> March 2021, Apple reportedly agrees to preinstall Russian software
Wait, this regulation is a result of an antitrust case against Google and Apple started by Yandex, as both were using their platforms against their direct competitor. The same thing that many people want to see in EU and US. Clearly it doesn't belong to the list and the author did zero research on this, but included anyway because it fits the bad guy narrative they are trying to push.
What's even funnier is that Apple threatened to withdraw from the russian market rather than having to do this, so the question is who's the real bad guy here (how about "a tech giant threatens an unimportant country to be able to bully domestic competitors"?). I guess everybody is horrible in this story, because the government had to compromise and omit the requirement to be able to uninstall this software, and they also included many companies who were large enough to be able to lobby their interests, because obviously they didn't want to make a single company special. Now Samsung reportedly has a backdoor deal with Yandex to install their software as system on Samsung phones, so it's being shoved down customers' throats. Nice.
And unlike say the copies of Facebook that Samsung has preinstalled, you can delete these afterward if you change your mind and decide you don’t want it. They’re not unremovably baked into the system.
> What's even funnier is that Apple threatened to withdraw from the russian market rather than having to do this, so the question is who's the real bad guy here
Problem is that Apple for years claims moral high ground, while they’re happily cooperating with authoritarian governments around the world. They can claim moral high ground if they leave after threatening, not just for threatening.
You have to put your money where your mouth is. Like Facebook did with China (not saying they have moral high ground, but that’s an example of company losing tons of profits and helping competition grow, to avoid bending to authoritarian government).
Exactly. I have been saying Apple is now walking on the same path as Google once did. Their "Do No Evil" line.
Had Apple never claimed moral high ground, they would then have the benefit of doubt. And increasingly there are more and more evidence their words and actions differs.
From what I remember Apple had the philosophy caring about their customer, which in 2021 encompass security and data protection. But it's unrelated to banning apps and freedom of speech. They are compliant with local regulations the same as a bank service, a wifi router or any manufactured product have to be compliant. So I would say it's more of a recent marketing problem, it's true they care about customers, but they go too far as saying they are human rights advocates (and also their focus on services put them in a more difficult position like Google or Facebook which IMHO they were not before as a product company).
> Now Samsung reportedly has a backdoor deal with Yandex to install their software as system on Samsung phones, so it's being shoved down customers' throats.
No clear evidence, sorry, you're right. It's only a rumor that is circulating everywhere, I should have made this clear but only realized this now. Another poster above/below noted that it might have been a misunderstanding of the law by Samsung, according to Yandex CEO. Which is also possible of course. (nonetheless, they still shipped unremovable software in a firmware update)
I don’t care whether it was antitrust decision by (kangooroo) courts or not. As a Russian, I don’t want to use Yandex in any capacity since it’s complicit with oppressive regime and gradually becomes part of it, sharing data and targeting citizen with surveillance. One of the reasons I used Apple is because it was relatively free of Russian state-sponsored spyware.
Trust me, I don't have a single illusion about Yandex or the government. Neither I say the solution was perfect (it's terrible and awkward like most regulations are). But I also don't have any illusions about any other company. Making it sound like Apple is cooperating with some nefarious plot is a stretch. They've been forced to back down in a fairly clear case. Dealing with Yandex own business ambitions or the government spyware or regulatory overreach are entirely different questions that are out of the scope of this case and should be solved in their specific ways.
American corporations also help thugs, racketeers, and police target you. Did you not recently see the scandal with police and repo agents (and anyone else willing witu the money) paying for location data of users?
Besides, can you not simply uninstall or not use Yandex or Mail.ru?
You can buy at least Americans' fine grained location data, sold by corporations. The government in fact argues that it's not subject to fourth amendment protections since it's just available on the open market.
You don't have to use dark web here either, the data brokers are regular companies with physical addresses and everything. It's just not common because people don't know about it, but there are no practical or legal barriers.
And I know about this from outside of the verge, I just believe in providing citations.
The difference is a fantasy at least in the US. Your online activity even if protected by the company and not sold on the open market is subject to the subpoena powers of the state. These powers apply to all "business records" and have been contorted to serve as a justification of mass surveillance.
This illustrates the how governments are using tech companies to do their dirty work. They are the velvet glove over the iron hand of the state. They conceal and enable that which would otherwise be an obvious authoritarian grab prevented by civil liberties providing a convenient fig leaf over over otherwise naked government power.
I would expect this to be the case in all jurisdictions these companies operate in.
There is a difference between this and VK (owned by Mail.ru) basically having a web interface for police or anyone with money to read your messages.
You can bring a lot of “Apple is just as bad” outsider evidence, but I don’t know anyone who had their data leaked by Apple.
Yet I have dozens of anecdotal cases of people harrassed and targeted by using Russian networks. I mean you can basically buy my phone call history and parking surveillance for a few bucks online.
> There is a difference between this and VK (owned by Mail.ru) basically having a web interface for police or anyone with money to read your messages.
The only difference is that while US law enforcement can read Facebook messages, it has no interest in Ivan from Samara. But have no illusion: every government wants as much access to data as it can, and will use it against you.
As an American, I use Yandex image search for any sort of 'edgy' meme that I want to find again - Google image search has been filtering anything that might offend.
You can delete and not use the yandex software in this case right? It seems more like govt mandated but removable crapware added more for protectionist reasons than spying reasons in this case.
As a Russian you could try to change your government. I don't really understand what people want here. Companies to ignore the laws made by sovereign governments?
That's cyberpunk stuff.
> I don’t want to use Yandex in any capacity since it’s complicit with oppressive regime and gradually becomes part of it, sharing data and targeting citizen with surveillance
Really? So the USA and it’s allies don’t spy, and aren’t oppressive? What do you do with the information revealed by Snowden (about the NSA and Prism), Assange, and with the Crypto AG story?
I’m curious if you see those those things as less severe than Russia’s oppression/corruption?
>those things as less severe than Russia’s oppression/corruption?
These things are vastly less severe than anything going on in Russia (am Russian). In the US there is at least due process, public scrutiny, and the US government doesn't generally torture or murder its citizens(on its soil). Comparing the situations in these two countries is like comparing current protest killings in Myanmar, and police shootings in the US with the words "see, in the US the police also kill citizens", i.e. it's dropping 99% of the context and of the cultural situation/differences/beliefs.
Speaking first and foremost about actions against its own people, none of the (real and troublesome) activities of the US government are in the same league as what the oppressive authoritarian Russian state is doing. The comparison is insulting (to the intelligence of the reader, first and foremost).
Yandex cooperates with the Russian state, which sends people to (horrendous, torturous) prisons for, among other things, reposting a meme critical of its hard line of oppressing LGBT people. It assassinates domestic political opponents. It snoops on, disrupts and if necessary curtails any serious efforts at political organizing. No comparison can be made with the US government.
The US government sends people to prison for owning the wrong plant or the wrong type of lobster. It assassinates political opponents - definitely foreign, likely domestic. It snoops on, disrupts and if necessary curtails any serious efforts at political organizing (they actually called Zuckerberg in front of Congress because Facebook was not censoring enough people! Facebook! That was freaking mind-blowing.)
If you're Chinese or Russian, ignore my comment. But if you're an American, you need a bit of perspective. Literally most countries on Earth do orders of magnitude of worse stuff on a daily basis than US. And literally no other country has an egalitarian setup where anyone can potentially succeed. The countries that are objectively better than US in terms of human rights for own citizens, are very few (Switzerland, Nordic countries, few others which are either small/or have homogeneous population). I am stunned when I read comments suggesting that US is as bad or Russia or China.
> If you're Chinese or Russian, ignore my comment. But if you're an American, you need a bit of perspective. Literally most countries on Earth do orders of magnitude of worse stuff on a daily basis than US. And literally no other country has an egalitarian setup where anyone can potentially succeed. The countries that are objectively better than US in terms of human rights for own citizens, are very few (Switzerland, Nordic countries, few others which are either small/or have homogeneous population). I am stunned when I read comments suggesting that US is as bad or Russia or China.
Your critique misses the vastness of the violent capitalist system that exists and operates today:
"Place Silicon Valley in its proper historical context and you see that, despite its mythology, it’s far from unique. Rather, it fits into a pattern of rapid technological change which has shaped recent centuries. In this case, advances in information technology have unleashed a wave of new capabilities. Just as the internal combustion engine and the growth of the railroads created Rockefeller, and the telecommunications boom created AT&T, this breakthrough enabled a few well-placed corporations to reap the rewards. By capitalising on network effects, early mover advantage, and near-zero marginal costs of production, they have positioned themselves as gateways to information, giving them the power to extract rent from every transaction.
