or Boycott Zionism list the No Thanks app is now available on both the Apple App Store & Google Play & it’ll allow you to scan the barcode or insert the company’s name to check.

How Zello keeps people in the loop during South Africa’s unrest

On June 29, former South African president Jacob Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in prison for corruption during his presidency. Zuma—the first ethnic Zulu to hold the country’s highest office—has a loyal following. He also has many detractors, who blame his administration’s corruption for a stagnant economy and weakened democracy.

Zuma didn’t turn himself in until July 7, saying he was innocent and that jail could kill him at 79 years old. Within hours, protests and widespread looting, particularly in his home city of Durban, were reported as supporters stationed themselves around his compound and challenged police. That violence has led to at least 215 deaths and more than 2,500 arrests.

For South Africans like Amith Gosai, keeping track of what was happening on the ground was hard. His WhatsApp chats were flooded and confusing. Then he saw a note on his community WhatsApp group urging neighbors to join a sort of neighborhood watch channel on Zello, a “walkie-talkie” app that is fast becoming a tool for protest communication. 

“This helped us tremendously to create awareness around the community as well as to quell fears,” Gosai told me via Twitter DM. 

This Zello App has become my life

— Raylen (@Raylen_10) July 12, 2021

Zello is the new vine

pic.twitter.com/K0sQF1yXDG

— no one (@theshyapricot) July 17, 2021

Gosai, who is also from Durban, was among 180,000 people who downloaded Zello in the wake of Zuma’s arrest. Users subscribe to channels to talk to each other, sending live audio files that are accessible to anyone listening in on the channel.

Zello was originally designed to help people communicate and organize after natural disasters. With Wi-Fi or a data connection, people can use it to broadcast their location, share tips, and communicate with rescuers or survivors in the aftermath of a hurricane, flood, or other emergency. In the US, Zello found traction in 2017’s Hurricane Harvey rescue efforts. The app is also used by taxi drivers, ambulance workers, and delivery personnel who want to send hands-free voice messages, according to Raphael Varieras, Zello’s vice president of operations, says. Because Zello is a voice-first platform, it’s faster than typing and requires no literacy skills. 

But recent events suggest that use of Zello is increasingly being used to connect people in areas of unrest as well. Within hours of the most recent Israeli-Palestinian conflict, downloads skyrocketed to 100 times their usual rate, for example. And Cuba also saw a spike in downloads amid protests over shortages of food and medicine. Unsurprisingly, this development has prompted some countries to ban the app, including China, Venezuela, and Syria.

Without a formal emergency response system like the US’s 911, South Africans have been increasingly turning to Zello to coordinate ad hoc ambulances and neighborhood patrols. One channel, South Africa Community Action Network, boasts 11,600 paying members who donate for emergency services like ambulances, along with more than 33,000 non-paying members, according to a blog post on the site.

Guys please be advised that looters are listening in on Zello chats and using it to find weakpoints in certain areas

— Post Alone (@javharsingh) July 14, 2021

One Twitter user in South Africa I spoke to (who requested anonymity in light of the current dangerous situation) said that some people were using Zello to figure out which houses and storefronts were ripe for looting, while others were tuning in to gauge whether they should flee or stay where they are. 

Another user, Javhar Singh, said via Twitter DM that he was using it as “live communication among community members to notify us about the whereabouts of looters,” adding: “It is way faster than the news.”

Crucially in such a tense situation, Zello is anonymous. “People don’t have access to your personal number like in WhatsApp,” says Gosai. 

The speed, anonymity, and intimacy created by voice make Zello feel urgent. But those same characteristics could breed misinformation, which Zello does not currently monitor—anyone can use the app at any time to say whatever they want. In fact, Zello was used in planning and carrying out the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

Zello’s popularity in South Africa also proves that online audio isn’t just a 2020 trend. Audio chat rooms on Clubhouse and Discord are built on the idea that people want to talk about common interests, and Facebook and Twitter are actively testing live audio on their platforms. Zello’s general audience, however, isn’t sticking around long enough to get to know people: they’re looking for news, fast and unfiltered.

“There’s a long history of Zello as a go-to app in times of crisis,” says Zello’s CEO, Bill Moore. In South Africa and elsewhere, that increasingly means more than just natural disasters.

from MIT Technology Review https://ift.tt/3rv8sd6 via IFTTT

Farmer Aims to Boost Palestinian Agriculture and Self-Sufficiency with DIY Strawberry Farm

Content sourced from NPR. 

