ICEBlock app sues Trump administration for unlawful censorship
source: npr.org ↗Just over two months after the initial app removal in October, Bobby Allyn reporting for NPR that the developer has opened a lawsuit:
The developer of ICEBlock, an iPhone app that anonymously tracks the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, has sued the Trump administration for free speech violations after Apple removed the service from its app store under demands from the White House.
The suit, filed on Monday in federal court in Washington, asks a judge to declare that the administration violated the First Amendment when it threatened to criminally prosecute the app’s developer and pressured Apple to make the app unavailable for download, which the tech company did in October.
Keep in mind that Google isn’t mentioned for this particular app because it was never made available cross-platform, but other apps were on Android and also faced the same takedown pressure from the Fed. I will definitely be watching this space expecting to see more app developers file suit.