China's attempts to censor the rest of the world have become a big deal.[1] Hollywood caved in some time back. The NBA caved. Now Apple.
There was an attempt in 2012 to pass the "Global Online Freedom Act of 2012", prohibiting US companies from assisting foreign censorship operations. Didn't pass.
Apple's history of censorship is strange and amusing. They have, at various times, caved in to both China and Russia. Sending the word "Taiwan" from an iPhone with a Chinese country code at one time crashed iPHones. [2]
There’s a lot going on in that complaint. This US based employee approved the app in the Chinese App Store, and it was not the first screw up they had made.
I’m sympathic to a lousy job experience at any employer. While it sounds more like a DEI issue at heart, and possibly a training or hiring failure, I’m doubtful that the courts would not side with Apple here.
the plaintiff’s core allegation is that the other “screw ups” were concocted (or at least exaggerated in severity) as a retaliation for approving the app and/or discussing the situation with peers.
I haven't looked into the other screw ups, but I basically agree with everything in the snippet of the complaint that appears in the article, except one thing:
"it should remain on the App Store as a matter of free speech"
Free speech is a matter for the government, not for private business decisions... If you as an employee are pushing back against your employer because of "free speech", you're going to have a bad time (i.e. risk losing the job, as it happened).
That said, I'm curious about this Guo Media, and the first thing I found when looking that up is:
> If you as an employee are pushing back against your employer because of "free speech", you're going to have a bad
Actually, in california, your statement is not true.
Califorinia has numerous labor protections, that fall within the category of "free speech", and that prevent private businesses from retaliating against employees for certain reasons.
To give an extreme example, although it might be federally legal for a private company to interrogate and fire all democrats, it would absolutely not be legal in California.
No, it isn't. Free speech is a moral principle, and a matter for philosophers, liberals, and all thinking people generally. The first amendment is a specific codification of the moral principle. It's the first amendment that is a matter for government.
While I agree with you that employees aren't in a good position to advocate for free speech, consumers are - and we should all be holding Apple to the standard Trieu Pham tried to hold Apple to - not because of this or that law, but because free speech is the right thing to do.
But in this case, the (Chinese) government induced a company to annoy an employee. That actually is an assault on free-speech, because it was not the company itself that decided to do so.
If this is allowed, then what would prevent the US government from telling Apple to fire everyone who they do not like? If the gov commits a free speech prohibited action itself, or directs a company to do it for them, does not and must not make a difference. Else, the protection of a citizen would be worthless.
The difference here to my example is that is was the CCP instead of the USG that induced the action. But does that make it any better?
Apple made a business decision. They are free to ignore the Chinese governments wishes, at the cost of access to the Chinese market place.
The reviewer works for Apple, and has to follow Apples rules, not make up their own. I also dislike that Apple kowtows to the CCP, but that is their choice and given the large revenues involved, I understand it. I won’t tell Apple Shareholders to leave a legal market and give up a quarter of their share value, just in order to meet my ethical standards.
You may enjoy walking around your home wearing no pants. That’s your right. But when you go to a work place, it’s your employers right to tell you to put your pants back on.
I don't understand how that article is linked with the alt right? Or is it just conservatives = alt right?
American dems are definitely less hostile than conservatives towards China so it feels natural than a wanted fugitive in China would work with conservatives.
I agree free speech doesn't apply here, given Apple it's a private company, but it definitely aligns Apple with Facebook, Twitter, Google and whatever other Big Tech company that censures whatever they don't like (applying their own policies only when they want).
It's also interesting to see who's lining up with China.
Steve Bannon said of Breitbart when he was still in charge of it that "We're the platform for the alt-right". Miles Guo, the CEO of Guo Media, seems to have latched on to Bannon's brand of political journalism as well-suited to the objectives of at least some of his enterprises, e.g. Gnews [1].
It's bizarre and terrifying that people somehow associate freedom with fascism. The idea that wanting rights makes someone "alt right" is absolutely insane.
“Free speech” is used by some people, more often alt-right people than others, to mean freedom from consequences. Even criticism is derided as attacks on the “right” to “free speech”. That’s presumably what the original post mentioning this meant.
There is no right to not face consequences from other private citizens for bad behavior.
Have you considered that some of the ways in which the alt-right demands their rights may be fascistic?
Ponder, for instance, the proud boy chant of "Jews will not replace us." Are you going to let that one slide because, well, those folks are just making demands for their rights?
"Jews will not replace us" is not an appeal to human rights, it's just racist. I don't see the connection you're trying to make.
I'm genuinely confused on what your position is. Why do you have an association with freedom and the alt-right? Implicit in that position is that the Democratic left is somehow anti-rights. How can you simultaneously believe that:
1) the alt right champions rights / freedoms.
2) this makes the alt right fascist / authoritarian.
3) your party / alignment / position opposes the alt right, and therefore opposes the freedoms they advocate for.
4) by opposing freedom and human rights, your party is anti fascist.
I'm genuinely confused. And why the connection with free speech in particular? The alt right also stages protests alot, do you think protesting is bad?
It would be helpful if I saw "free speech" being championed by anyone other than the fascists.
I used to believe free speech was a virtue. I no longer believe that because universally everyone who cares strongly about it is actually using it as cover for pushing opinions they don't like out of public discourse. If that's the result of free speech advocacy, then I don't see how I can conclude that it's good for society.
> if I saw "free speech" being championed by anyone other than the fascists.
How about the ACLU? Are they fascist?
Perhaps you're only seeing alt-right associated with because of the particular filter bubble(s) in which you are located.
I strongly encourage you to dig a little deeper, reflect a little more, and think a little harder on this topic.
Free speech is the font from which all other rights spring and are defended. It is sacrosanct. Thus, folks like the ACLU try to defend it everywhere for everyone, not just the folks that pass purity tests.
The ACLU? The group that sued the city of Charlottesville so that the fascist "Unite the Right" rally could happen in a place that the city said would be hard to maintain order/peace instead of in a nearby park where the city had already issued a permit, as a result of which, the fascists killed someone?
Again, I have thought and reflected and dug. I donated to the ACLU for many years. I used to believe that they engaged in a noble cause of protecting the right of people with unpopular opinions to express their unpopular opinions. I used to believe that protecting the rights of the Nazis in Skokie protected all our rights. I now believe that it primarily protects the rights of the alt-right in Charlottesville to demonstrate and to kill, and I now believe that the ACLU's free speech advocacy, however well-intentioned, isn't good for society and leaves us all less free. And the last time they called me to ask if I'd "resume" my membership, I told them they have blood on their hands.