Undergirding this state of affairs is a set of intellectual property rights explicitly designed to favour corporations. This system — the flip side of globalisation — is propagated by various trade agreements and global institutions at the behest of the nation states who benefit from it the most. It’s no accident that Silicon Valley is a uniquely American phenomenon; not only does it owe its success to the United States’ exceptionally high defence spending — the source of its research funding and foundational technological breakthroughs — that very military might is itself what implicitly secures the intellectual property regime." [1]
Can you show me a critique that is more clear and true than this? I have quoted it a million times and that's because I just haven't heard a better explanation.
An area where capitalist firms are doing a lot of damage using their IP system is in the global south:
"The possibility of a handful corporations monopolizing healthcare and agriculture in the developing world is a very real risk today. Closely associated with these corporations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) - the richest and the most powerful philanthropic foundation shaping these sectors globally - aids them in the process of monopolization by granting huge funds to its network of NGOs to carry out activities which mainly benefit these selected corporations, in many of which the foundation has considerable financial stakes.
Apart from making such grants, through the vehicle of Public Private Partnerships (PPP), the foundation also has been facilitating the flow of millions of dollars of taxpayer money into what are essentially private projects.
The foundation also plays a crucial role in lobbying for stronger IPR regimes which oblige developing countries to grant long patent periods for drugs which are only minor alterations of already existing, off-patent drugs. In Africa, this foundation is one of the most powerful forces that is arm-twisting governments to gradually rewrite seed laws to provide patent protection for commercial seeds, which would eventually require criminalization of all non-certified seeds.
[...]
Far from aiding the production of cheap drugs by generic pharma through means such as technology transfers, the corporate giants, including Bill Gates’ Microsoft, “lobbied vociferously” for acceptance of TRIPS agreement, which obliged member countries to agree to grant patents to pharmaceutical companies for a minimum period of 20 years. Microsoft again lobbied the G8 in 2007 to strengthen the protection of global Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), which, Oxfam warned, is bound to “worsen the health crisis in developing countries”, the New Internationalist reported.
Stifling the development of generic pharma by lobbying for stronger Intellectual Property Rights regime (which, contrary to incentivizing innovation as is widely claimed, has the opposite effect as demonstrated by many empirical studies including one by U.S government ); facilitating a flow of enormous subsidies into private projects of closely associated pharmaceutical companies, not only by making philanthropic grants but also by channelizing through GAVI alliance the public money granted by various states; and protecting selected corporations from potential competition in the market by locking countries receiving assistance through this programme into long-term commitments to buy vaccinations they manufacture - all appear to be a multi-pronged strategy to monopolize the global healthcare industry. And being “the single most influential voice in global health”, Bill Gates is more than well-qualified to be at the helm of this machine." [2]
People like Gates grew up with access to an immense amount of privileged high quality knowledge, theories and pedagogical material available to them - access to the immense inheritance of humanity's scientific explorations. Yet what makes them powerful is that they have kicked away the ladders they themselves used to climb up in the first place.
The US and it's capitalist allies are powerful because they have created one big corrupt intellectual property system that favors the already powerful capitalists. There is no opting out of it. Through IP laws this system criminalizes sharing and turns inventions and science into commodities to be bought and sold. Helping ourselves and other humans is criminalized.
If the boy geniuses of Silicon Valley are so genius, why do they need to turn something that is not scarce (knowledge/science/inventions) into something scarce, and lock it away as a trade secret? How can we speak about egalitarianism when this system is so clearly the opposite of that? This system is not democratic, it's a bourgeois run prison.
> Literally most countries on Earth do orders of magnitude of worse stuff on a daily basis than US.
The reason there is violence in other countries is exactly because people in these countries are deeply implicated and entangled in the global capitalist production system, which is being led and directed by global north capitalists.
It's easy to pick on Apple, when you don't know the history of these political issues. Not picking on Red Hat, but because I know this from the first hand it was 18 years ago that they removed the Taiwanese flag from KDE3 control center: https://redhat-list.redhat.narkive.com/b3p8HQaa/bug-70235
Apple is not a government, it's a business. They'll either have to obey the local laws or they'll lose business.
Corporations are not “de facto” governments just because they’re large and profitable. They may have governance structure within themselves, but they don’t have a monopoly on the use of force anywhere, they don’t tax, and they’re not sovereign. Moreover, what de jure government do they functionally supersede in the places where they’re the de facto government? This is a tortured argument.
I think what they are trying to equate, and have done that poorly, is that Apple has equivalent POWER to some governments. However it is functionally NOT A government and not even close - their mandates, structures and most everything are completely at odds.
Moving to another state or country because you don't like their taxes is a vastly different response than refusing to buy a phone because you don't like the manufacturer's stance on human rights.
From an assets and income standpoint, maybe, but they’re not a de facto government unless they have sovereignty, and they don’t. Once they can decide on which wars to start with which countries, maybe we can talk then.
That's a rather naive thing to say about the wealthiest corporation in the world. I can't deny the overwhelming influence of money on governments so easily.
What characteristics of a government do you think it has? Assets and income? A government is something that 'governs', not something that has assets and income.
And what would be the real division line between having the same power as a government and being a government? Negotiating collective trade agreements on behalf of constituents? Creation and enforcement of rules? C'mon, light up that line for me because I think it vanishes under light.
Presumably not, as long as those government requests/demands are valid within the eyes of local law.
To say otherwise is to suggest that companies should exist above the law, and ignore the rule of law where it’s inconvenient. I don’t think that’s a precedent you want to set.
With regards to moral obligations of US companies seeking to do business in countries that don’t uphold the same standards as the US. I would argue a better place to have that conversation is in Congress, which could then seek to apply export controls to all companies. Rather than just relying on the good will and moral judgment of amoral companies.
I would personally love to see restrictions on trade with China tied to their human rights violations. But don’t think right approach is campaigning individual companies.
Either a company has some sort of conscience or not. I know that companies are created to make profit but there is a certain boundary after which it's fair that they are under public scrutiny, even if there is no government embargo on China.
Sure, but my personal ability to encourage change through a boycott is limited. A large company's ability is orders of magnitude higher. And often I don't have much choice what company I buy things from based on what's available, and even when I do, they all often have similar (or different, but just as bad) problems.
But this goes into a bit of a policy/morality/philosophy question: should companies have high moral standards, and give up market share in places where they are unable to adhere to those standards? The stock capitalist answer is probably "no, gaining market share and increasing profits is more important". Personally I think that's a fundamental problem with capitalism.
The way companies are run today is built around the church of stockholder value, above every other concern. (Which sucks, but you can’t argue with reality)
Companies have no moral compass, and we should never expect the to behave in any moral way, unless someone thinks it’ll create more stockholder value than acting immorally.
I can’t help but feel that all this hand wringing about what Apple (or any other large company) should or should not be doing is a waste of time. Time that would be better spent trying to build consensus around what principles we as a society care about, and wish to project into the world. Then we should just write laws and regulation to make it happen, and to force the hands of companies.
Anything else strikes me as futile and pointless. A distraction from achieving real meaningful change.
I don't think we should expect companies to be moral agents. It's not that they shouldn't be, but more that it's impractical because what's right and wrong (or simply acceptable) depends on who you ask. Furthermore, companies willing to operate immorally have a competitive advantage over those which don't -- if Apple didn't cooperate with authoritarian governments or exploit developing countries for cheap labour they won't stay competitive and a company that does those things will take its place.
The answer IMO has to be regulation. We have to cut off the incentives companies have to act immorally. The problem of course is that this could then make the economy as a whole uncompetitive so politicians are equally unlikely to take action.
Not to be a doomer, but on the issue of China the West has probably waited too long to take action at this point. This would have been easier in the past, but now China has become so dominant, and with Western companies and economies being so dependant on China for labour and manufacturing it's hard to imagine any significant business or political intervention happening.
In fact, this is likely just the beginning, in the future when China is the core market for most multinational companies political intervention basically becomes impossible. No company is going to pull out of their largest market (especially if it's growing faster than the US).
This is gross misrepresentation. They did not lobby against it, they lobbied for some changes including being clearer and more specific about which Chinese organisations were covered. They did ask for some deadlines to be extended but do not oppose the law. Apple has a strong anti-slavery policy, polices it's supply chain and has excluded suppliers for violations. Can you provide any examples of another company doing more?