Hezam Kittani didn't want U.S. handouts to help him grow strawberries. He wanted to be a do-it-yourself berry farmer — and to teach others to follow in his footsteps.

Strawberries were barely grown in the West Bank, where Kittani lives, before 2009. Today they're a 250-ton yearly crop. And that's because of $705,358 in grants from USAID for farmers in this "lower middle income region" (as classified by the World Bank).

The USAID money offered a helping hand for farmers to set up a new way to grow the fruits — in hanging planters where pests can't get to them as easily as on the ground and with "a computerized automated drip irrigation system that accurately measures the optimum amount of water needed." The berries grow in a mix of perlite and peat moss.

The system has a number of advantages. Elevated strawberries stay warmer than strawberries in the ground, which means a relatively long season, from November through April. And the plants grow downward, so the berries are easy to harvest. Outdoor strawberry farms yield about 12 tons of strawberries per acre; hanging strawberry plants in greenhouses yield three times as much.

But Kittani thinks there's a big disadvantage to the current setup. He doesn't want local farmers to rely on foreign aid. He wants them to succeed — to help themselves and the economy — without outside help. That's why Kittani set out to design a version of the USAID elevated strawberry system that Palestinian farmers could easily (and inexpensively) replicate themselves.

He began watching YouTube videos and doing trial-and-error experiments to find a system that farmers could pay for themselves and that would still yield lots of berries. First, Kittani built planters from the same plastic boards used in USAID-assisted strawberry farming, but the process was labor-intensive, Kittani says. "It was hard to construct because you have to cut it in pieces and find how to stick it together."

One video suggested sewage pipes as planters. So Kittani bought pipes, drilled holes in them and lined them with plastic cups full of strawberry plants. But the pipes ended up costing more than the plastic boards.

Kittani kept experimenting. Eventually he settled on wooden beams wrapped with white plastic sheets — the cheapest materials he found. "I try to make it more practical and easy to construct to train neighbors how to do it," he says.

Kittani fills his channels with soil he calls "ideal," a mix of coconut shells, peat moss and foam balls. He learned about it on a video series on the University of Arizona Controlled Environment Agriculture Center website.

The biggest challenge was building a computer-based irrigation system similar to the expensive USAID model. Kittani asked his daughter's high school science teacher for advice; she told him about a market that sold irrigation timers for around $30 each. He taught himself how to code and programmed a computer with similar nutrient and water measurements as the USAID system. The result was a $500 automated irrigation computer, about a third of the cost of the USAID model.

USAID's objective is the same as Kittani's: to boost the local economy, create jobs and make Palestinian agriculture globally competitive. In response to Kittani's project, a USAID spokesperson said the organization applauds innovation and is pleased that an entrepreneur is trying to develop a new system: "Our goal is to make this program self-sustaining so that farmers will be able to do this work in the future without USAID's assistance."

Kittani is still fine-tuning his strawberry operation. He's working with local researchers to develop a strawberry plant tissue culture, a technique used to grow whole plants from plant cells. And Kittani recently rigged a smartphone app that's connected to a device in the soil to track irrigation and pH levels. He's researching solar panels and wants to install internet using local SIM cards instead of a wireless router so farmers without internet or electricity can send and receive information from smartphones.

"It's called smart irrigation," Kitanni says. He pauses. "No," he continues. "We will call it smart farming."

This year marked the first full strawberry harvest in Kittani's backyard. Five farmers have come to him for advice. None of them have replicated his strawberry system from scratch, but they are asking him how to make their farms more affordable and resource-efficient.

And the strawberry is just the beginning, Kittani says. Next up: "We need to study the pineapple."

Content sourced from NPR.

A New Batch Of Monologue Jokes

They’ve been crowd-tested and approved by a governor’s board!

A group of scientists has called for a ban on the development of weapons controlled by artificial intelligence. Except in the case of the greatest weapon of all: genitalia. 

Students from around the UK went "on strike" last week as part of a global campaign for action on climate change. The students also demanded that their headmasters stop telling them in what order to eat their meat and pudding. 

According to a new study, most hip and knee replacements can last longer than previously thought, many up to 25 years. So who’s the asshole for getting my grandma a big trampoline for her birthday now?