If the lawsuit the ACLU filed (Kessler v. Charlottesvile) hadn't happened, the fascists would still have been equally able to express their opinions. The city just wanted the rally in a different spot to reduce the risk of violence. In retrospect, the city was right, the ACLU was wrong, and Kessler got the violence he wanted.
I don't think there is any genuine danger (especially thanks to modern communications technology) to the ability of fascists to advocate for fascism, to make sure that the policy proposals of fascism remain known to the general public. What remains is a genuine danger to the ability of fascists to actually engage in fascism, which they call "exercising free speech," and they dupe organizations like the ACLU into helping them with it.
(Note I'm not claiming the ACLU is intentionally fascist. Outside of free speech advocacy, they do a lot of effective work to oppose fascism. But on this particular issue, their effect, regardless of intent, is to support fascism, and their notable work is supporting fascists who think their right of "free speech" has been violated.)
I intentionally keep my filter bubble quite broad. I read far-right forums and they love free speech. I read centrists and they think free speech is a great idea and will some day defend the. And I see far-left activists who gain nothing from the concept.
If you have an example of the font of free speech actually serving to protect any rights beyond the right to enact fascism, I'd be very curious. My position could certainly evolve further, but this is where it is now.
(BTW, it took me a long time to reply because HN blocked me with the "You're posting too fast. Please slow down." message, because I got downvoted too much in the last few minutes. If you think free speech is a virtue, please email the moderators and tell them that they should remove that feature and also stop greying out downvoted comments - downvoting for disagreement is explicitly permitted on HN, and the last thing an advocate of free speech would want is unpopular ideas to be literally unreadable! But the fact remains that HN is a better forum than e.g. 4chan because of its censorship mechanisms, and that's in fact one of the things that makes me believe free speech is not a virtue - even though I'm frequently one of the targets of that censorship because I frequently post unpopular ideas. I genuinely believe this community's ability to censor me makes it better.)
It's interesting that both the left and the right are abandoning the ACLU, for much the same reasons. Though of course members of both groups also join the ACLU to (attempt to) influence it. Contrast with the days when "freedom of expression" was relevant (of conversations about gay rights, abortion, uncomfortable fiction, outsider ideas) and "right" meant "moral majority" is very educational.
(Of course the left proper has never cared much for actual communists and anarchists either, except as linguistic props. I suppose deciding to fully embrace that shouldn't be surprising.)
I see no hope of rights-oriented politics surviving except as some side's puppet - we have reached our stop, and must get off - so which dynamic will win out?
(Though I doubt the idea that the ACLU isn't intentionally fascist will persist. "If three people sit down at the table with a Nazi, you have four Nazis sitting at the table" after all.)
That said the friendship of the two seems to be a case of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". With their common enemy being the Chinese government.
Steve Bannon opposes China because he believes in a cyclical view of history, and the next cycle, the "fourth turning", is likely to feature a war with the Middle East and/or China.
Guo Wengui opposes China because he thinks they will kill him for corruption. To be fair, you don't get as successful as he did in a corrupt environment without being corrupt yourself, so China probably has reason to kill him. But it is also a bit of a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
There are, broadly speaking, two categories of people who advocate for free speech: civil libertarians who advocate for free speech on principle, and people with unpopular opinions that tend to face censorship.
In 20th century America, between approximately Schenck v. United States and Brandenburg v. Ohio, those “people with unpopular opinions that tend to face censorship” tended to be the ones on the far left—socialists, communists, draft resisters—who fell victim to sedition and anti-syndicalism laws. As of 2021, there is no realistic threat of the far left being censored, but there are calls to censor the far right, many of which are based on the exact same arguments that once justified those sedition and anti-syndicalism laws. This has caused the far left to abandon the cause of free speech (since it is no longer tactically useful for them) and the far right to take it up (because it is tactically useful for them).
> As of 2021, there is no realistic threat of the far left being censored
This is entirely inaccurate, as most discussions about labeling AntiFa a 'terrorist organization' will show, and the huge investment many large companies make for preventing unionization. It is true that some people on the far left believe this, but they are entirely wrong.
AFAIK, US law actually has no provision for designating domestic terrorist organizations, so it’s not clear what that would entail.
In any case, your examples seem to have more to do with freedom of association than freedom of expression, which is also important but not what I was talking about.
Well, if the president of the USA and half of the Senate are truly considering labeling AntiFa a terrorist organization, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if pro-AntiFa videos started getting demonetized and even banned. I would be very surprised if pro-unionization content weren't already in this area.
As an example of how "extreme"-left information is kept out, have you seen even one piece of news in the US or Europe in January 2020 or since about the largest organized strike in human history? An estimated 200 million people strike in India.
> As of 2021, there is no realistic threat of the far left being censored
The laws from 20th-century America are still on the books and are still being enforced. I have literally heard of people who, today, cannot advocate for their far-left political views because it imperils their immigration status. Here is a reminder from the USCIS as of two months ago that membership in any Communist party causes you to be ineligible to become a permanent resident: https://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/uscis-issues-policy-guidan...
Meanwhile, in the court of public opinion, here is someone self-censoring their left-but-nowhere-near-far-left position (a fairly mainstream position) and being attacked for their beliefs by a right-wing media outlet that, ordinarily, claims to support free speech: https://thefederalist.com/2020/12/30/wannabe-jeopardy-host-k...
> cannot advocate for their far-left political views because it imperils their immigration status.
That sounds pretty bad. It sounds to me like laws that attack human rights and speech are often used to hurt many people on all different sides of an issue.
And it sounds like if we want to stop those bad things that you brought up from happening, that we need to ensure that our laws do a better job of protecting free speech.
That's definitely what it sounds like to me, too! But I have never seen a single free speech advocate actually say "We should repeal the part of the immigration law that says you can be denied US citizenship based on membership in a US political party." So I conclude that whatever free speech advocates are advocating, it's not what it sounds like.
One group advocating for 1 set of laws and protections that protect human rights should not stop you from attempting to protect other similar human rights.
Your response to a group trying to protect certain rights that are related but not exactly the same as another set of rights, should not be you trying to fight against attempts to protect those rights.
Instead, what you should be doing is fight in favor of more protections for these rights, instead of fighting to have less protections.
More protections for humans rights are better. You should advocate for people to go even further than they are currently doing now, instead of concluding that you don't want these human rights to exist at all.
> The laws from 20th-century America are still on the books and are still being enforced.
Many of them were ruled unconstitutional by Brandenburg v. Ohio. Legal conditions for immigration and naturalization are an interesting legal problem though.