I’m not certain what “strong” means here. If it meant principled or effective they wouldn’t need deadlines extended because they would already not be slavery adjacent.
Strong in the sense that they have already identified violators and excluded them from their supply chain.
The legislation introduced additional requirements that it would take time to comply with. Note they didn't object to complying, only asking for more time to implement it.
>“What Apple would like is we all just sit and talk and not have any real consequences,”
The bill is not about Apple. If Apple is doing everything right, their costs may increase marginally. The bill would force US companies that don't have as good human rights records to comply. Apple lobbying against the bill is enabling this.
Summary: Apple wants to save little money. Result of that would be that unethical US based companies could continue their unethical business in China.
I think you're completely misunderstanding the incentives for Apple here. The theory is they don't want to deal with doing anything about forced labour, because evil, therefore their changes must be to water down the legislation.
That's not the situation though. They already have a forced labour policy, already do supply chain audits and have even already dumped suppliers for violating these policies. Their actual proposed changes really are just to make the legislation clearer and more enforceable. The reason is because then everybody else would also have to do what Apple already does, and face the costs and accountability the same way Apple does. This legislation is a windfall for them because it creates an expensive moat that it's hard for their competitors to cross.
With the App Store, Apple’s really brought this problem upon themselves whether they agree with what they are told to do or not. Any sort of centralized distribution mechanism is always going to be the first thing an authoritarian government targets when trying to take down content they don’t like. On iPhone it’s even worse because the App Store is not only a centralized distribution mechanism but the only distribution mechanism. If you want something gone, you can just force Apple and that’s that for iPhone.
I sort-of agree. Apple must be bound by the laws of each nation it operates in, but those laws can be in conflict, and even a company cannot be the servant of two masters [0]; the only solutions I can even imagine boil down to properly separate versions of — call it “Apple Software and Services Inc.” — in each jurisdiction. Same for Google.
[0] It’s been annoying me for years that I, a British national living in Germany, have to tell the US federal government about all encryption I use in apps made solely for the German market. What happens if it starts annoying the EU, too, and they pass a law saying we can’t tell the US government anything about it?
This would also seem to be a vulnerability of Canonical's centralised snap store. Would they take down submissions containing content that the CCP objects to?
This is incorrect. It does not have commands to pull from other app stores and Canonical has stated they have no intention of adding external repositories of any kind. It does have commands to manually install a pre-downloaded snap package, but you have to put `--dangerous` on the CLI and you won't get auto-updates for that manually installed package either.
The "Apple will preinstall apps for the Russian government" bit is untrue, and has spread around due to shoddy tech journalism. iMore, which repeats the falsehood in the article title[0], includes a translation of a Russian news article:
> The agreements stipulate that the first time Apple is purchased in Russia, the user will see a dialog window when setting up, in which he will be asked to install applications from the government-approved list by default, Vedomosti said. It will be possible to refuse installation, removing ticks in front of certain applications, explains the source of the publication.
So really it is an opt-out list of apps presented at setup, which are downloaded and installed after user confirmation. The apps are, presumably, still subject to iOS security policy.
It's clearly not ideal, and reminds me of the dark years of trying to avoid accidentally installing the Yahoo Toolbar. But it's not as evil as it sounds from the headline, and it would be stupid of Apple to pull out of the Russian market over this (as iMore says they once threatened).
Save your rage for when iMessage encryption is nerfed, and government-approved apps are no longer opt-out.
This doesn't sound particularly evil to me and seems perfectly in line with the Russian government's intention of reducing its reliance on American tech companies (by nudging consumers in the direction of their domestic alternatives).
IMO, doing this would be a good idea for Europe, too. To some degree laws like the browser choice thing already go in this direction, but they still mostly present American alternatives.
Most of this "X does Y with authoritarian government" is basically individuals picking up government signals (propagated through the media) for the new enemy of the day.
That's why it gets increasingly more frequent at a particular time (whereas China has been authoritative for decades when the same now "indignant" people didn't write about it), uses the same talking points (often of some bad but useful source that's repeated as gospel, "orange revolution" style opposition, ex-pats with axes to grind, etc.), and is focused on the singled-out "enemy du jour" even if there are tons of allies doing the same or worse.
Selective government talk points, "leaks" to the press, propaganda pieces, "exclusive access", etc, fuels this further.
Until there's another enemy to focus on, when it all deflates.
Even though I agree with your view in general, it's worth pointing out that the article author is not a random "individual picking up government signals".
Jesse Squires is quite prominent contributor to the Apple's macOS/iOS development ecosystem and he definitely cares about Apple's reputation and the future. Apple is his bread and butter and if he's concerned with what's going on on this front there is something to think about...
Yes. In the past year I have heard endless breathless "news reports" about how China supposedly manufactured Covid in a lab, to how they are committing genocide with Uighur muslims, to how they are not respecting the UK's continuing dominion over Hong Kong, to how they never innovate and only steal technology from the US, to how they are being aggressive in the east China sea, how they're threatening Taiwan, and on and on and on.
Of course I have been hearing the same thing at various times about Cubans, Venezuelans, Russians, Palestinians, Iraqis, Syrians, Iranians, Libyans - Blinken just denounced the arrests of those involved in the post-coup massacre in Bolivia. And on and on. This piece is an example of the drive for ever expanding imperial policy under an authoritarian government.
Thanks for bringing that up. It was very obvious last year and is now that the election period is over. While the issues are real, the correlation between geopolitical consideration du jour and the media putting the spotlight on democracy issues is important to keep in mind, so that we remember to not be blind to other regions (e.g. Yemen) or don't let it deflates like you said when the focus move.
Thnak you for outlining this. I’d even say the “enemy” is more often than not one that disturbs the established neo-colonial structure. The moment a “new player enters the chat” - countries start with the “enemy speak” that you talk about.
This should be in the mind of anybody using an Apple device for its privacy / security feature and not living in a democratic country and even in democratic country, but there is usually more safe-guard against police overreach in democratic country.
Apple will "take a stand for their users" when they can do it with no consequence (for example when they refused to decrypt an iPhone for the FBI). But if the country can ban you from doing business for not "fully cooperating" with their law enforcement, they will abide (unless the country is irrelevant for their business).
I won't say that it is any better than using a non-encrypted device, or less secured device, since, in a lot of cases, even Apple cannot "break-in" their own device. But don't think that Apple won't send everything they know about you to your local police.
I don't think it should surprise most people (and in a way, don't you want company to comply with your laws ?). But when Apple talk about privacy, remember that it's privacy toward other company, not the government.
Which governments are "bad"? Who gets to make that decision?
The UK government is defying international law in the Chagos Islands and has broken its treaty with the EU over checks to/from N. Ireland. Does that make it a "bad" government that private companies should not do business with? If the UK demands that an app is withdrawn from the app store, or that private communications should be turned over to government agents with no justification, should a private business refuse to do that? The same arguments can be made for the USA (as the article does).
People generally get the government they deserve. If a country is authoritarian, then it's up to the people of that country to deal with that problem, not private companies. China's government is representative of the wishes of its people, and if it's not then China's people will deal with that.
Contrast that with Myanmar: the democratically elected government has been overthrown by the military, who are in the process of killing anyone who protests about it. This is clearly different. There can clearly be no international co-operation with this regime, because it's obviously been taken over by bad people. There should be international outrage over this, and action from the international diplomatic community - part of which should be guidance to private companies about whether to co-operate with the military regime.
Well the U.K. government is a democratically elected one for a start. On the Northern Ireland border, wasn’t it the EU that that unilaterally broke the protocol by invoking article 16 without even checking with Ireland? My point is that governments do things that anger other countries all the time. That doesn’t make them a bad government, that’s just politics. There is however a clear and significant difference between a democratically elected government and an authoritarian regime.
The UK is a literal kingdom with a first past the post voting system and a media dominated by Tories (including the BBC). Recently they’re trying to ban all protest while the police is beating up those of us that resist.
China’s elected national congress that includes easy recall and competence-based civil servant positions doesn’t seem any less democratic.
Come on bud, that’s a silly argument disproved with a 2 second google search. The U.K. ranks 16th on the democracy index, and China ranks 151st. At this point I can only assume you’re arguing in bad faith for fun.
The problem today is that you have these nice laws to protect the media, but they themselves are not taking responsibility for their own actions, instead they pander to the prejudices of their readers. They have failed to realise that "free speech" (and other rights) can be exercised in a very negative way, and are undermining their own society for the profit motive, or other political motives.
