denorm

"Abiding by local laws and regulations" is a veil behind which international companies hide, claiming lack of responsibility for actions that many of us would consider unethical. Just as with Yahoo's outing of Chinese dissidents[0], at some point companies in China (like Apple, now hosting iCloud data in Guizhou) are going to be forced to hand over data to the Chinese government in order to "abide by local laws". Cue the "but the NSA collects all our data, anyway" arguments..

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Yahoo!#Outing_of_...

Whataboutism is a really poor argument. The history of the West is full of atrocities, but that doesn't somehow excuse the Chinese government from current human rights abuses. Nor does it mean that I as a Westerner do not have the right to criticize the Chinese government. In fact we have an obligation to condemn human rights abuses wherever they occur.