It's Apple's fault that they've built a system that is so perfectly suited for state-mandated censorship.
They had to have known this would have happened. The lack of sideloading on iOS doesn't just protect users from malware: it protects repressive governments from criticism and protects corrupt organizations with political power from reporting and attempts at organization or reform.
Furthermore, it's reprehensible for Apple to tout their commitment to human rights, but also appoint themselves the decider that you're not permitted to choose to see nudity in the apps on a device that you purchased. Only assholes decide for other competent adults what they're not allowed to watch, see, or read.
Inserting rent-seekers hellbent on surveillance into every single little purchase we engage in on a daily basis is the worst thing that's happened to our society in a very long time.
Yes this exactly. If Apple insists that they have absolute control over what you can install on hardware that you ostensibly own then they also bear the blame for for kowtowing to every jurisdiction's whims.
The ability to install the software we want on hardware we own should be every user's irrevocable right. Wrap it in three layers of warnings and opt-in dialogs if necessary to protect people but it needs to be possible.
Maybe you trust Apple enough to decide what software can run but are you also comfortable giving this power to whoever is in power in your government at any given time? It's an extremely dangerous precedent.
The app in question seems to be the outlet of Guo Wengui, a fugitive businessman wanted for corruption charges in China. (Whether the charges are valid or not I have zero idea. Incidentally I learned about this guy from the news of Steve Bannon’s arrest on this guy’s yacht.) So stating that this app is merely critical of Chinese government is lacking quite a bit of context.
Considering how often the Chinese government outright fabricates charges and “crimes” committed by those who oppose it directly, you’ll have to forgive me for being less than credulous regarding what he’s been accused.
The guy is now entangled in fraud in the U.S. (see Bannon link) and his outlets have been fabricating and disseminating election misinformation targeting Biden like crazy, so I see a pattern there.
> The longer reviews are reserved for new apps and edge cases.
As an App Store developer myself, I'm not sure it's true. For example, one of my 1.0 releases was "In Review" for all of 14 minutes, which is shorter than many of my minor update releases.
On the outside, we don't know how review works. It's mostly speculation. People talk about how they think it should work, but how it actually works is a different matter.
How many apps do you have? Have you had issues with other ones? Was this app under the same account? I'm sure heuristics are used to speed up the process where possible.
It's been awhile since I've written native iOS apps, but early on in the App Store days a developer could request an expedited review. We managed to get on this list and stay there for the entire life of the app. Even the dark days of long review times, our app never took more than 24 hours.
Shouldn't the reviewer check every update? What if the "minor" update contains some rule breaking changes? They can't know/assume from the developer's update description that it is a minor update, and don't have much other information about what has changed.
Otherwise it would be very easy to first publish a "normal" app, and then just publish an update with bad stuff added.
They do review every update, but they have a lot of automated tools that help a lot when reviewing minor changes. So for example, if only a few bytes have changed and the binary is only a few bytes different in size they can mostly rely on the tools. That’s probably most bug fix updates right there.
> So for example, if only a few bytes have changed and the binary is only a few bytes different in size they can mostly rely on the tools.
That's not how compiled optimized binaries work, especially not with Apple platforms, ever-changing Xcode and Swift compiler versions, etc. Have you tried comparing the binaries of minor app updates? (I just tried comparing the binaries of my own app updates, where I have the source code and know what changed, but it's not pretty, and not "a few bytes".) Moreover, App Store reviewers are not the least bit qualified to even make this determination with regard to "bytes changed".
Two binaries aren't even going to have the same load address for the __TEXT __text segment, and thus a lot of stuff will be different. You think App Store reviewers have any conception of the structure of a Mach-O? Now, one might try to hand-wave and say the "automated tools" will take care of everything, but that's extremely unlikely. Diffing binaries is a skill that requires a human with extensive experience in reverse engineering. If it were totally automated, then all of the securities researchers out there would have those tools too, but they don't. There are of course tools that help a lot, but the human researcher is still essential to the process.
Sort of. You submit either a binary blob or LLVM IR. The latter is great because Apple can do the final platform specific compile for you, and build out for new systems as needed.
Compilation is designed to be a one way process. Without optimizations, it’s relatively easy to get the general gist of the code back, but once -O3 is added, the code doesn’t decompile easily.
If a line of assembly is:
mov eax, ebx
...that doesn’t tell you anything about what eax and ebx refer to. They’re just x86 registers with no clear relationship back to the variables.
If Apple was demanding the debugging symbol database, that’d be something else. But they aren’t.
Automated tools will probably check private api usage and maybe some basic technical stuff, but they won't be able to catch a feature change.
And even if you were right, changing some text or url would pass your test as only a few characters change, but that could make a big difference regarding the feature.
The submitted URL was https://mjtsai.com/blog/2020/12/31/fired-app-reviewer-sues-a..., which points to several other articles. Of those, Volokh seems to have the most information, so we've changed the link above to that. If there's a better URL, we can change it again.
China is a major problem for 'western' companies. From sports and media companies that are walking on egg shells in case actors or sports stars, or even fans, say things critical of the Chinese government. De-funding or sidelining of movies potentially critical of the Chinese government. Imagine a film like The Manchurian Candidate being made now? It's not gong to happen, not from a major film studio anyway. The problems Apple is having here, and also with Chinese supplier companies possibly using transported Uighur labourers working under some form of coercion, can affect pretty much any foreign company operating in China.
In this case the App in question was pulled from the App Store in China. On the one hand I can understand it's the Chinese market so Chinese Government rules apply. Clearly this would not be acceptable if the App was pulled internationally. On the other hand, if the US government tried to get an App pulled when it's not clear the App violated any US law or App Store rules, Apple would fight it to the courts. That's a tricky course to take with China, but it's obviously the right thing to do.
If Chinese law says the App has to be pulled and a Chinese court says so then fine, I've no problem with Apple complying with that, the alternative would be to expect them to criminalise Apple employees in China. That's clearly not a reasonable expectation on any company. But at least it would force the Chinese authorities to account for their actions and make it clear what they are doing and why.
The problem is it's not really possible for individual companies to fight the Chinese government. Even for a company like Apple, the asymmetry in the power of the CCP relative to Apple is overwhelming. The CCP could crush Apple, and they know it. They hold enough economic power now that they could quite feasibly drive a major film studio to the wall, or slice off the whole profit margin of many US media or sports organisations.