And you’d rather repeat imperialist propaganda, much of which contradicts itself or has been repeatedly debunked.
Last UK election, a small sliver of all votes actually mattered in electing the government. My vote in a solid Tory borough may as well not have been counted.
What due process exactly? The one provided to Assange? Or to those beaten by police for daring to protest? Or to the hundreds that die in police custody?
What free press? Most papers defend the Tories. Have you even seen how demonised Corbyn was almost universally, how unified the slander was?
I’ve spoken to a quite a few people that live in Hong Kong, many support the PRC and condemn the US-backed unrest. I know a few people in Taiwan, many are for some form of unification with the mainland. I know few people in Xinjiang, but from what they said the situation in the western press is being vastly misrepresented.
I'm not the person you spoke to but I can answer this question from my own perspective:
I'm Chinese, grew up in the UK, but I do consider moving back to China as a long-term option that I'll have to think seriously about. The main barrier for me is language & culture, my Chinese skills are awful; for other similar people I'd expect finances too but luckily that's not the case for me.
My parents came to the UK from China to study because they wanted a better life. That was in the 90s where China was admittedly a bit of a shithole, relative to other countries including the UK. My dad went back to China after a few years of working, because he felt he'd do better in a country where he understood the culture better. My mum stayed in the UK because she really really dislikes the Chinese government (for historical reasons). These days they occasionally mention that some of their classmates, that stayed in China, are doing better than them. My mum is quite stubborn though so she doesn't consider moving back as an option.
My cousin visited the UK a few years ago and told me "oh is that all it is" - there's still a cultural impression that western countries are really great, so he thought it'd be way more impressive (he only visited Aberdeen and Manchester, never London, but still London is not that much better), and that's why rich parents still send their kids to school in the west; similarly there's still a cultural impression from western countries that China is a bit of a shithole & authoritarian to boot - but reality has changed a lot in the past 30 years.
I do not believe there is any systematic suppression of the Uighurs in Xinjiang (where they are a majority), this is not consistent with Chinese history. As far as I can make out, a very small minority of people are being held for anti-extremism purposes; but generally the Uighur population and culture are thriving in Xinjiang - there are lots of primary sources on this, search "life in xinjiang" on youtube for example.
The media is certainly currently waging a disinformation war against China, blowing the reality up into "genocide", "cultural suppression", "sterilisation", etc - this is all inconsistent with the masses of primary sources, and the cheap propaganda tactics are disgusting and shameful. The few concrete individual reports that we do have, many of them have also been debunked or are obviously inconsistent (e.g. changing stories multiple times).
The camps may not be great compared to regular life in a first-world country, but compared to what the US did in the middle east - killing 100ks-millions of muslims - Xinjiang is probably the best result that a country has achieved in the world (so far) in fighting terrorism, and that's why most muslim-majority countries in fact support China on this issue. Of course, everyone can strive to do better, but that's not how western media is portraying it.
Oh, “the democracy index”? Good thing we have a neutral and objective measure of each country’s quantity of abstract democracy. I’m sure there’s no cultural chauvinism or politically-motivated biases at play here.
Do you have any specific criticisms of that index, or just generalized ideological grievances? Moreover, are you saying that the UK is not meaningfully more democratic than China, and therefore that index is inaccurate?
I don't think "democracy" is something you can measure objectively like a scientist in a lab. What these indexes measure is proximity to Western liberalism, but I think different peoples have the right to their own forms of government.
They publish extremely detailed methodology for each country, so feel free to browse and let me know which parts you disagree with (assuming you're not in China, because you probably won't be able to access this there. All that democracy hey ;)
* There are no direct or competitive elections for national executive leaders.
* Elections are not administered by an independent body.
* China’s one-party system rigorously suppresses the development of any organized political opposition
* The political system is dominated in practice by ethnic Han Chinese men. Societal groups such as women, ethnic and religious minorities, and LGBT+ people have no opportunity to gain meaningful political representation
* China is home to one of the world’s most restrictive media environments and its most sophisticated system of censorship, particularly online.
* None of China’s national leaders are freely elected, and the legislature plays a minimal role in policymaking and the development of new laws.
* The CCP regime has established a multifaceted apparatus to control all aspects of religious activity
It goes on and on. All of this seems pretty tangible to me? Again please let me know what I'm missing.
This methodology is biased towards a western perspective on how democracies "must" be run. Taken literally, a democracy is a direct democracy, but no country today is a direct democracy because everybody recognises that it has flaws. So every democratic system tries to make a balance.
Yes, China fixes a 1-party state, but how does that differ from fixing e.g. the judicial branch in the US system which also cannot be elected?
The minorities angle is just weird and shows you have no understanding about China - minorities generally have preferential policies in many aspects of law, e.g. the One-Child policy (now Two-Child policy). That's more than you can say for the US.
China's censorship system is not that sophisticated it's just large scale. The purpose is more to ensure large-scale stability, and they don't care about small-scale private conversations between individuals. The US is currently grappling difficult questions about how to moderate fake news, large corporations are stuck in a difficult place - on one hand they are accused of promoting fake news, on the other hand they are accused of suppressing free speech. So just because China took a strong stance on this, does not mean they are "evil" for doing so.
Again, you need to have some cultural background of China before judging it, rather than judging it based on western preconceptions of how a democracy "must" work like.
The National People's Congress in China has more members per capita than the US House or Senate as well as more independents and minority party representation.
The NPC has a higher percentage of women than the US Congress (exceeding the world average).
Ethnic minorities make up 8% of China's overall population, but they make up 14.7% of the seats of the NPC. They also make up 7.3% of the more than 90 million members of the Communist Party of China (which also consists of 27.2% women). Ethnic minorities make up 39% of the overall population of the US, but only 25% of the US Congress.
A study by the Harvard Kennedy School found 93.1% satisfaction with the central government in China in 2016. US Congress currently has a 29.3% approval rating, but has been hovering below 20% for most of the last decade.
The two viable US political parties are overwhelmingly funded by billionaires and large corporations. Those two parties decide the criteria for acceptance into the presidential debates which prevents minority parties from gaining national prominence. Billionaires and large corporations also own all the major media outlets and platforms, and they use that power to control narratives and deplatform inconvenient political figures and ideas.
Therefore China is more democratic than the US. See how easy that is?
I'm from the US so that's what I'm qualified to speak about. It rates highly on this supposedly authoritative index so that's why I used it as an example.
What I mentioned about the US is not conjecture. The funding of US political parties is public record. The Commission on Presidential Debates was created by the Democratic and Republican parties. The ownership of the major US media platforms is also public record, and they just unilaterally deplatflormed Donald Trump and QAnon groups.
What's utter nonsense is saying the NPC "plays a minimal role in policymaking and the development of new laws" or that the CPC has a "multifaceted apparatus to control all aspects of religious activity."
I guarantee I've looked into the claims of systemic extermination and genocide against China more seriously than you. I wouldn't be speaking positively about the Chinese government if I thought those claims held water.
I notice from your comment history that you are the business of defending the CCP at every turn. I’m not sure that we could take your work for everything being a-okay with minorities in China.
Is that an argument? I notice from your comment history that you defend the UK at every turn. Why is that more legitimate than someone from the middle of the US taking seriously his country’s history of foreign coups and war crimes and trying to find truth outside the bubble of Western propaganda?
I want the US to have a government that fosters friendly international relationships of mutual benefit, that takes poverty alleviation seriously, that takes ecological preservation seriously. China is doing a better job than the US on all those fronts right now so for me they’re worth learning about.
> favouring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom
This currently describes a lot of European countries. The proponents will make the argument that this is only "temporary authoritarianism" in the pursuit of "safety", but we've seen how that works out before.
Your attitude to Myanmar is directly at odds with your criticism that people deserve the government they get. There's no difference between what the junta in Myanmar is doing now and what the CCP did to reformist protesters in Tiananmen Square. You can't say the Chinese people deserve that, but the people of Myanmar don't. That's completely inconsistent. Belarus is still under the control of an autocratic dictator despite many months of protests, which will almost certainly fail. Do the people of Belarus deserve to lose?
This is a good point. I would say there is a difference of degree, but it's very debatable.
My stance has been heavily influenced by my experience living in Cambodia. They have an authoritarian government. But they have also an authoritarian culture. Attempts to create a democratic government there haven't failed because the regime are a bunch of bastards (they are, but that's not the point), but because the people generally haven't supported it. Part of this, I'm sure, is their traumatic experience with the Khmer Rouge. I see so many parallels with what's going on with Myanmar. I don't see so many parallels with what's going on in China.
