AppCensorship, a project that monitors and reports about censorship on major app stores, is warning that Google’s decision to start removing what it considers low-quality apps could lead to consequences other than “improving quality and user experience.”
An article on the project’s site notes that while some users see Google’s move as a positive and justified step, others see the potential for censorship “baked in” the decision.
The second point of view is all the more important given the amount of apps that Google removes from the Play Store over a year. The giant’s newest transparency report cites the number as 2.28 million – 59% more compared to the 1.43 million in the previous period.
But AppCensorship writes that the transparency report itself – and large media outlets reporting about it – all focus on the numbers without engaging in what the project calls a complete picture that would include discussion around (removal) policy, analysis, and critical examination.
Otherwise, the article warns, we may be looking at the media “lending them (app removal statistics) a degree of credibility disconnected from substantive scrutiny.”
As far as Google is concerned, the activity around the Play Store is proof that it is improving security, but also the app review process, and incorporating “advanced machine learning.”
On the flip side are fears that, as the article put it, Google may be using “its influence and high market share to dictate the global app environment.”
Just like major media companies, Google is barely scratching the surface in its transparency reports. The numbers are there, but it isn’t clear what’s driving the huge rise in app removals in such a short period of time – the desire to increase security, or perhaps, “a heightened stringency in its own enforcement protocols” – AppCensorship wonders.
The transparency reports also don’t delve deep into what kind of apps get removed, with the media parroting Google by stating they are “malicious” or “privacy violating” and leaving it at that.
In this setup – much as it does when censoring content on its massive platforms – Google is able to remove apps without providing detailed explanations or justification to the public.
And this is where concerns that the policy of removal of huge numbers of apps could be another avenue to censor.
According to AppCensorship, the other part of the app store duopoly, Apple, is no better when it comes to transparency – specifically in its transparency reports.