It's time for western governments to work together on this. Congressional hearings in the US, debates at the G7 and G20. The WTO is pretty crippled at the moment and that needs to change. Whatever side of the US political fence you are and think about US imports, surely you all want to support US exports and the rights of US companies abroad right? I'm a Brit and ok we're out of the EU now, but on things like this we're all in the same boat and need to work together. We need to all support Australia in their current spat with the CCP.
We are desperately in need of a broad and international political debate about these issues. It affects all of us.
As most nations today, China has its own troll farms to foster positive sentiment. Sadly, I am sure that affects HN as well.
Come to think of it, US government does not appear to officially use them. Thus far I only saw allegations of various companies using them ( and I am sure they are ). I did hear various LEOs troll forums ( but that is for reasons other than saying government is awesome ).
You say “most nations”, but I find it hard to believe that any democratic country would teach its citizens, say, simplified Chinese, and order them to infiltrate Chinese forums and advocate against CCP. Only a regime that doesn’t have to worry about taxpayer’s opinion could afford something like that.
Speaking of COVID censorship, any English-speaking report on COVID on YouTube (especially from BBC, where comments tend to somewhat lack energy compared to reports by American media) tends to heavily feature commenters that ignore basic logic and argue that there should be an international investigation of the US for starting the pandemic.
I would consider it hilarious but it’s actually scary, a sporadic uncoordinated voluntary expression of approval characteristic to a democratic country can hardly compete with methodical systematic social media and forum warfare.
There have definitely been cases of astroturfing and vote bombing in the west, but it seems to be much less common these days because it almost always seems to get found out. If you think about it, the employees doing it aren't zombies, as soon as they leave the company they've got no reason stay loyal. News organisations are all over stories like that. The resulting bad press can be catastrophic for a company, far worse than any conceivable benefit from the behaviour itself.
For governments in democracies it's even worse, this is why most government conspiracy theories don't make sense. Why would government employees or even soldiers criminalise themselves to benefit a political party or president they might not even personally support? Once particular president is out of office, there's no reason to stay personally loyal to them so leaders can only rely on people's loyalty to the nation as a whole.
Conversely the CCP simply suppresses all discussion about the suppression, and disappears anyone who becomes too problematic. There are no divided political loyalties and no other political faction or press to go to. What's anyone going to do?
> There have definitely been cases of astroturfing and vote bombing in the west, but it seems to be much less common these days because it almost always seems to get found out.
Or, it seems less common because those doing it have improved over time so that it almost never gets found out when done by the real pros, only when done by relative incompetents whose visible failures shield the competent astroturfers from suspicion. The only thing that would make it seem common is getting found out frequently, after all.
Oh sure, it’s a matter of balancing probabilities. We can never be certain, since it’s not possible to prove a negative. Still, if we know there are balancing factors such as risks from press investigation, whistle blowers, accidental leaks, etc and still we see extremely low or no cases hitting the press, then it seems the balance of probability is that it’s relatively rare.
Compared to the extremely obvious, blatant, continuous Astro turfing, comment suppression, vote bombing and harassment we see by the authorities in China. Let’s not make any false equivalences.
For once I find myself in complete agreement with you.
The only reason I have sympathy for Apple in this situation is that at the time they began their investment in China, the US and the West in general believed that China was on a path to liberalization and genuinely wanted to support them as a global ally.
It’s not going to be easy to disentangle from that.
I know we frequently disagree about Apple, but I imagine we see eye to eye about more things than not.
I also agree that Apple and other companies may have waded into this water without realizing the changing tide. We might have been too hopeful of a good outcome, or simply didn't think long term enough. A lot of folks pictured a more liberal China, as you mention.
In a certain way it is quite funny that a "communist" society is actually using western capitalist's money to undermine everything about their society.
Because they’re not communists. Just like the Nazis weren’t socialists. For a better example, the DPRK (North Korea) has “democratic” in its name, but they are very clearly not democratic.
I keep thinking about what you said, because I think I have accepted that out of the two, I would rather live under US regime the CCP's. More importantly, it is now clear that China follows US steps in ensuring a level of cultural hegemony enjoyed by US for some time. Although, they seem to apply it more deliberately. I am not convinced that is good for a world in general. That path they chose is the path Russian communists would have loved to have taken if they had the tools China now has ( and yes, we provided those tools ).
US, despite certain misgivings, seems to have been a net good for the world ( not completely unlike Roman empire ). I am not certain China is, but have yet to see how it all plays out. Now, there are circles in US, that absolutely love China and the power the government wields there ( something along the lines of 'if only we could have US and China-like control, we would be all set' mindset ).
In short, I agree with you, we, as a species, should have a really hard discussion over what comes next. In a lot of ways, this is a turning point. I am not sure, we are ready to have that discussion.
The app was just the final issue, in the document it starts with a manager ordering him to work slower and then another complaining about his slowness.
But this is someone who is choosing to fight for a far right app created by a financer of Steve Bannon to remain in the store on the grounds of free speech.
How certain are you that everything in the complaint is true?
Seems like a stretch to claim that approving an app on behalf of an employer is protected political activity, but is this really so different from the pharmacist who refuses to fill a birth control prescription on religious grounds?
We currently have issues with approving our apps with app store as they demand using apple login. We have added it but they still do not approve changes. that is so annoying as it blocks some other things in our company...
They say app should be fully usable after apple login. We are e-mail provider and we are not startup. After apple is connected we ask user to enter existing credentials to add apple to his account (90% of cases) or register a new one (also You need to provide password there). Without password IMAP does not work for example..
AppleID should be usable as the only login to the app. As in, if AppleID is offered, you should not prompt for another password. Treat it like an authorized OAuth login. Whatever other hoops you must jump through to make this work are irrelevant to the guidelines.
So in this case how the hell apple login can be added to existing accounts (millions of them) without violating TOS? the only way to make sure user has access to account is by providing existing credentials which most of times preceedes Apple Login existence in our case
I recently published my first app to App Store and failed in the same requirement.
Guess I was lucky since It was approved a few hours after I added it.
However the bigger problem with Sign in to Apple is that they don’t follow the standard implementation of oauth/oidc as pretty much everyone else does...
> However the bigger problem with Sign in to Apple is that they don’t follow the standard implementation of oauth/oidc as pretty much everyone else does...
The OpenID Foundation seems to disagree:
> Apple Successfully Implements OpenID Connect with Sign In with Apple
I like apple devices, I always hated to develop for them. The burden of review on app store is just too much. I would rather prefer to do a web app and to be free, to make quick releases instead of chatting with apple reviewers for weeks when you need to publish some critical release. I don't need apple customers, neither they payment system. Web is king.