Can we measure the legitimacy of a government by the number of protesters it has killed? Seems like a better measure that "compatibility with Western economic interests" which seems to be the current measure.
I am from South Korea. This is the same "culture" bullshit argued about South Korea 30 years ago. Kim Dae Jung who dedicated his life to democracy in South Korea and who went on to be the first president elected from the opposition wrote a through rebuttal in 1994. Go read it.
Is Culture Destiny? The Myth of Asia's Anti-Democratic Values (Kim Dae Jung, 1994)
He went on to "write" an even better rebuttal by being elected in 1998 and building the foundation of South Korea as a fully functioning democracy in his term. Now the result speaks for itself.
I'll dig it up and read it, thanks for the pointer.
I heard this from several Khmer acquaintances - they're fed up of Westerners coming to Cambodia and trying to enforce Western ideas of democracy and "freedom" on them. There are a shit-tonne of White Saviours running around Phnom Penh trying to "save" Cambodia, so I totally get this.
A home-grown idea of Cambodian democracy, from Khmer people who are actually interested in what Khmer democracy would look like, is a totally different thing. If that's what happened in South Korea, then that's fantastic.
We should also remember that we are discussing a different civilization to that of the 'western' sphere.
Not in the orientalist sense of being incomprehensible, but by just by understanding the political history and hence the intuitive sensibilities of what is understood to be a just way of running a government being quite different.
This is not to claim democracy would not fit all, but rather, it is quite a different thing to introduce it to an environment which already accepts as its philosophical inheritance the democracy of Athens, the Republic of Rome, the Magna Carta, and so on, to one for whom these are exotic and foreign historical references.
And frankly, a stable government - no matter how legalistic or authoritarian - is almost always better than no government at all (ref. all the areas with failed states and ruled by warlords).
In a political environment that has never known anything but authoritarian rule, it is actually quite safe bet that any destabilizing forces are not trying to "improve peoples lives" but actually just to replace the existing authoritarian power structure with a one of their own.
So... while mistreating demonstrator is reprhensible ... the situation is not necessarily about "good v.s bad" but actually about "stability vs. chaos" and in both situations there are losers - only in the "chaos" case the number of losers is larger.
I will just quote from Kim Dae Jung which I mentioned elsewhere.
"The proper way to cure the ills of industrial societies is not to impose the terror of a police state but to emphasize ethical education, give high regard to spiritual values, and promote high standards in culture and the arts."
So no, authoritarian government does not lead to stability and democratic government does not lead to chaos. You get stability by educating the next generation and promoting the culture.
I totally agree with that - that it begins with education.
Cambodian education at the moment is corrupt. You bribe the educator to get into a course. You bribe the examiner to pass an exam. If your family is rich enough, you never need to even attend a class.
Changing this is not going to be possible from outside. The Khmer people will need to want to change. I don't think that's true at the moment. I hope they'll get it eventually.
I did not claim democratic government leads to chaos, but rather the absence of government that does. Perhaps I am not familiar with all the discussions about this topic (I believe democratic governance is the best possible but have not experienced non-democratic societies so have strong cultural bias).
This relativism is ridiculous. As much as western governments have their own problems - are you seriously going to pretend individuals are protected similarly between China and EU or US ?
I'm saying the Chinese people have the right to determine what government they should have. No-one else gets to decide that for them.
But saying that one government is "better" than another can be seen as imposing your standards of "better" on another culture. Especially if you choose to ignore some criteria and select others - the USA has by far the highest percentage of its population in prison in the entire world[0], so yes you can make a serious claim that China "protects its citizens" better than the USA.
The argument that local people have the right to determine what government they should have is true but a bit irrelevant in cases when they do not have the practical ability to do so. For example, Hong Kong; for example, another comment above who responded to a Russian's comment with "As a Russian you could try to change your government." which is laughable knowing the fate of opposition organizers. Asserting that "the people of X alone have the right to determine what government they should have" implies "the current government of X is what X should have" if and only if that government was democratically elected in fair elections.
As you say, "no-one else gets to decide that for them" - which also includes all the non-democratic regimes currently clinging to power after losing the consent of the governed. For example, look at Belarus - other countries don't have the right to unilaterally determine what government Belarusians should have, but, crucially, Lukashenka also does not have that right, he does not get to decide that for them.
Look, I get this. I'm not saying it's not a little bit tricky to depose a despot once he's got his grip on power.
But I see Westerners go to places that are culturally different, and ignore all those differences, and assume that the only reason the government isn't "non-authoritarian" is because the population need help deposing a despot. Sometimes it's not that. In Myanmar it is totally that, and we should be doing something, because the army are shooting civilians every day. In Cambodia at the moment, not. In China, probably not.
In Cambodia I was a CEO. Khmer culture means that you never contradict your boss. I had some really candid conversations with colleagues that I knew well, and who knew me well, I'd call them friends. They would still never contradict me, even if they knew I was wrong, and knew that I knew I was wrong. It's a different culture. You do not question authority there. That's not because authority will punish you, but because (as far as I get it as an outsider) social harmony depends on social stratification, and social stratification means not questioning those above you. It all sounds problematic to westerners, who go there and try and impose western ideas of justice, free thought and free speech. But they just come off as White Saviours, tone deaf to thousands of years of Khmer culture.
In Cambodia all this lead to the Khmer Rouge and a genocide. I see lots of parallels with what's happening in Myanmar. I think there comes a point where we do have to step in and say "I know you are an authoritarian culture, but this is too far, you're shooting civilians". Don't forget, this is Myanmar people enlisted in the military who are shooting other Myanmar people. The same was true in Cambodia - a lot of the trauma of the genocide was "how could we do this to ourselves?". It's a very complex situation. There's a huge difference between this and China.
I don't know enough about the situation in Belarus to comment. I don't trust Western media enough to present an unbiased view of it, and I don't know any Belarus folks to give me their view. I'd like to go visit - I hear it's beautiful there. But pandemic.
I think really all they’ve said is that different countries has different cultures, and that in turn result in different types of government being acceptable.
I’m not going to get involved in the details here, because there are many countries and governments out there, and everyone has different views on which is “best”.
I think the topic was overall quality of governance. This affects the lives of all citizens, not just those in the political opposition. There is quite large variance in the capability to govern with CCP and Tatmadaw.
What protection? And from what angle? Sure western governments do treat their own citizens better comparatively. But at the same time as soon as some country starts refusing to dance their tune they'd be more than happy to "democratize" it into oblivion and ruin with the bombing being cherry on top. They're also happy to prop and support murderous regimes when it suits their overall goals.
Outsider does not give a shit how well western countries treat their own citizens. If one comes home and starts picking up bits and pieces of their family members in the rubble that used to be their house they might hold very different opinion.
You can't really compare CCP with the likes of Tatmadaw or Lukashenko's clique. While all of them are authoritarian, the quality of their governance is quite different.
The difference with CCP and Tatmadaw (Myanmar army) generals, is that the CCP actually understands how to govern.
Tatmadaw is making things objectively worse for everyone economically, while CCP has succeeded in improving the lives of Chinese people. (Yes, and it is authoritarian and suppresses ethnic minorities but these qualities do not signify it as inept).
Or in DD terms, Tatmadaw is borderline chaotic evil while CCP is lawful evil.
The point in contention was legitimacy, not competence. The Myanmar Army is unquestionably making things better for themselves, their families and their commercial interests. The CCP is very efficient at expunging non-Han regional cultures, suppressing dissent and the institutionalising the rape of minority women, among other things. In both cases they are only interested in pursuing selfish goals.
Chaotic Evil is selfish anarchy. The Tatmadaw doesn't want anarchy, they want highly regularised, conformant subservience to their rules. If anything they find democracy too chaotic for them to stomach.
Huh - my Strunk & White-fu is rusty. "Obviously" I meant - 'As a ruler Tatmadaw is in many ways much more inept than CCP and thus more harmfull to it's citizens'.
>"After all, their laws means nothing without without a nod"
Let's say there is a trial in regards to some schmuk killing his neighbor over some argument. Do you think that Mr. Xi are hawking over judges shoulder making sure the outcome is proper? I have a news for you - he is not. Or look at this case for example: https://www.cnn.com/2015/05/19/asia/gallery/china-nail-house... . Where do you see big hairy paw of CCP?