According to a new study, the brain function of night owls and early risers differ. This study was conducted at the Institute For Going Home After Lunch And Calling It A Day. 

New research suggest ageing brains can potentially be rejuvenated in mice, so luckily even in their twilight years mice will remember to chew off your face after you die alone in your sad, empty apartment. 

A group of cold water swimmers have said that plunging into extremely cold sea temperatures is helping with the effects of the menopause. Mostly because out there your phone won’t work so you won’t know that your grandkids will never call you. 

An advertisement from Zara in China has got people there arguing if freckles are beautiful or not. The ad just features a naked Ron Howard on the toilet. 

The American Airlines flight attendants union is calling for an investigation into a video that went viral featuring employees in a burlesque-like routine. While waiting for the investigation to begin American merged with United, Southwest and somehow Wendy’s.

An Israeli nonprofit says it'll launch what it hopes will be the first private spacecraft to land on the moon. To make things feel more like home, the government insisted a Palestinian go with them and be forced to live in the corner of the ship at gunpoint.

New York City has banned hair discrimination to fight racism. So now everyone there is free to keep their hair style however they want while being displaced by a Chase bank branch. 

Burberry has apologized for featuring a hoodie with a noose around the neck at London Fashion Week. The company says that the photos of the hoodie were only being taken for a Virginia medical school yearbook. 

A number of cities are trying to woo Amazon after they canceled moving their second headquarters to New York city. One city went so far to debase itself as learning the character names on Sneaky Pete. 

A new study from the University of North Carolina shows that cardiac arrest among young people is rising nationwide. Mostly after hearing how much the house they grew up in cost compared to their current dream shacks. 

A 66-year-old man in New York state took it upon himself to write his own obituary as a cautionary tale warning others against smoking. Health experts were unsure how the three paragraphs dedicated to his “giant hog” dissuaded people from the unhealthy habit. 

A Pittsburgh woman who disappeared in 1964 was found buried in her own backyard 55 years after she was last seen. To find out more information wait two years for the 9-part Netflix documentary series. 

A man in Cleveland punched his attorney after getting 47 years in prison. The judge said he could serve just 6 more months of living in Cleveland to get the same effect. 

Nike's new self-lacing shoe has failed testing after the Android app that controls the shoe malfunctioned. The owners of both Nike and Android are unsure of which group of children that makes their products to punish with a pay cut. 

MEXT Japanese Government Scholarship 2022

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Australia Awards Scholarships 2021-22

Details Host Country: - Australia Administered By: - Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australian Government Course Level: - Undergraduate Degree Program - Master’s Degree Program - PhD Host Universities: - Australian Catholic University - Aviation Australia - Bond University - Box Hill Institute TAFE - Bureau of Meteorology - Canberra Institute of Technology - Carnegie Mellon University - Central Queensland University - Charles Darwin University - Charles Sturt University - Chisholm Institute of TAFE - Curtin University of Technology - Deakin University - Edith Cowan University - Federation University - Flinders University - Griffith University - Holmesglen Institute of TAFE - James Cook University - Kangan Institute - La Trobe University - Macquarie University - Melbourne Polytechnic - Monash University - Murdoch University - Queensland University of - Technology - RMIT University - Southern Cross University - Swinburne University of Technology - TAFE NSW - TAFE Queensland - TAFE SA - Tasmanian Polytechnic - The Australian National University - The Gordon Institute of TAFE - The University of Adelaide - The University of Melbourne - The University of New England - The University of New South Wales (including ADFA) - The University of Newcastle - The University of Queensland - The University of Sydney - The University of Western Australia - University College London - University of Canberra - University of South Australia - Victoria University - Western Sydney University - University of Southern Queensland - The University of Tasmania (including - The Australian Maritime College) - University of Technology Sydney - University of the Sunshine Coast - University of Wollongong - William Angliss Institute of TAFE Financial Benefits The financial benefits of the Australia Awards Scholarship 2021 are as follows: - Return economy class tickets. - On arrival, a one-off establishment allowance will be provided - Full tuition fee waiver - Living expenses will be provided. - Overseas Medical health insurance while on scholarship will be covered. - Supplementary academic support - Allowance for research fieldwork will be provided. Why one should study in Australia? Studying in Australia would be the best decision for a lot of reasons! It has a diversity of the international community, plenty of opportunities, a heritage of innovation, and a leading institute that would lead you to be the best professional. Eligibility Criteria - A candidate should be a permanent citizen of the eligible country. - A candidate must not be a citizen of Australia. - A candidate must have 12 years of education if applying for an undergraduate degree program or 16 years of education if applying for a master’s degree program. - A candidate applying for a master’s degree program should be under the age of 45 years. - A candidate must have an impact plan of development. - A candidate should be committed to coming back to his country after degree completion for at least two years. Eligible Countries  - Maldives - Mongolia - Myanmar - Nepal - Pakistan - Bangladesh - Bhutan - Cambodia - Indonesia - Laos - Philippines - Sri Lanka - Marshall Islands - Nauru - Papua New Guinea - Samoa - Solomon Islands - Tonga - Tuvalu - Timor-Leste - Vietnam - Federated States of Micronesia - Fiji - Kiribati - Vanuatu - Wallis and Futuna - Palestinian Territories  Last Date to Apply The last date to apply for the Scholarship is 30th April, 2021. How to Apply? - All candidates are instructed to first check the application deadline according to their country, as it varies from one country to another. - Few countries would require applications along with required documents in hard-copy whereas other countries may accept your application online. - If a candidate is applying through Online Australia Scholarships Information System (OASIS), he needs to register himself online and get the registration number. - After signing up, you may require to upload your required documents on the portal. - If a candidate is applying by mail, then he needs to find the mailbox address according to the country. - Documents sending by mail should be done before the deadline. - You can apply by clicking the button below:

Read the full article

Potential Post-Coronavirus Geo-economic Shifts

By James M. Dorsey

A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Pocket Casts, Tumblr, Podbean, Audecibel, Patreon and Castbox.

 New York governor Andrew Cuomo has become the articulate, compassionate political face of government competence in fighting a pandemic.

That’s quite an achievement for a man who as late as early March 2020 trumpeted: “Excuse our arrogance as New Yorkers… We think we have the best healthcare system on the planet right here in New York. So, when you’re saying what happened in other countries versus what happened here, we don’t even think it’s going to be as bad as it was in other countries. We are fully coordinated; we are fully mobilized.”

New York was neither fully coordinated, nor was it fully mobilized.

In fact, it became the pandemic’s prime hotspot in the United States, accounting for the highest number of infection cases and the highest mortality rate. Its hospitals were overwhelmed, its stockpiles depleted, its frontline workers perilously exposed to risk of contagion. Many of the deaths could have been prevented had Mr. Cuomo opted to lock down the Big Apple earlier.

For now, that recent history has largely been forgotten. Mr. Cuomo thrives in his element, a rising star on America’s political ferment. His sober but empathetic, fact-based daily briefings project him as a man in command with a mission to ensure the health, safety, and wellbeing of his state.

If Mr. Cuomo, a veteran of dealing with the aftermaths of disasters like Hurricane Sandy, learnt anything from his delayed response to the coronavirus pandemic, it was that “an outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere.”

Unlike other epidemics in recent years such as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS in the early 2000s, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2012 or the eruption of Ebola in West Africa in 2014, the coronavirus, dubbed COVID-19, left no corner of the globe untouched.

It is a lesson that goes to the heart of all that is wrong with global, regional, and national healthcare governance. It is a lesson that calls into question social and economic policies that have shaped the world for decades irrespective of political system.

It is also a lesson that goes to the core of the relationship between government and the people. It positions social trust as a pillar of an effective healthcare policy in a time of crisis.

In an era of defiance and dissent as a result of a breakdown in confidence in political systems and political leadership that kicked off with Occupy Wall Street and the 2011 Arab popular revolts and led to the rise of populists, mass anti-government demonstrations and in 2019 the toppling of leaders in Algeria, Sudan, Lebanon and Iraq, lack of trust complicated government efforts to counter the virus.

Distrust persuaded many Iranians to initially refuse to heed public health warnings to maintain social distancing, stay at home and install an Android app designed to help people self-diagnose and avoid rushing to hospital.

Pakistanis put their faith in religious leaders who rejected government demands for a halt to congregational prayers. So did many Russians as bans on mass gatherings split the clergy and threatened to undermine the Russian Orthodox Church’s key support for President Vladimir Putin.