FWIW: As a dev I've made both contact with Apple and with Google reps and it was like day and night. Apple actually offers support and tries to resolve my problems while Google feels like getting some bureaucracy done at a public office or worse. (Speaking of European bureaucracy, YMMV.)
Well the difference is that as a general app developer you barely ever need to interact with Google. As for Apple, you do it a lot. I'd rather take rare and abysmal interactions than constant, annoying ones.
I've had numerous app rejections because of reviewers simply incapable of reading instructions, and it's immensely frustrating. Especially when important hotfixes etc. is put on hold for days for no reason whatsoever.
Instruction: Do NOT tap button X to log in, instead use method Z.
Rejection: Tapped button X, could not log in. Your app is broken.
Welp, time to resubmit and wait for a couple of days to possibly get the same rejection again.
EDIT: To clarify, the login procedure is different and simplified for test accounts, such as the ones reviewers are using. Real users need to identify with real ID for (valid) reasons.
> Well the difference is that as a general app developer you barely ever need to interact with Google.
Those days are over. Want to access text messages because you have 2 factor logins? Want to access phone logs because your apps measures how much time you spent on the phone with each of your clients?:
Be prepared for a lot of bureaucracy.
Of course you can't even access texts or calls on an iOS device, but then again when that's the case none of your customers can ever force you to build a feature around it.
Years ago, a family member of mine hired a college student to develop an informational application for their small business. This app offered reference guide type information for a niche. To set expectations, my family member paid sub $10k for the entire app to be developed when mobile apps were new.
After a few years it had attracted a few thousand users but needed updating and the developer was non-responsive. The family member of mine was non-technical and had allowed the developer to publish the app under their own developer account.
A saga begins that I won't bore everyone with the details but basically this family member didn't want to lose the thousands of users. They tried to get the developer to send them the app to maintain but the developer was non responsive. They tried to enforce their trademark on the app but Google would only delist it.
Now they had no listing at all for their company so they tried to start over. They tried to create a new app with the same name but Google's review process wouldn't let them because another app had already existed with that name. Armed with a trademark and people we knew who worked at Google we got exactly zero steps further after three months of trying to work with Google on the issue.
Eventually, we tracked down the mother of the developer who had ghosted on us and paid them to give us their developer account. Where we showed the trademark, had the app re-activated, and moved it to another Google account we controlled.
Basically, Google couldn't help us at all. It was a mess. Eventually we got things sorted but we had to go around Google.
Was this Google's fault? Heck no. The family member got unprofessional help from a student developer who ghosted on them but Google didn't make it easy to fix the issue. They made it impossible.
Party Foo allows party Bar to release an app using Foo's trademark. Party Foo wishes to release their own app using their trademark, as they've rescinded the permission of party Bar. Google makes this not possible.
How is that not a problem? Yes, parties Foo and Bar probably used the wrong procedure when releasing the app, but can't fix that.
Google has no exception handling ability, and it's awful. You can't merge G suite organizations when there's a corporate merger. Clearly, you should have known five years ago, that you were going to be purchased by X. Same story, no exception handling.
Google is not alone when it comes to poor exception handling. The case you cite (a corporate merger) is something they should absolutely support.
I recently had a problem with Dell/VMWare when we wanted to change the domain name associated with a VxRail cluster. After working with their support teams for months, they eventually threw up their arms and said; "It cannot be done unless you reset and do a fresh install."
That certainly sounds less than ideal. I have also had a few interactions of this nature with Google, and unless you have contacts in the company or have some sort of partnership, it's very hard to get any form of manual intervention.
That being said, Apple is also known for being incredibly draconian when it comes to account management. I don't think you would have been in a better position on iOS.
I think understaffed, off-shored and with a lack of permissions is just the baseline when it comes to this sort of tech support.
The fault was thinking you could pay less than $10k and get competent professional development devices for your app. That’s less than a month of a professional developers time. I had to pay half that just to get the interior of my house painted, and it took two people less than a week.
And without a maintenance agreement the developer isn’t going to help you, they have their own life to live. You think they are going to take vacation days from their next job to figure out that old code? As usual the problem is the client.
Full disclosure: I write this as a contract developer who had to take over an active app on the store when the client fired the previous developers, and tried to update it themselves. I have to update 140,000 lines of code with zero comments or documentation, and the previous devs aren’t accessible. In my case the clients screwed themselves, but got lucky cause I’m very very good.
On a side note; Not having a Swedish ID in Sweden makes a lot of things very cumbersome and some even impossible, having one makes one of the most straightforward and convenient bureaucracy systems I have experienced.
Yeah. The increasing reliance on BankID in Sweden is a blessing and a curse. For us swedes born into the system it's incredibly convenient.
On the flip side I've heard my fair share of horror stories from expats that get locked out of necessary services only because they don't have a social security number and bank account (yet). And that process can take a while.
I hope we'll reach a point where we have a better system than a simple Social Insurance Number in Canada, which has no cryptographic protection whatsoever and can be major pain in the butt if leaked from a data breach like with had with the Desjardins Credit Union.
It's very frustrating indeed! I don't know how many times I've edited and attempted to clarify the instructions, but I'm still getting bounces. I really sympathize with the reviewers who are probably under a lot of pressure. But it doesn't change the fact that a hotfix release of our app on iOS is anxiety inducing.
As a practical solution, I wonder if you could provide the reviewers with a fake id that you hardcode into the backend for test accounts. Whcih could allow them to use the same login UI (even if the underlying codepath is different)
The ID login flow is basically UI-less. The user taps the login button, a separate identification app (that basically all swedes have) is launched, and as soon as the authentication is completed the user is navigated to the logged in view. It's a very seamless experience, and a lot of swedish apps work this way.
On the other hand it means that it's impossible to determine which user is logging in until the proper auth is complete. And thus you cannot have "special accounts" using this flow.
It's been longer than that. I would expect this is a sore point with people because few professions allow their practitioners to knowingly ship defective products to meet a deadline.
Alternatively, why understand sarcasm when the lack of understanding provides some folks with an amazing weapon?
You need to do a better job documenting test logins and instructions for reviewers. Not defending Apple, but don’t half-ass the things you control when you go to review.
Lots of Apps have special log in system or even Apple Review User account just for the reviewers.
They will have the same hurdle. And resubmit again and again and possibly; again. That is why many developers are so frustrated. It isn't some one -off problems. It has been going on for years.
Just like the Butterfly Keyboard, it wasn't until a journalist wrote about it and mainstream media pick it up causing Apple PR damage before Apple acted on it. Just the same with App Store review. This time with DHH.
