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White House App Found Tracking Users' Exact Location Every 4.5 Minutes via Third-Party Server
(www.ibtimes.co.uk)
sus
this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2026
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According to the Google Play Store, there are 467 reviews (4.8 stars) but "0+" downloads. Like everything else about the White House, it doesn't add up.
And maybe most people know to keep it off their phones.
Why would anyone install government shit on their phone
From the US government, I completely agree. But a functional government helps and supports its citizens and there are plenty of ways an app on your phone can help. Admittedly that's pretty ideological, but at the very least I'd argue there is a spectrum
It should just be a website and not something that needs to live on my phone 24/7
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In a hypothetical socialist utopia with rigorously defined and enforced guarantees of rights and liberties, government-owned platforms can and should replace corporate-owned ones.
Imagine a concept like facebook/instagram/twitter, except it's open-source and transparent, and its users are in control of its governance through direct democracy and collective ownership. Plus a set of rules defining explicitly what they can't do, including all predatory, coercive, manipulative, and profiteering practices that are the industry standard now.
Obviously it's not a simple solution. Government control ≠ fair, equitable, and transparent. That's why I framed this as a hypothetical. It requires that socialist utopia, collective ownership, direct democracy, and open-source format. But it is possible, and we shouldn't let our imaginations be hampered by what exists today, in this system.
So many things could be done better with centralized planning, but that depends on who is in charge of that planning. And that's why we need direct democracy and collective ownership. Those things can actually be enabled by technology, despite the fact that technology is currently being used to hamper it.
Like, report a pothole on your maps app, and the state repairs it within a week. Go to the open forum section of your social media, and discuss the items on the upcoming bill proposal with the members of your community. Start a citizen's initiative by filling out a simple form that's accessible to everyone and posting it in the right section of the platform. Audit your local government's budget/expenses as easily as navigating to the right tab.
There's a better way of doing the things we're already doing. We just have to dare to imagine, to believe, and to persevere until our vision becomes a reality.
What you wrote reminded me of a minor idea that's been floating in my head: I kind of wish that more governments did something like requiring adding your business to OpenStreetMaps as part of registering the business with the government, or even just publishing the basic data (location, opening hours, ...) somewhere that all the maps apps sync with
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The Play Store has recently (I think about 3 years ago?) introduced delayed updates for things like download counts because they were battling faked statistics (e.g. the download counter could be manipulated by bot farms), so now downloads are accumulated and checked against users actually using the app and having it on their devices - which takes time to update so IIRC they now only update that counter every month. Hence the 0+ downloads.
So they're verifying downloads, but not reviews?
Both are verified by an automated system.
which is why fake reviews slip through but fake downloads don't really (download count is easy to verify with device feedback, fake reviews require a proper system...)
It’s because there were SO many downloads, more than two BILLION I’m told, by some really fantastic people who made the app, this wonderful app, that we hit something called an INTEGER LIMIT. Can you believe that? We had so many of you GREAT Americans sign up, that it just completely broke the App Store. It’s just incredible.
/s
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509 reviews as I write this and still 0 downloads and zero of those 509 reviews have any text; they just have ratings.
Surprised=False
Would it be bad if we were using GPS spoofers and locate thousands of people in the WH at all time?
I wonder if it's so Trump knows where all of his supporters actually are located. If you're trying to quell a future resistance, it would be easy to begin with pockets of the country that don't have the app installed.
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Cheesy electron wrapper does some tracking. News at 9.
i installed it on my burner and it's asking permission to check my buttholes
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