Apple Restricts Feature Used by Chinese Protestors | Hacker News Reader

Apple Restricts Feature Used by Chinese Protestors

theguardian.com

26 pointsdeepnotderp13 comments

I wonder if Apple's repeated cooperation with the Chinese police state [1] will result in the same kind of advertiser exodus as Musk's loosening of censorship on Twitter.

[1] One may claim they're just complying with the law of the land, it was Apple's choice to take away their users control over their phones, and place themselves in the position of arbiter on what they can install and run. They knew (from experience!) how an authoritarian government will force them to abuse that power.

What law of the land says "Airdrop is not allowed for more than 10 minutes"?

The one that says you can't call yourself "The Resistance" for 4 years and then comply with the CCP cracking down on protestors?

Basic decency and humanity? The desire for freedom for all of humanity? Standing by your corporate statements in non-Authoritarian countries?

What are you replying to?

Law of the land, government pressure, it's ultimately all the same.

You are making it sound as if there is not a deep, fundamental, vital to democracy ethical difference between the two.

That distinction is irrelevant to the morality of Apple's actions in this case.

No, the distinction is key in your "One may claim they're just complying with the law of the land". This basic difference between respecting the law and succumbing to autocrat's lawlessness is the entire basis for the apology. Ie. we don't collude with criminal dictators, we are following legal code like we do in the west. (Like there is a law that citizen data must be hosted in country so we have Chinese icloud now or we remove Taiwan flag emoji because it is not recognized.)

And my point was that there is no such law in this case. Apple cannot excuse itself with it. Developers who implemented this feature must consider what they are doing and in the name of what.

This would not be any less wrong if there was a law mandating it, instead of informal pressure.

The abstract Apple apologist using the existence of a law as a justification in your comment disagrees...

That distinction doesn't exist when dealing with nation-state size entities with revolving doors to government like Apple.

I can't imagine that it has anything to do with Apple being dependent on Chinese factories to build their products, or having a large and profitable business selling iPhones in China.

> “So is Tim Cook a Party member or not?”

;-)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33778302

Reply on news.ycombinator.com