You create special ids, and logins for Apple reviewers so you don’t have this problem. Or you decide that’s too much hassle and accept the extra days in review as a different cost.
Well, that is what most of your users would have done anyway. You dealt with a reviewer instead of multiple angry users that couldn't log in, looks like the review process works.
Yeah, it’s amazing how painful Google makes any sort of developer support for a company that’s supposed to be “developer-centric”.
With Apple, you may have to convince them of your opinion, but you can very quickly talk to a human who will reply with an actual, thoughtful response.
With Google, if you manage to get a human on the other side of the line, you’re probably weeks or months later, several automated forms and replies deep, and completely confused.
PWAs are far from good experience. The user experience just in clicking a button in a PWA vs native app is miles away from each other and that does not even need any special APIs. Sure, it’s easy to develop but it’s inferior to native apps as long as the web rendering tech is not on the same level as native
I would argue that the render engine of web (CSS) is much more sufisticated than Apple's and Android's UI component frameworks.
A well written single page fully clientside rendered web app can be as fast and good-looking as a native app. In my opinion it's easier to develop as well.
I've done a lot of web development and iOS development (not so much Android so can't comment too much). I don't really agree with most of this statement at all.
The web is a powerful platform for a lot of reasons but I don't agree that it's easy to develop for, iOS is a much less hostile and predicatble environment to run client side code in. I also don't believe that CSS/HTML are particularly well suited to rich mobile applications in comparison to UIKit or SwiftUI. I still write PWAs and native apps and don't see why they can't coexist. Proponents of the PWA approach seem to really want PWAs to replace native development.
There is a lot of functionality and APIs that native apps have access to on both platforms, I'm not sure I see the point in browser developers implementing every single one of them when a subset can cover 70% of JSON-viewer type app needs, the remaining niche can be written as native apps.
can you provide some examples, preferably the best you can find. I'm curious what great experiences of PWAs actually mean, as I myself have not found any.
Looking at the replies to your comment, it appears there is a certain category of app that is better on the web (although it sounds like in many of those cases it is because their native app is so poorly implemented).
So, we're not likely to see video editing software on the web surpass native any time soon.
I don't know about great, but using Twitter as PWA on the iPad was better than the app b/c the iPad app was so bad. The app has since gotten better though.
My experience has been nothing like that. The developer portal is definitely a bit buggy but all my apps have been reviewed and approved very timely. Critical updates go through very quickly.
However I appreciate it’s a big process and given the amount of complaints online on how bad the process is, I put a lot of extra care to make sure everything goes through very smoothly. I use TestFlight a lot to test a lot and I look at the App Store process as akin to sending my software to a publisher and writing to CDs - I go to full efforts to make sure it is as perfect as possible by the point I’m submitting.
Also might have to do with number of users you have. Now I have quite a few downloads on my main app, so I may be getting a bit better treatment on priority fixes.
Manufacturing is one thing, the purchasing power of Chinese is another thing. China is about 15-20% of Apple's business and they can't afford to lose it. China will happily ban iPhone while letting Apple keep manufacturing.
Can you re-read my post and explain which part of it advocates for censorship?
You (and the downvoters) have entirely misunderstood what I said. I thought opening with 'China are a god-awful totalitarian lying genocidal state and Apple are ruthless hypocrites' would make it abundantly clear my stance on this. Apparently not.
I am no Apple defender, but I am not even sure what you advocate by saying cancel, which has specific political and cultural connotations. Do you want to boycott them? Say so. Do you want US to stop using the services? Do you want financial sector to divest? Do you want them to withdraw from China? Say so. It is difficult for me to guess without projecting my own thoughts on the matter. My recommendation is that you stop saying 'cancel'.
As for the suffering, while absolutely accurate and true, I would like you to consider certain sad truth:
“The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops"
You think people are suffering now, but they have been for a while. The only difference now is that we can't pretend we don't know about it.
Ok, so who do you go to that isn't? Even Fairphone is up to their eyeballs in Chinese suppliers and they say in their own literature they can't account for all their upstreams.
Apple are always the ones that get walloped publicly on issues like this, and actually I'm ok with that. It's good these issues get air time at all, if Apple didn't exist and it was all Microsoft, Samsung and such none of this would ever get out and if it did nobody would care. But pretending this is all about Apple, slagging them in a comment and then going and buying the next Chinese made gear from Amazon or whoever is just brushing this under the rug.
Oh absolutely, I've got a lot of respect for that team. I'm just saying even if you're wiling to really go the extra mile this can still happen. I think the only way to really address it is to put the blame squarely where it actually lies, with the people doing it. Holding manufacturers to account does play a role in flushing these problems out into the open, but we need to be realistic about the limits of what we can expect from them.
Isn’t Apple doing both a and b? They seem very open about struggling with suppliers, commit to goals they can use their clout to impact, and report on those goals using third party verification.
Purism’s Librem 5 seems to be a worthy alternative. They publish[0] schematics and aim to allow users to verify that hardware hadn’t been altered by a supplier.
Both efforts are great and well worth pursuing, but Purism don’t really talk at all about their hardware supply chain. Their focus in on the software and end user privacy, so they’re exposed to exactly the same hardware supply chain risks.
Disclosing suppliers implies existential possibility of a supplier that can be trusted. A user with heightened security needs understands that the only way to guarantee supplier trustworthiness is to personally be present at the factory.
Disclosing schematics (open-source hardware) and board x-rays removes the supplier trust requirement. A user with heightened security needs can diff received hardware with the reference (don’t trust; verify), or build their own phone to the spec.
You’re welcome to your view. But do keep in mind that one needs to follow the laws of each jurisdiction in which they operate, regardless of your opinion of that “rightness” of the laws.
Your breathless rhetoric is pointless too. When was the last time you actually bought or used an Apple device? You formed this view well before now, and now you’re just posturing.
Isn’t it example of «people "just followed orders" in the name of a payslip» quote? Apple could withdraw from Chinese market losing customers but staying clean of accusations.
Somehow Android phones exist in China, and somehow most of them allow you to install arbitrary apps. Apple chooses to build a platform amenable to censorship.
No, that’s not right. You’re confusing the owner of the distribution channel and the manufacturer of the device. In Apple’s case, it’s the same company. In Android’s case, it is not. You are further confused by the difference in channels available to each platform for installing apps.
Apple allows one channel. It owns that channel. It is responsible for the content on that channel.
Android had many channels, and Google’s App Store has the same apps banned, but an android user can simply use another channel.