I am pretty sure if outcome of some particular case really threatens CCP they'll interfere. But in the course of a normal life their laws do work.
Lawful evil in the context of DD does not mean "law abiding".
"A lawful evil villain methodically takes what he wants within the limits of his code of conduct without regard for whom it hurts. He cares about tradition, loyalty, and order but not about freedom, dignity or life. He plays by the rules but without mercy or compassion. He is comfortable in a hierarchy and would like to rule, but is willing to serve."
I find this characterization quite fitting with the worst aspects of CCP rule.
Of course "order over human rights" is part of legalism as a framework for governance so labeling it as "evil" may or may not be culturally insensitive.
Apple complies with all governments in markets that are sizeable to their business.
Authoritarian governments that are into surveillance love looking into your icloud and itunes accounts. They use FISA and National Security Letters to pry into your and everyone elses life.
> July 2017, Apple removes VPN apps from China App Store
This is the only thing keeping me from buying an iPhone. Their control on what apps you can run on your phone is absolute. This may not be a problem in liberal countries where pretty much every website is available. But in some places VPNs have become a necessity.
And you are the one voting for them. A government isn’t an isolated entity, people vote for them in democratic countries.
However, it’s much easier for people to vote with their wallets in their everyday life (for ex. by buying from companies with certain environmental policies or labour policies) than to expect governments to change.
You can choose to buy a phone or computer that is less involved in this type of behaviours.
Unfortunately, no electable party offers this choice, at least in the USA. Both major parties pay the bare minimum lip service to opposing authoritarian regimes, but neither of them actually do anything substantial.
EDIT: That said, it’s hard for a country to unilaterally effect change in another sovereign country without going to war. Hell, how many countries embargo North Korea and it has no effect?
The USA (possinly EU as well, I havent followed the news on this) are also actively supporting other extremely repressive regimes - most notably and uncontroversially, Saudi Arabia. They have even all but endorsed Saudi Arabia's murder of an American journalist on foreign soil (they have officially condemned it, but have taken 0 measures beyond a declaration).
US government imposed sanctions on 17 Saudi officials who were connected with the killing.
They couldn't punish Prince Mohammed bin Salman because he is expected to be King at some point soon which means any sanctions would be nonsensical. How does a travel ban for example work against the leader of any country let alone an (unfortunate) ally.
There simply isn't any good options for punishing world leaders.
Erm, no. A single JDAM would send much stronger signal. Of course it would bring repercussions, and that is the reason for purely symbolic actions taken instead: USA won’t do anything that could hamper their military influence in region.
I have an issue with hypocrisy, like maybe you are a gay CEO or promote yourself as LGBT friend , respecting of women equality and at the same time kiss the ass to some governments that would stone you to death if they could get their hand on you.
When an individual is promoting itself as a green tree lover person on social media to score points and then you find he is a fake because money is more important, then IMO is fair to call on the hypocrisy/facade.
from the scandal where the whole world found that Apple tracks you each time you open an app I personally concluded that privacy is an after-thought at Apple. The entire thing would have been designed different if the developers at Apple were competent and at the same time care for privacy (so either they don't care about privacy or they are incompetent but care a lot)
When the company we are talking about has the wealth and power of a nation, well, we have the right to criticize it. Also, we are able to criticize both governments and companies at the same time, with the same effort.
What makes you think that wealth gives you power of a nation? Unless Apple starts making its own laws, hire or train its own army, it is just another cow for the government.
Oh, ok, so no actual government powers, just the ability to petition for policies that suit them, subject to competing interests having their say, with all decisions ultimately made by folks that don't work for Apple.
While I agree, I think in most cases there is a “morally right thing to do”. If the laws in certain countries go against the right thing, then maybe it’s time to go against those laws. Of course that’s easy to say as an individual. For a company it essentially means giving up your market in that country.
I don’t think that matters, if you’re the CEO of a company, and are doing business in a country where you’re obliged to give up your morals, then it’s up to you to either throw away your sense of right or wrong, or give up the country and stand up for the right thing.
I find the word "problematic" in the first paragraph. That's usually a sign, but it is a word that people use, so whatever, let's ignore it and continue.
Sure enough, the article enters a tirade about the "human rights violator in chief." Draws motive from an advertisement with the then president of the US in it, and advertisement of an american company, the first trillion dollar company who reached that valuation under that president, and attributes it to the CEO. The CEO of apple will stoop to any level to garner favor, lower than cooperating with authoritarian dictators even, so says the article.
Adidas, H&M, Nike etc were all signatories to the Better Cotton Initiative which were heavily critical of widespread human right abuses in Xinjiang.
They have been subjected to pretty harsh treatment from China including their online stores being disabled, frozen out of third party stores, supply chain disruptions and lots of critical media stories from government mouthpieces.
Google refused to censor search in China, and got the GFE blocked by the GFW.
Later they bent over backwards to get back in with a special censored search (Project Dragonfly) which got "cancelled" due to western and employee backlash (but wasn't really), continued a bit in secret, then really cancelled (so it was reported).
Not at all. I read that story as the suggested apps being on the AppStore and having gone through the normal vetting by Apple. If so, then the government doesn’t have access to any more backdoors than already potentially exists in for example WeChat or Alipay.
Yes, it's a double-edged knife, but let's keep in mind that the government actually has enough power to spy its citizens without tampering the devices, with the social networks, cell locations...
Very true but a side loaded app can do so much more. Possibly even act as a key logger. Definitely provide info about all your whereabouts during protests.
Yeah, despite not as free as common linux distributions (can Android even be considered Linux at all?), it is the better choice in these kind of situations.
It happens, but not often - I’m struggling to think of an example. I am sure they exist.
It isn’t that surprising that an authoritarian power structure whose sole purpose is to create wealth for the owners of the structure would ally themselves with... an authoritarian power structure whose sole purpose is to create wealth for the owners of the structure.
> (Note: you may be wondering why I have included the US in a list of authoritarian governments. Let me remind you of the outrageous police brutality that we saw last summer. And let’s not forget the orange elephant in the room.)
Okay then. OP seems to suggest that a private company should take the responsibility to defy government requirements and orders because the government is labeled bad?
I don't think it's very practical.
Besides, an OS or device vendor can arbitrarily dictate what kind of app a user can get, in my opinion, is the true elephant here.
Unfortunately there is no money for Apple, or anyone, in putting your family safety and privacy first, since selling you out is far more profitable since most people don't care. By the time it gets bad enough for them to care, it will be too late to turn back.
Disillusionment with the way things are going is the reason I've kinda decided to step away from tech. I will miss the income, but I won't miss the dystopian hellscape. I'm buying a farm. Gonna raise chickens. Will automate as much of it as I can with non-cloud FLOSS and my own code and sweat. I will not try to grow it to billions, I will prioritize my time.
I think people would have far less problems with tech companies selling to anyone if they didn’t push moral crusades themselves. Apple is clearly interested in pushing its own ethical views, but only when they don’t risk serious profits for it. It’s a special kind of self-serving hypocrisy; paint yourself as noble when nothing is on the line, but keep mum when you might lose something.
If they stopped acting like moral crusaders and simply said, “We sell computers to anyone with money,” there would be much less of an issue.
There are zero companies going to war with China. It is simply outside the sphere of their influence. I know you haven’t used the word war but the general and unwarranted disappointment with Apple for doing business with the people of China is deeply rooted in an unrealistic understanding of geopolitics. I think it would be great for Apple to openly denounce the PRC and defy them utterly but I also think it would be great if they would gift each citizen of the world a brand new iphone.
Apple is trying to disentangle itself from China slowly, as are all the smart companies with labour investments in the country. Is Apppe supposed to be the only company willing to take a massive hit to their business by defying China? Almost all of their manufacturing is being held hostage in the country.
I hate the PRC, extremely counter cultural, hate wealth disparity, all that but I can’t fault Apple for playing ball here.
I would rather Apple cease being a moral arbiter entirely. I don’t need a computer company in California telling me what I’m allowed to do, say, think, or read. That is the business of governments and individuals.
Apple is not a moral arbiter of anything lol you remain free to do, say, think, read whatever you want, even beyond the Apple ecosystem. Whatever you can’t do within theirs, however, is well within their right to constrain because businesses also have the right to design their platforms the way they want to. Anything else beyond their willful design is within the territory of government intervention, and strong proponents of free-market capitalism who want Apple to do something else should really rethink their philosophy on how the state and the economy should be designed.