Post-mortems of governments’ handling of the crisis once the coronavirus has been contained could increase the trust deficit.

Moreover, in an indication of pent-up anger and frustration that could explode, the imposition of curfews and stay-at-home orders failed to prevent incidental outbursts, including protests in mid-American states, quarantined Egyptian villages and poorer Tunisian and Moroccan hamlets.

In an echo of the Tunisian vendor who sparked the 2011 Arab revolts, 32-year-old unemployed and physically disabled Hammadi Chalbi set himself alight in a town 160 kilometres southwest of Tunis after authorities’ refused to license him as a fruit seller. In Lebanon, a taxi driver set his vehicle on fire while fruit vendors dumped their goods in the streets in expressions of mounting discontent. The protests suggest a universal corollary with the pandemic: an outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere.

Protesters in 2019 went beyond demanding the fall of a leader. They sought the fall of political elites and radical overhaul of failed political systems. The pandemic called an abrupt halt to the protests. Protesters like the rest of the population went into temporary hibernation.

When they re-emerge, they are likely to put government leaders who prioritized political advantage above their health and economical well-being at a cost that surpasses that of the 1929 Great Depression on par with crimes committed against humanity during times of war.

Social, economic, ethnic, and sectarian fault lines are likely to be hardened in countries like Pakistan and Iraq where militants stepped in with healthcare and other social services to fill voids created by lack of government capacity.

The pandemic further painfully illustrated the economic cost of not only failing to confront a health crisis in a timely fashion but also the risk inherent in policies that do not ensure proper healthcare infrastructure in every corner of the globe, guarantee equal access to healthcare, make sure that people irrespective of income have proper housing and nutrition, turn a blind eye to the destruction of healthcare facilities in conflict situations like Syria, Yemen, Libya, Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, tolerate millions of refugees existing in sub-standard living and hygiene conditions, and disregard environmental degradation and climate change.

The pandemic casts a spotlight on the deprivation of populations of proper healthcare as a result of politically motivated discriminatory social and economic policies.

The non-discriminatory nature of the coronavirus forced the Israeli government to ramp up testing in communities of Israeli Palestinians which had been described by public health experts as a ticking time bomb.

The experts warned that Israeli Palestinians, who figured prominently among frontline doctors and nurses treating Jews and Palestinians alike, were an at-risk group, many of whom suffer from chronic diseases, live in crowded conditions, and are socially and economically disadvantaged.

Ramping up testing to prevent the spread of COVID-19 constitutes an immediate effort to stem the tide but does little to structurally prepare Israeli and Palestinian society for the next pandemic.

Pre-dominantly Palestinian “East Jerusalem is gravely neglected in every possible way in terms of the infrastructure. Most neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem don’t have sewage systems. Just about every possible public service you can think of is underbudgeted and lacking in East Jerusalem. The only thing they get a lot of is parking fines and (punitive) housing demolition orders, said”  left-wing member of the Jerusalem municipal council Laura Wharton.

A Monopoly board centred on Jerusalem given to her by Moshe Lion, the city’s mayor and a former economic advisor and director general of prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s office, illustrates the political calculus that potentially puts not only Jews and Palestinians but populations elsewhere at risk in a future pandemic.

“You have here the City of David, the Mount of Olives, the Knesset (the Israeli parliament), the Montefiore windmill, the markets, (the ultra-orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of) Mea She’arim. Al Aqsa (the third holiest Muslim site) is not here, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is not here. Basically what you have is a bunch of Jewish sites and various illusions to other things. It’s not a very balanced picture of Jerusalem,” Ms. Wharton noted pointing at various landmarks on the board.

African Americans, Hispanics and native Americans tell the story, They have fallen disproportionately victim in the United States to the coronavirus.

US surgeon general Dr. Jerome Adams, a 45-year old African American vice admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, one of America’s eight uniformed services, pulled out his inhaler at a White House press briefing in April 2020, saying he's carried it around for 40 years, "out of fear of having a fatal asthma attack."

Looking fit and trim in his dark uniform, Mr. Adams said he also had a heart condition and high blood pressure. "I represent that legacy of growing up poor and black in America. And I, and many black Americans, are at higher risk for COVID."