Since Apple is responsible for the apps in the Chinese App Store, they’ll remove apps that expose them to liability. Google does the same.
I am not confusing any of the things you claim I am, nor have you provided any evidence of something I said even being incorrect. Apple makes an active choice. Somehow, many Android devices exist--built by manufacturers I don't see any need that name, which technically but only barely includes Google--and they don't have these issues because they did not make the immoral choice made by Apple.
> Apple allows one channel. It owns that channel. It is responsible for the content on that channel.
I understand this, and am claiming it is morally reprehensible: Apple's explicit and actively immoral decision to say there is only a single distribution channel can be used on their devices directly leads to this problem. They chose to build and sell a device with a centralized point of failure that made China able to block apps from their phones.
> Android had many channels, and Google’s App Store has the same apps banned, but an android user can simply use another channel.
I also understand this: the active and explicit decision made by the people who sell Android phones is what allows this. Apple explicitly decided to not allow this, because they are evil.
> Since Apple is responsible for the apps in the Chinese App Store, they’ll remove apps that expose them to liability. Google does the same.
Obviously. But that is entirely irrelevant to the discussion. The decision made by Apple to only allow a single store on their phones is an explicit, active decision to be horrible people and to explicitly allow Chinese censorship of their devices.
We know this wasn't a requirement to sell their phones in China, as many other phones are sold in China that do not have these restrictions. Now, you can happily say "Apple wanted to have a monopoly on app distribution, and that's why they decided to build a system that would require them to cave in to these censorship demands".
But you can't claim that they would lose access to the Chinese market. This claim, in fact, makes the error you (incorrectly) claim I do, which is to incorrectly model the decisions Apple made with respect to their platform.
FWIW, if you want to listen to me go on about this issue for an hour and a half--to verify I am not somehow twisting my words here to avoid being wrong--here is a video of me speaking at Mozilla Privacy Lab.
I appreciate your effort in fleshing out your arguments, but you’re still conflating multiple factors. You also seem to to have an ideology against Apple and/or it’s approach. While that’s fine, it becomes impossible to have a conversation based on fact or reason.
Your claim of offering only one software distribution platform as being morally reprehensible is absurd. All Apple phones can run any web app. No consumer is forced to only purchase an Apple phone. Apple hasn’t done any more than follow the law that they have to follow given other decisions they have made.
You’re right that they made an explicit choice, but not for the reasons you’re suggesting. The App Store wasn’t created to enforce CCP policy. One could argue that allowing the uncontrolled distribution of apps that violate that security and privacy of the user is far worse.
You seem to have an intense dislike of Apple for other reasons. That’s fine, no issues there. But it is causing you to misattribute blame. They are far from a perfect company, and the App Store is problematic for many other reasons.
However, you seem to ignore the same behaviour when conducted by other businesses. Why is it ok for other phone makers, movie producers, and game distributors to censor or alter their products for the Chinese market, but it’s the height of evil for Apple to do so?
If you are truely concerned about morality, look deeper. You should direct your outrage at the CCP and less so at Apple.
I think I just realized while Apple doesn't allow side loading apps. Because if you could side load apps, then Chinese citizens could side load apps, and Apple would no longer be favored in China.
This complaint makes me feel like it's as simple as that. Apple just fears China.
HN readers might be surprised at the extent of modded-iOS-app communities (just like APK communities for Androids) that manage to exist within the meager 7-day signing window Apple allows a free-tier developer account. Tools like AltStore and ReProvision are the standard for sideloading and renewing (respectively) legitimate jailbreak-entrypoint apps:
Even for un-jailbroken devices there are entire alternative ecosystems based around sideloading modded/pirated apps. They are obviously full of pirated stuff, usually work by abusing an enterprise cert from an endless list of Chinese companies (not insinuating anything bad, just firsthand experience), and they probably have some nasty malware mixed in here and there as well. Zero endorsement for any of these examples from the first page of a DDG search, but you get the idea:
That's a possible reason, but do you have any evidence that it's the real reason beyond it being vaguely plausible while making Apple look as bad as possible. Preventing side-loading improves iOS device security, which is just as plausible as your theory.
Yes, this is true. Welding the doors to your house shut also improve security. But it does so at the expense of usability. There is a reasonable trade off between usability and security and Apple makes an unreasonable choice.
If the judges hadn’t blocked Trump’s attempt at banning TikTok and WeChat (he had made clear intentions that he would go after more Chinese apps/companies as well) then Apple could’ve been in a position where they were forced to block Chinese apps worldwide, which would almost certainly guarantee that China wouldn’t be able to build popular apps that could be used to spread CCP propaganda and censorship, and influence elections.
Apple’s lack of side loading not only protect the users from malware, but it could also serve as the perfect weapon for the US government to make it near impossible for a company/nation to compete in the mobile app sector. That’s likely why 40%-Tencent owned Epic engaged in a desperate PR lawsuit to try to make it possible to side-load apps.
> Information control is no different from border control.
Well, no, it's quite different.
A border can be controlled, information cannot. East Germany could stop people crossing the border to West Germany (at least, those who weren't willing to take the risk of being shot at). They couldn't stop West German radio stations being broadcast back across the border.
Information control isn't anything like border control, because information is permeable to your physical border. You can shoot-to-kill people crossing your borders, but good luck doing that with electromagnetic radiation.
At best you can jam it or attempt to control the flow domestically (by, for example, banning radios), but in both cases it's easily circumvented.
Except for a couple of short contracts I am trying to ignore mobile app market. I just can't stand that I need anybody's permission to install / sell my products. Instant critical updates delivery that saved my bacon quite a few times is also out of question on mobile. I am aware about sideloading on Android but how many regular users are willing to follow through on that model.
I have nothing to say about the specific case - I think the app reviewer has an extremely valid case if he was following the app review process that Apple built.
Someone else already covered that this is Guo Wengui's app, same man funding Bannon's rule of law society report on covid lab leak recently.
> Guo Media App does not contain violent content or incite violence;
...
Hilarious recent drama among antiCCP Chinese diaspora in west:
Surrey assault victim: “They attack the real anti-CCP, actual pro-democratic activists”
>The protesters are part of the New Federal State of China campaign created by Steve Bannon and Guo Wengui, who are also involved in the media startups GNews and GTV. Associates have staged protests against critics in other cities around North America. Gao has been critical of Guo, who is wanted for corruption in China.
Granted CCP hates Guo. Like a lot. But I think this is mostly western politics due to Bannon association. If Apple was really sucking Chinese dick, Epoch Times would not be #2 app in magazines and newspapers.