>Apple is not a moral arbiter of anything lol you remain free to do, say, think, read whatever you want, even beyond the Apple ecosystem.
Do you really though? There are a handful of major competitors and they're all acting in coercion with similar ideology. So, no you're really not free to say or read what you want without shunning big tech entirely and hoping you find some other platform they haven't stomped out yet.
Maybe you missed the "I would rather" part, offering an alternative.
The question is not Apple's right to control speech on their platform. It is their hypocrisy in wanting to control speech in free countries and at the same time cozying up and doing the bidding of authoritarian states. You cannot have it both ways with out looking the fool. Impose ethical standards in all cases or none.
But you can have it both ways. If I can reasonably control what happens on my platform in country A, I will. If I cannot do so in country B, then I won’t.
Another country could be fully authoritarian. If I can’t do X in China but I can do it within the legal framework in the US, how is that hypocrisy?
It's specially annoying when your're not american, but I feel it way more with Google and Social Media. It feels like having anglo political frame pushed down the throat, it gets boring pretty quick.
The worst is that it is successful with newer generations, and they divert their attention to anglo issues instead of local ones.
I don’t see Apple pushing their web moral views. They sell to a particular audience. In the US, they cater to a specific audience and want to be careful with how that segment views Apple on particular social or political issues.
You or I don’t have to agree with Apples policies or public statements on these matters, and we certainly don’t have to buy their products.
Companies or their founders pushing certain policies is nothing new. In my opinion, there’s an unreasonable standard tech companies are held to. At the end of the day, their job is to make money for their stakeholders, for better or worse.
You said it perfectly. It is surprising to see so many people coming to the defense of poor pitifual Apple, the richest company in the world. They have little reservation over doing business with vile regimes to squeeze a few more pennies per unit out of an iPhone. Then they buck dance for every social cause under the sun back home. Hypocrites.
> If they stopped acting like moral crusaders and simply said, “We sell computers to anyone with money,” there would be much less of an issue.
I'm not so sure. There are (a loud minority?) of "woke" software developers now that will try to drum up pressure on your company from within and without if you sell to "anyone with money" (see: GitHub selling to ICE). Google frequently has to deal with this, I'm sure Apple does too.
Maybe mitigating/ignoring woke outrage is preferable to the corporate ethical schizophrenia you described (it's certainly simpler), but I don't think the issue would go away.
woke developers are acting as moral crusaders just like Apple is. renaming "master branch" to "main branch" doesn't solve anything. posting the latest Twitter slacktivism hashtag doesn't solve anything. it's just for show, to appear virtuous while still collecting big tech paychecks.
I'd have more sympathy if he didn't include, in his primary examples, one that he himself admits there's no evidence for.
there is little direct evidence to support this exact claim. While I am willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt and consider this an inconvenient coincidence, I would not be surprised if this were a deliberate move.
"I would not be surprised if" is not how honest argument works. On the other hand, at least he admits it. A hit piece would have insisted it's all true.
It is reasonably likely that, in a pinch, the US uses iPhones to target missile strikes. There is no way the iPhone isn't being used in cooperation with the NSA spying program either.
It isn't new for corporations to cooperate with the ugly parts of government. I don't really understand why Apple is being singled out here. They are better than average because at least their abuses are fairly obvious and they don't make plays to control people's data like certain other companies.
Apple made this problem itself. They wanted to retain a full, complete control on what users can do with their product. This made their App Store a single point of failure. Coincidentally, those authoritarian governments want the exact same control on their people so it's perfectly natural to see their relentless attempts to control App Store. The solution is obvious, but I'm 100% sure that Apple won't take that path unless it's forced to do so.
I think it is kind of an unreasonable expectation that businesses will flout the law of countries they operate in out of some sense of principle. There are plenty of unsavory actors right here at home Apple answers to, and I’m not sure that a world of sovereign corporations would be improvement anyway.
This seems like it misses the point - American companies doing business with authoritarian regimes that don’t have American interests at heart, are inherently un-American and unworthy of American support.
Either we’re in this together, or the invisible line in the dirt means nothing and I want my money back.
> authoritarian regimes that don’t have American interests at heart, are inherently un-American and unworthy of American support
Foreign democracies don’t have American interests at heart. Should we cut trade ties with Germany as a result?
Our power comes from trade. Backing up into ideological autarky would be self defeating. Similarly, asking individual companies to stop trading with countries their competitors may legally trade with is dumb.
Convince your fellow voters to put on sensible, targeted tariffs and sanctions. Or accept that commerce plows wider fields than ideology.
I think it's pretty damn weird people think Apple should probably be solving the problem of authoritarian governments around the world.
Apple isn't Superman. It's just a company selling phones and some other things. Their leverage over the legal and regulatory systems various countries is limited... a very good thing, BTW. If they had more, do you really think they would use it only for good?
Apple definitely listens to China, since their entire manufacturing is there and it's a huge market for them, but the claim that Apple listens to Myanmar has no basis at all. Why would they care? And there's a ton of other VPN apps.
The author indirectly advocates sanctioning these regimes. If that is the case, their best path is through government. Playing whack-a-mole with individual companies is, while decent clickbait and PR fodder, useless with respect to real-world outcomes.
> In Seattle, Apple has given the feds vital evidence from one of its iCloud users who was arrested for firebombing cop cars during the George Floyd protests in late May.
> The case shows how Apple is willing to help even where the context of the crime is controversial, namely the Black Lives Matter protests.
EXCUSE ME??? Are you saying that firebombing cars is somehow an acceptable act in the context of a protest, and that helping track down the perpetrator of such an act is a bad thing?
Nice faux outrage. Perhaps he is saying that utilitarianism is a race to the bottom and that our actions shouldn't be based on an evaluation of an actions consequences but rather on the universality of it, such that we act only according to that maxim by which we can also will it to become universal law?
Whether I made it too `pseudo-intellectual' I don't know, or perhaps rather, I must have because the point went over your head. My point was exactly the opposite, there are no desirable ends: either Apple should be allowed to assist law enforcement or they shouldn't, regardless of what ends this might bring.
It's not only apple. Almost all of the big tech doing that these days, either out of concern about their manufacturing resources, or other motives.
Something I won't support, but can understand their motives behind.
But I am trying to understand how this part fits in the list.
"November 2019, Trump re-election campaign ad shot in Apple’s Mac Pro plant in Austin
Given the context and the headline, Apple working with authoritarian governments. Unless the author thinks the US is authoritarian.
I don't see any problems with any high tech executive supporting one politician or another, if the author is making the alleged Tim Cook's support for Trump the reason to include that in the list of incidents showing Apple working with authoritarian regimes.
I don’t remember the exact controversy, but I remember some controversy during the Obama years where a prominent US company complied with some censorious Chinese requirements. Obama said something along the lines of “I wish you’d come to us before agreeing to this. We would have helped.”
As these the list starts in 2017, I wonder how much of this is the result of the US’s decreased willingness to export its values abroad during the Trump years.
What I like about his blog, is he makes it pretty clear why he's saying what's he's saying, both when defending and criticising Apple. You may disagree with him (I often do), but it would be nice to see you showing disagreement with Gruber's line of argument, rather than just TL;DR part. Makes the argument less tribal.
His _why_ is his beliefs. He doesn't _believe_ that Apple would do what was claimed.
It's hard to rebut him when it's all the language of belief - I have no more facts about the situation than he does. That's the beauty of beliefs, facts are optional.
Capitalism is perfectly compatible with Authoritarianism, Fascism, and worse.
We cannot rely on the agents of Mammon to rid the world of authoritarianism. That is a hopelessly naive approach. They’re just not that interested, and they’re a poor fit for the job.
Capitalist companies are good at making things, they’re good at making profits, but by design they are useless for meaningful social change and increasing freedom, because they themselves require the maintenance of a world of peasants and kings.
I am always amazed and surprised when reading comments on HN regarding Apple, even though I know what I will read.
No matter what Apple does, the Apple apologists come out of the woods to defend their overlords.
I always like to play a little game, which I believe could also be a nice browser extension.
Read the comments and articles, but replace the word Apple with Microsoft. Opinions and stances would shift dramatically under a minute.
I cannot fathom that there are adult educated people living in a free democracy defending a company which works with a authoritarian government which is involed in a GENOCIDE.
Can we retire this argument already? Or at least show hard data to back up this tired claim—it’s been made so often, it should be doable by now.
