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A Move to a More Ethical Phone (Later) (self.technology)

submitted 1 year ago by cityboundforest to c/technology

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So my roommate has informed me that Android and Motorola donate to Republicans more than Democrats whereas Apple does not, claiming this as a reason that the iPhone is better than an Android phone. While I could find statistics confirming the fact about Motorola, I don't even know what they were referring to when they mentioned Android and I tried looking for "Android" and "Android Foundation" and came up with nothing. If they're referring to the fact that Android, while it's an open sourced project, is maintained by Google, I'm already aware of that and would like to de-google my phone as much as possible (note: my phone is a Motorola Moto G Power (2022)). I however couldn't find any stats to support the Apple claim and my roommate has yet to provide me with any sources.

In any case, for my next phone, I'd like to move to a more privacy-focused phone. I've heard about the Fairphone, but re this comment, I'm slightly dissuaded from getting one when it comes to the US. I got a Motorola phone in following the advice of this post regarding the safety of the hardware used, but I might want to switch off of the phone when it comes time to upgrade to a new one down the line.

I'm not sure what to go with, so feel free to give me tips on that. Also I've wanted to install an alternative OS on my phone but all the ones I've seen aren't compatible with my phone at the moment.

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[–] thekerker 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So my roommate has informed me that Android and Motorola donate to Republicans more than Democrats whereas Apple does not, claiming this as a reason that the iPhone is better than an Android phone.

So I'm not sure from where your roommate is getting their information, but according to Open Secrets, Alphabet, Inc. (parent company of Google) donated $27M to Democrats during the 2020 cycle, compared to $1.4M to Republicans. The 2022 cycle is shaping up to be the same. I haven't been able to find much information on Motorola Mobility or its parent company Lenovo.

[–] cityboundforest 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is apparently their source.

[–] thekerker 4 points 1 year ago

Okay, that makes a certain amount of sense then. All of the companies and products owned by Alphabet are lumped under "Google", which includes Android, and it's saying that between 2018 and 2022 they've donated just shy of $780K to political action committees (PACs) that in turn give money to anti-trans politicians. According to Open Secrets, which by the way is where Pay Back Pride gets its data by way of Follow the Money, Alphabet sent $3.8M to Republicans during that period, so that figure represents 20% of their total Republican spend during that 4 year period.

However, Google Android is different from the Android Open Source Project, which is where mobile OSes like GrapheneOS, LineageOS, and /e/OS (and Google Android) fork from, so saying that iPhone is inherently better than Android as a whole in this particular area is slightly disingenuous.

All of that said, I think it's very important to vote with your wallet and if a company does or supports something you disagree with, it's entirely reasonable to look for alternatives. From my perspective, and I want to emphasize that I am not defending Google sending money to GOP PACs that promote anti-trans bigotry, Google is not directly lobbying for anti-trans bills and their spend on the PACs that do is paltry compared to others. Do with this information what you will.