E: is this about pulling from Chinese app stores? That's even less of a non story. Peak American exceptionalism thinking Apple should decide whether Chinese dissidents get media platforms in China or not. Not.
I mean the guy sounds like total shitheel, but how is it "American exceptionalism" to be against helping enacting state censorship? As a libcom and an internationalist I think no government has the right to determine what information people do or do not see. If your state relies on information control to exist then it is a fucked state.
Get out of here with this pro-authoritian crazy talk.
Every state requires information control to exist, secrecy is basis of national security. Multinational companies conforming to local laws and customs is status quo. Most companies sell products and services not ideology even if ideology gets imbued via marketing. Sometimes pre-existing ideology comes preloaded in because regionalization and cultural competence cost extra. The entire trade will export western values narrative - an economic bug that westerners have conflated as a soft power feature because non-western markets have been too small to advocate for themselves. Now they're not.
Global market =/= global values and global trade is not trade between peoples but governments. CCP wants to import phones, NBA games, blockbuster films not western values and certainly not western propaganda. No one expects US soybean farmers to bundle exports with bibles, but somehow expect Google or Facebook to operate in China without complying to censorship laws that domestic companies must adhere to. And the have the audacity to suggest these western platforms are "banned" in China when they chose not to operate there legally. That's peak exceptionalism mindset. It's time to separate trade with imperialism and stop expecting companies to execute foreign policy. US companies are already foreign policy instruments subject to National Security Letters, that's enough.
"No one expects US soybean farmers to bundle exports with bibles, but somehow expect Google or Facebook to operate in China without complying to censorship laws that domestic companies must adhere to. And the have the audacity to suggest these western platforms are "banned" in China when they chose not to operate there legally. That's peak exceptionalism mindset. It's time to separate trade with imperialism and stop expecting companies to execute foreign policy. US companies are already foreign policy instruments subject to National Security Letters, that's enough. "
The argument is interesting. You may be right about non-western markets. I am not an expert so I won't address it.
"Global market =/= global values and global trade is not trade between peoples but governments"
And not both? It is possible that I am misunderstanding the statements. Could you elaborate?
"CCP wants to import phones, NBA games, blockbuster films not western values and certainly not western propaganda."
We all want things. But NBA, films, and values ARE all part of western propaganda. CCP may think it is cutting all the dangerous thoughts from the movie, but all it does is creating a streisand effects resulting in bans on number 8 and winnie the pooh. On the flip side, why does US have to comply with Chinese propaganda efforts?
"No one expects US soybean farmers to bundle exports with bibles, but somehow expect Google or Facebook to operate in China without complying to censorship laws that domestic companies must adhere to."
I genuinely do not understand the comparison. Could you provide a different example?
"And the have the audacity to suggest these western platforms are "banned" in China when they chose not to operate there legally."
Well, both statements are true are they not? They are banned, because they do not adhere to local laws. Stuff in Turkey is banned too and they are called out on it. It is not audacity to say water is wet.
"That's peak exceptionalism mindset. It's time to separate trade with imperialism and stop expecting companies to execute foreign policy. US companies are already foreign policy instruments subject to National Security Letters, that's enough. "
I am stealing "peak exceptionalism' phrase. I agree with the sentiment, but it is not realistic based just one the comments you made at the very beginning ( "Multinational companies conforming to local laws and customs is status quo.").
International trade across border is fundamentally state to state agreement. Chinese citizen #1 does not directly engage with US company #2 when they make a commercial exchange. Geographic border is quite literally a physical barrier where transaction friction is reduced with instruments like trade deals. It's always mediated by laws from both parties (import/export controls) and sometimes a superbody (multilateral organizations). Smuggling wouldn't be a concept if relationship is between people to people.
> ARE western propaganda
Everything is political, but some politics are more acceptable than others. Censorship in media has gotten pretty overwhelming in PRC last few years, but "cutting all the dangerous thoughts" is gross hyperbole. Marvel blockbusters do fine in both China and US with minimal editing. Ditto with NBA before HK drama. Most western brands for that matter. There's overlap of shared taste in commercial goods and popular media, same can't be said on actual political news / propaganda like this instance. Especially this instance, if people knew what Guo is to CCP. Cracking down on speech and foreign influence is matter of priority and perspective.
> different example
Hard to think of one right now. Point is no one attaches values to trade of commodity items. No one insists McDonald's must sell pork/beef burgers in Islamic countries or India because of values, but when it comes to censorship and China/Vietnam, it's unreasonable for US social media platforms to follow local requirements. We're not even touching on a future where foreign companies actively endorse Chinese propaganda to cater to Chinese identity politics, instead of current reluctant endorsement due to legal compliance.
> why does US have to comply
No one has to comply, just don't expect market access, nor whine previous access is lost.
> banned
Dodgy Chinese brands vehicles aren't in US because they're banned but because they don't meet safety requirements. There are entire sectors of economy where foreign companies are actually banned i.e. some financial services. Implying western tech are banned is simply false, see Bing. But it's the basis of lots of grievance politics in tech, i.e. endorsing tiktok ban as reciprocal when tiktok follows all US laws. Same is not true vice versa.
> not realistic
Apple / Bing continues to operate fine in Chinese market. FB / Google were working on Chinese compliant services a few years ago. Maybe I'm misinterpreting. If you mean multinationals being beholden to multiple jurisdictions including home countries which supersedes everyone else, then yeah that's a finicky problem especially in tech when data can be weaponized. But that's a very broad matter of strategic policy decisions.
We have shady information control practices in the western world too, but it's about spreading lies or spinning things to distract from the suppressed truth rather than censoring directly. The effects can be similarly sinister or even worse in some ways. It feels like the US public is losing their collective mind due to conflicting narratives on everything. There's no big majority consensus on even some basic facts as of late.
I didn't say "it is worse", and, no. The comments and downvotes here are getting as bad as Reddit. It's supposed to be a place for intelligent discussion.
In an odd way, we also had a glimpse of real information control vis-a-vis Hunter story. If that did not open people's eyes, I am not sure what would. The system of control is different and distributed, but the principle remains largely the same.
There was an attempt in 2012 to pass the "Global Online Freedom Act of 2012", prohibiting US companies from assisting foreign censorship operations. Didn't pass.
Apple's history of censorship is strange and amusing. They have, at various times, caved in to both China and Russia. Sending the word "Taiwan" from an iPhone with a Chinese country code at one time crashed iPHones. [2]
[1] https://fair.org/home/chinese-censorship-of-us-media-new-spi...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Apple