From anecdotal observation, any big company mentioned on HN will have critics, apologists, critics of the apologists, and (perhaps most relevant) fans of the company who criticise their behaviours. Apple isn’t special in that regard, except it seems to draw the most fervorous irrational hate towards its users. It reminds me of meat-eaters who won’t shut up about vegetarians being annoying, while remaining ironically oblivious that they’re far worse offenders of the behaviour they decry.
> Your parent's argument is that when it comes to Apple on HN, their "fanboy rating" sits well beyond the bell curve peak.
And my argument is “let’s see the data”. Parent’s point is repeated ad nauseam yet I’ve never seen any evidence it’s not confirmation bias on the part of people who are anti-Apple. If this is such a glaring problem as cited, it should be provable. Either do it or please stop repeating an unsubstantiated unhelpful argument which only serves to divide further. Fanaticism doesn’t become OK when it’s anti something.
The onus of proof falls on whoever makes the claim. I’m not the one making unsubstantiated assertions.
> If not then your take is just another opinion
And I readily made that clear, by calling it anecdotal observation. All I’m asking is for the same courtesy and honesty.
> calling for censorship on either is futile.
Comparing a direct polite request to rethink if one’s opinions are based in fact or bias to “calling for censorship” is an absurd argumentative leap. It makes me wonder if you’re trolling.
I mean capitalism goes together with authoritarianism pretty good. Just look at the companies that still exist today that helped the Third Reich. Perhaps it's time to want a different underlying system that wouldn't have a bottomline for profit maximization? idk
Please don't take HN threads into generic ideological arguments. It just leads to tedious, lame, and nasty flamewar—always the same—and those are off topic here.
It's quite incredible how bad the internet is at discussing this stuff thoughtfully. It's clearly not the medium for it. It bonds with all its failure modes (e.g. snark, screaming, and paranoia) into one hell of a compound. We're trying for something different on HN, and for that to work we need users to be aware of this and not go there.
Doesn't this thread already pose an ideological argument (e.g. country x and y are authoritarian/bad, while country z isn't)?
I personally find it really hard to refrain from commenting when there is a very once sided view presented on a front-page topic.
The issue I have is that some topics feel like they are either flamewar or a one-sided view where people feel like they can't comment because going against that view might start a flamewar. Neither promote curiosity
edit: My comment isn't necessarily connected to that of parent, but more to your reply
No one is asked to refrain from commenting, but everyone is asked to comment within HN's guidelines, which call for respectful, curious conversation, avoiding flamebait, political/ideological/national battle, name-calling, fulmination, snark, and other internet failure modes: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. It's that simple—in theory. In practice it is not so easy.
People sometimes imagine that the rules say that political threads are off topic, but that's not so at all. Stories with political overlap are inevitable here, and not a bad thing (as long as they don't get too dominant in the overall mix). They only become a bad thing when people descend into name-calling, flamewar, and the rest of the above list.
I wouldn't say that about the OP. It obviously has political overlap, but it's not generic-ideological. That would be more like "all corporations always do what authoritarian governments say"—yet even such an article could conceivably be on topic here if it were substantive, went deeply into specific evidence, and wasn't primarily flamebait. What we don't want as an initial condition for a thread here is the unsubstantive sort of ideological article that hurls flameballs of snarky rhetoric.
After that, it's the commenters' duty not to take thread further into flamewar, such as with generic ideological rhetoric. I know it's not easy but it's not as if the principle is hard to understand.
Here's a fun bit from an attempt to hold to account IG Farben, manufacturers of Zkylon B.
> All defendants who were sentenced to prison received early release. Most were quickly restored to their directorships and other positions in post-war companies, and some were awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.
Not sure why you've been downvoted, the list of complicit orgs is long.
IBM, takes pride of place for their tabulation machines.
Ford, and GM, for converting their German subsidiary factories to wartime usages, while declining to do the same in the USA. Nevermind Henry Ford's proclivity for funding anti-semitism.
Then of course, all the German manufacturers of note.
Krupp, Daimler, IG Farben, Hugo Boss...
I'm keen on your examples from Iran. Was it the time that the British asked the CIA to depose the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, and reinstall the Shah, for the benefit of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now a subsidiary of BP)?
No, I think it was the time a civil unrest threw the Shah and put the ayatollahs in power with the help of the Soviet Union (which is suspiciously absent from your remarks) and now their women face jail for not wearing the veil or their homosexuals are hung by a crane
Both examples fit (one is monarchy—a stage managed abortive coup to justify an autocoup (the CIA directing both) by which a constitutional monarchy became a dictatorial one—the other a politics/religion merger.)
If you are describing the problem the way it has upthread but only pointing to one or the other of the Iranian examples, it's pretty obviously being selective for dishonest purposes.
We've banned accounts for "spewing hatred at Iran" (and other countries). You shouldn't falsely accuse people, let alone make up grave charges like hating a great people (or any people).
You have little credibility asking for "objective and holistic" discussion when your accounts routinely post falsehoods, behave viciously, and foster flamewars. HN's rules are designed specifically to support the kind of discussion you criticize others for not having, and you're breaking those rules as consistently as anyone here.
There's no problem with thoughtful criticism. The problem is that when people on the internet argue about capitalism, socialism, and other big generic topics like that, discussions quickly turn repetitive and nasty. It's that which we don't want, because it's destructive of curious conversation, so we ask people not to do it and ban them if they ignore our requests.
We moderate the same way regardless of which direction the bashing is going. If you looked at this objectively, that would be obvious to you, but ideologues of whatever flavor only look at half the data—the half (or whatever the percentage is) which supports their side. Then they make up monsters based on it ("dang has decreed thou shalt not criticize capitalism!!") That part is easy, since any data which contradicts it has been excluded. What no one wants to reckon with is that their enemies on the other side have exactly the same picture—they just think the mods are secretly working for you and out to get them.
Since you don't want to use HN as intended and are ignoring our requests to follow the rules, I've banned the account. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. More at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26648613.
Well, yep, the Ayatollahs and Soviets were "suspiciously" absent from my remarks because I was referring to the British-American coup of 1953, not the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Not sure why you find it suspicious that I wouldn't label actors who didn't really come on stage for 26 years, and who came to prominence because of the unpopularity of the Padishah installed at the behest of American and British corporate interests.
In fact, they were entirely irrelevant. Why did you feel the need to invoke them?
IMO the best example is Chiquita -- they conspired with the CIA to overthrow the democratically elected government of Guatemala to secure their banana fields against the "godless communists." Naturally, they left Guatemala with a right-wing dictatorship. This kicked off a 46 year long civil war and the fallout has directly contributed to the migrant crisis at the border. They called it Operation PBSuccess. [1]
You're noticing, and then overgeneralizing, the data points you dislike (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). The overgeneralization comes because you don't notice (or underemphasize) the data points that don't make you angry. This is classic sample bias, as I believe I've pointed out to you under a different username in the past.
Once people arrive at a spurious generalization like this, they imagine grandiose and sinister explanations for it. But the truth is quite boring: the community is divided the same way society at large is divided, the same way any large-enough population sample is. The only way HN is different is that we try to stop people from bashing each other with rhetorical two-by-fours about it. With limited success.
Since you've continued to post flamewar comments and ignore our requests to stop, I've banned this account. Please don't create accounts to break HN's guidelines with. For someone who purports to care about community, that's incongruent.
I once, naively, bought into the benevolent dictator spiel. The coordinated hit on Parlor dispelled my rose colored glasses respective to that narrative.
It's all BS and past time for Apple (and Google for that matter) to be forced to open up and allow authorized alternatives to the "official" stores. And yes, while there is a generic open sourced version of Android, let's be honest - the one everyone wants is Android integrated with Google's services and for that one you have to go through the Play store.
Wait, this regulation is a result of an antitrust case against Google and Apple started by Yandex, as both were using their platforms against their direct competitor. The same thing that many people want to see in EU and US. Clearly it doesn't belong to the list and the author did zero research on this, but included anyway because it fits the bad guy narrative they are trying to push.
What's even funnier is that Apple threatened to withdraw from the russian market rather than having to do this, so the question is who's the real bad guy here (how about "a tech giant threatens an unimportant country to be able to bully domestic competitors"?). I guess everybody is horrible in this story, because the government had to compromise and omit the requirement to be able to uninstall this software, and they also included many companies who were large enough to be able to lobby their interests, because obviously they didn't want to make a single company special. Now Samsung reportedly has a backdoor deal with Yandex to install their software as system on Samsung phones, so it's being shoved down customers' throats. Nice.