The surgeon general said that “its alarming but not surprising that people of colour have a greater burden of chronic health conditions. African Americans and native Americans develop high blood pressure at much younger ages… and (the virus) does greater harm to their organs. Puerto Ricans have higher rates of asthma and black boys are three times (more) likely to die of asthma than their white counterparts…. People of colour are more likely to live in densely packed areas and multi-generational housing, situations which create higher risk for the spread of a highly contagious disease like COVID-19. We tell people to wash their hands, but a study shows that 30 percent of homes of the Navajo nation don’t have running water, so how are they going to do that?”

What goes for one of the wealthiest nations on earth goes for the rest of the world too, particularly with the last two decades suggesting that pandemics occur more frequently and are likely to do so going forward.

What started in Wuhan in China in December 2019 had by April 2020 brought the world to a virtual standstill. Millions across the globe were infected, tens of thousands did not survive, economies shut down and the prospects for recovery and return to what was normal seemed a mere hope in a distant future.

Andrew Cuomo may be the exception that confirms the rule. There is little in the response of leaders from China’s Xi Jingping to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US President Donald J. Trump that suggests that the lesson that an outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere has persuaded them to think in terms of structural change.

If the first six months of the coronavirus are anything to go by, the name of the game has been jockeying for political positions, ideology trumps science, and everyone for him or herself in a race to the bottom rather than apolitical banding together globally, regionally and nationally to fight a dangerous and debilitating common enemy.

The response to the pandemic reflected the crumbling of the post-World War Two international order that is in the grips of a struggle by big and medium-sized powers to shape global governance in the 21st century.

The struggle has already crippled the United Nations and politicization of the coronavirus and healthcare threatens to undermine the World Health Organization, the one, albeit flawed, structure capable of coordinating a global response.

Complicating the response, was the rise of civilizationalists like Mr. Xi, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, Hungarian prime minister Victor Orban and Mr. Trump who think in civilizational rather than national terms.

They conceive of their nations as civilizations in which Hans, Hindus or Christians rule supreme and there is no equal place for minorities rather than nation states defined by legally recognized borders, population, and language.

Theirs is a world of neglect for international law, increased conflict, political violence, and mass migration that promises to be even less prepared for the next pandemic. It is also a world in which early warning systems are weakened by muzzling of a free press.

Former US president Barak Obama, in his opening blast against Trump in the run-up to the November presidential election, put his finger on the pulse.

“What we are fighting against is these long-term trends in which being selfish, being tribal, being divided and seeing others an enemy, that that has become a stronger impulse in American life. And by the way, you know, we are seeing that internationally as well. And it’s part of the reason why the response to this global crisis has been so anaemic and spotty… It has been an absolute chaotic disaster when that mindset of what’s in it for me and to heck with everybody else – when that mindset is operationalized in our government,” Mr. Obama told a virtual gathering of his former staffers.

The pandemic demonstrates the need for coordinated policies ranging from global, regional, and national stock piling, international cooperation in medical research and development, conflict mediation, protection of minority rights, environment, absorption of refugees and robust but diversified supply chains.

It also highlights the importance to healthcare of eradication of poverty and proper social security nets, housing, hygiene, and access to water in a world in which an outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere.

The pandemic positions an approach towards healthcare that is integrated into sustainable social and economic policies as a matter of global and national security on par with regional and national defense and security policies and investments.

It also raises the question of what role major non-governmental institutions like the Clinton Initiative, George Soros and the Gates Foundation can play.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an award-winning journalist and a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. He is also an adjunct senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute and co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute of Fan Culture in Germany

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Google and Apple vs. Indie Developers

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

TL;DR: Tech giants Google and Apple dominate the App Store business- they have virtually no competition. As a result, they give very poor support to indie developers. Your game or app can suddenly be removed with very little you can do to combat the decision. 

Our game Fake Slap! was suspended on Google Play for violating the Violence Policy. We got an automatic email letting us know that the game has been suspended and poof! It was gone. This came as a huge shock to us as the game had already been on Google Play and the App Store for over a month, with no apparent problems. The violence policy states: “We don’t allow apps that depict or facilitate gratuitous violence or other dangerous activities.” They follow with a few examples, such as: promoting self harm, terrorist groups documenting attacks, bomb or weapon making and realistic violence. Our game definitely has NONE of those. Yes, our game is political and POTUS is the star of our game, but it is definitely not violent in that way.

