Brazil has issued a court order to have the anonymous social app, “Secret” removed from both the Apple App Store and the Google PlayStore. Brazilian forbids anonymous speech, and apps like Secret violate exactly that. As per Article 5, Section IV of the Constitution of Brazil:
IV. the expression of thought is free, and anonymity is forbidden;
Apple immediately complied with the judges order and has removed the app from its store. Apple has it’s own set of rules that must be followed by app developers, as stated in the App Store guidelines, “Apps must comply with all legal requirements in any location where they are made available to users. It is the developer’s obligation to understand and conform to all local laws”. We presume apps like Whisper and Yik Yak which fall under the same category of anonymous social app will face this demise soon as well.
We’ve tested out the existence of Secret app in the Brazilian AppStore using a VPN and here’s what we found,
Judge Paulo Cesar de Carvalho has given Apple and Google 10 days to remove the app, starting Wednesday. Or they could be subject to a fine of 20,000 Brazilian real (about $9000) each day that Secret remains on the Store, after the 10-day waring period. So we hope to see some action taken by Google soon.
What is a bit scary to note is that the ruling has also asked these two companies to remotely disable the app from user’s phones. This is something that Apple has never done before. But things just might change soon!