MIT Technology Review: “People over Papers, a crowd-sourcing project that maps sightings of immigration agents, was taken offline yesterday by Padlet, the collaborative bulletin board platform on which it was built. It’s just the latest ICE-tracking initiative to be pulled by tech platforms in the past few days. A Padlet customer service representative told Celeste, one of the project’s creators, that the map “was trashed due to violations of our Content Policy,” without specifying which policy was violated. Celeste has not disclosed her last name for safety reasons. But days earlier, right-wing influencer Laura Loomer tweeted at Padlet’s CEO about the project.  “Are you aware that @padlet is being used by radical left wing domestic terrorists, illegal aliens and their supporters to obstruct law enforcement operations and harass ICE agents?” she wrote, “PADLET’s Content Policy clearly notes that harassment, stalking, privacy violations, inciting violence, and any other unlawful activity are not on the platform.”

See also via Metafilter – Apple pulls ICEBlock from the App Store due to ‘objectionable content’ after demands by Attorney General Pam Bondi and Google removed the Android equivalent RedDot without a request from the DOJ, claiming that ICE agents were a “vulnerable group”. While there are previous concerns that these apps are “activism theater”, these removals highlight the government’s influence on big tech companies.