The thing is- suspension of an app is considered a strike against the good standing of your developer account, or as they phrased it: “Additional suspensions of any nature may result in the termination of your developer account, and investigation and possible termination of related Google accounts.” You can’t even go back to your game to see what you did wrong- it is completely blocked. Needless to say we were freaking out. Imagine losing not only your developer account, but all of your Google accounts- email, drive, YouTube, everything. Yikes. We rushed home to file our appeal, and we were certain that the game would be reinstalled in no time, as there must have been some mistake. We figured that somebody didn’t like the idea and flagged the game which initiated the whole automatic process. Google will see their mistake and reinstate the app for sure, right?

The automatic reply to the appeal stated that we will get an answer in 72 hours. We stopped everything we were planning for marketing the game and waited. And then waited some more. After 11 nerve-wracking days, we finally got an answer- they did not accept our appeal. We insisted again and again for a couple of weeks, and kept getting automatic replies denying our appeals. At this point we felt pretty hopeless- the process was cold and alienating. It made no sense at all. I started reaching out to reporters with the story- maybe someone will be interested in a story about Google Play suspending a political game. I exchanged a few emails with Colin Campbell from Polygon. I had read his articles in the past and thought that he might be interested. After telling him the story, he reached out to the Google press team for a statement. Approximately 5 hours later we “mysteriously” received an email from Google stating that they are reinstating our game, a month after they originally removed it. Coincidence? I think not.

Our Game Fake Slap! was suspended on Google Play

Getting the game reinstated was good news, of course, but we were left feeling pretty disgusted. Why did we need a reporter asking questions for Google to take us seriously? I started looking for other people that had had similar experiences, and was shocked to find out that this happens a lot. A sizable amount of games and apps are automatically removed/suspended from the app stores (mostly Google Play) without even a warning or a chance to fix the issue. Some developers are lucky, but it seems many of them don’t even get past the automatic messages and get identical emails denying their appeals. It is common knowledge among developers that talking to a human being at Google is virtually impossible. Apple is considered a tough cookie in the initial approval process (many developers don’t even try to publish on the App Store), but if you have a problem afterwards or an update is rejected, there is usually a person to talk to.

There is a wide range of causes for suspensions and removals- from trademark infringement for using words like “Flow” (in the case of Reddit user JakeSteam), “Candy” or “Saga”, to spam, pornography or violence.

In the case of Hau Nguyen, his game Dodge Dodge was originally named “Circles Dodge”. It was on Google Play for six months (with tens of thousands of downloads and hundreds of reviews), and then it was suddenly suspended due to “violation of the spam provision of the Content Policy”. Google rejected Hau’s appeals with automatic emails. He got no answer as to what exactly was considered spam in the game, and after reaching out to fellow developers on Reddit, he decided to publish the same game under a different name- but of course, he lost all of the downloads and reviews he had for the previous version, and was endangering his developer account (2 strikes and you’re out!).

TK-Squared, LLC have had two apps removed- their apps Banger and Tuxedo display websites with streaming radio content (Rock music and Classical music, respectively). The reason for the removals was “violation of the paid and free provision of the Content Policy”- meaning they accused them of trying to charge money through a third party app (not through Google Play), though they weren’t collecting money at all. One of the streaming radio stations that were included in the apps was independently collecting donations for their college radio, but had no connection to TK-Squared whatsoever. In the case of Banger app- after weeks of emailing back and forth trying to prove to Google that they are not charging money, are not a charity and are not in violation of their policy, their appeal was accepted. In the case of Tuxedo- Google stopped replying after two months of emails back and forth. They eventually submitted an update and republished the app. This is how they described their email interactions with Google: “The replies (to the appeals) never once addressed anything we had said in our previous reply, and had no bearing on the discussion that preceded it, which was confounding. We attempted to communicate in this manner or find any other way of responding, for by the time the second month rolled around we were convinced that we were talking with a bot, because nothing we said or did every elicited a meaningful response from Google.”

John (he asked that I don’t mention his name as big brother (a.k.a Google) is watching), a senior app developer from the US, had his entire developer account removed. Google removed three different apps he was developing for clients for violation of the impersonation policy and the pornography policy (which he stated were not occurring). After that his entire account was suspended, with over 120 apps on it. It took him three months of appealing to get his account back, and months after that to resubmit all of the apps that were there. Now Google automatically rejects any app he submits without a pre-authorized contract between himself and his clients- on the grounds of impersonating those businesses. He says that he can wait weeks to get Google’s OK. In his words: “it’s like proving I have permission to sell apples from the apple grower each time I sell an apple!”

Exp3D- suspended after 3 years on the store

Adrian Courréges had his open-source game Exp3D suspended after being on Google Play for 3 (!!) years for Metadata policy violation. He was relatively lucky, as after appealing his suspension was “downgraded” to removal, and he could resubmit without losing all of his downloads/reviews/users.

Reddit user wrayjustin had his Reddit-widget app suspended for impersonation/deceptive behavior after un-publishing it. It had been on the store since 2010 with no updates or changes and he removed it because he had heard of the aggressive policy strikes. Then it got suspended.

As I mentioned before, Apple seems to have fewer rejection stories out there. Apple is known to have “particular” standards for the content published on the App Store. So most game or app rejections happen up front. There were various headlines in the past year or so about rejected political games – such as the Palestinian political platformer Liyla and the Shadows of War, political satire games by Everyday Arcade, and more. Many developers complain at their steep $100-a-year developer fee, and the fact that they obligate developing service-providers to open a developer account for every client (at $100 a pop).

Ascella Mobile Inc. did have an update for their game Pixel Strike 3D rejected due to trademark infringement. A character they had had in the game for months suddenly seemed to resemble Sheriff Woody (the in-game character is a voxel cowboy that looks like… any cowboy…). They had to remove him and all of the marketing material connected to him.

Pixel Strike 3D- Tiggy looked too much like Woody?

Gereon Steffens has an accessory app for the game "Android: Netrunner". Obviously the description has to have the word “Android” in it, with no connection to the operating system. It has been rejected multiple times for containing that word. His appeals are always accepted, luckily, but that doesn’t stop them from rejecting updates once in a while.

These types of stories have been going around for years. A quick search in the Reddit development groups can give you a glimpse of just how many there are out there. The majority of removals and suspensions are probably justified and are in clear violation of the policies, ridiculous and vague as they may seem. But a large number of the cases don’t seem justified at all, and indie developers and small businesses are virtually helpless against the suspensions- and most importantly, don’t really understand the reasons for them in many cases and have nobody to talk to in order to avoid such problems in the future. Furthermore, many developers believe that companies are specifically abusing the system to block competition as well, and small businesses can’t afford to lawyer up. If you are a small business depending on the income from your apps, this is very troubling.

But why are the tech giants giving such poor support to developers and content providers? Game and app developers are having a hard enough time as it is with discovery in such an over-saturated market, so why are the app store giants making it even harder for app developers in the process? And charging them 30% of their earnings in the process? The answer is because they can.

Both Google (or Alphabet, the parent company) and Apple are indeed private companies that can decide what they allow on their stores, but there are growing claims that they have monopolies in their corresponding sectors. Which basically means that they can enforce their “my way or the highway” type attitude towards developers (or anyone, for that matter). Editorials in the New York Times and Business Insider have recently called for anti-trust legislation against the tech giants, stating that they are crushing competition and hampering innovation and personal freedom. Both Google and Apple completely dominate the App Store market- 76% of all apps are published on their stores (as of March 2017, according to statista.com). The Windows and Amazon stores lag far far behind them and do not offer real competition to either of the giants. The AT&T and Time-Warner merger has drawn much more public scrutiny over a smaller percentage of the market, so why isn’t anything being done about the tech giants and the clear abuse of their power? That is exactly what anti-trust laws are for- and how Google came to be in the first place (in the 90s, a suit against Microsoft allowed a startup named Google to offer an innovative search engine). Google has come a far way from the days of their motto “Don’t Do Evil”.

Number of apps available in leading app stores as of March 2017 (Statista)

In January, Reuters reported that a court in the US ruled that iPhone App users can sue Apple for monopolizing the iPhone App Market- leading to higher prices and lower discovery. This is big news for consumers and developers- but will iPhone users actually sue Apple? Will there be similar legislation for Android users? I doubt it. It seems to me the change will only come from government intervention or public pressure on the tech giants. What is clear is that there is dire need for change in the way the app store giants deal with their content creators- by breaking up the monopolies and opening up the markets to fair competition to give small developers (and other app stores) a real chance.