16 ms·
Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China
- mbgaxyz 10y agoLooks like the Chinese government would like to ensure that its citizens do not fall victim to 'fake news' and has thus taken on the responsibility of 'fact checking'.
- plussed_reader 10y agoChina's been 'fact checking' far longer than the internet has existed.
- WildUtah 10y agoThe internet started in 1969 and the Chinese Communist Party forced the legitimate government to retreat to Taipei in 1949. So China has been fact checking for twenty years longer than the internet has existed.
- eli_gottlieb 10y agoWhat precisely makes Maoist China less legitimate than Nationalist China? I don't recall either of them winning any kind of fair and free elections.
- unchocked 10y agoYour recollection is profoundly wrong. FYI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Taiwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Taiwan https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2016/taiwan https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2016/taiwan
- gohrt 10y agoThat article says that Taiwan didn't have democratic elections in 1990. How is that responsive to a claim that Nationalist China was undemocratic?
- unchocked 10y agoI'm under the impression that Taiwan is Nationalist China.
- mikeash 10y agoI think you missed the implied "as of 1949" in the claim you attempted to rebut.
- xiaoma 10y agoIt's not. Taiwan is fully democratic, has elected a president from the Democratic Progressive Party and has very few people who self-identify as Chinese.
- xiaoma 10y agoEverything I wrote above is true. Here is more detail: Ruling party: Taiwan's president is indeed from the Democratic Progressive Party. [1] Self identification: More than 80 percent of respondents self-identified as Taiwanese, compared with 8.1 percent who identified themselves as Chinese and 7.6 percent who identified as both. [2] Fully democratic: Not only does Taiwan have open elections and tolerate political demonstrations even the US wouldn't, but people have had referendum powers since 2003. This power was used stop the building of casinos in Penghu despite the moneyed interests pushing for them: [3] 1) http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35336411 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35336411 2) http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/05/28/2003647291 http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/05/28/20... 3) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-15/casinos-rejected-by-outlying-taiwan-islands-in-referendum-vote https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-15/casinos-r...
- 10y ago
- elastic_church 10y agoEveryone that left or escaped Maoist China has an opinion of the mainland that is fixed in time, and is used to shape perception and policy towards the mainland that is completely incongruent with the sentiment on the mainland. Thats the only difference.
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoWell, China reinforces its Maoist image from time to time with goose stepping military parades that seem archaic today; then there is the bizarre censorship, and have you ever seen the cult of personality news cast at 7PM on CCTV? China does itself no favors in trying to shape a more modern updated perception of itself on the outside.
- elastic_church 10y agoThe only people that care live in a SAR or America. Okay that was an exaggeration, I would say the mainland sentiment isn't greatly concerned with the game of nations and are content with the role the grand administrators have assumed. I think it is a preoccupation of western minds, more so than of the minds of the people that actually live there.
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoIf they do care, they definitely are messing it up. But you are right: almost all of China's posturing is for domestic consumption and thye are probably very unconcerned with their international image. china presents an image that is almost North Korean to the rest of the world, even though this is far from the truth. The current leadership, which came of age during the cultural revolution, is even worse than the previous leaders in this regard, and they probably don't realize how bad they look (with the fake hair dye, but everything else also).
- argonaut 10y agoIf you're trying to make fun of fact checking fake news, that is a totally facetious comparison. The whole point of fact checking is that the fact check / rebuttal is put side by side or preceding the original claim, with evidence and its own citations. You're not prevented from seeing the original claim, even if statistically fewer people see the original claim. If the Communist party decided to replace all online censorship with modals saying how wrong the website was, and you could just click through the modal, I would consider that progress in China.
- jwtadvice 10y agoNah, the "fake news" filters make it hard to post the content, make it hard to reshare the content, make it less likely to show up in feeds, and mark it so that it is less likely to be read.
- argonaut 10y agoI hold governments to a higher standard than companies.
- tajen 10y agoUnless you see the government as a company that has grown to a monopolistic size compared to the other ones. It's just an image to explain the rationale of those who don't trust it more than companies.
- jwtadvice 10y agoGiven that the same people circulate between them, and they work together on a regular basis, and they both are critical to the survival of the society that exists today: I hold them to the same high standard. I don't give breaks to golden parachutes or to lobbied appointments.
- lupin_sansei 10y agoThat would be a brilliant solution to have the fake news rebutted side by side. But I fear the gatekeepers will just block what they see as fake news.
- dmix 10y agoThe US congress recently funded a mild version of Ministry of Truth. So they aren't the only one. > Introduced by Congressmen Adam Kinzinger and Ted Lieu, H.R. 5181 seeks a “whole-government approach without the bureaucratic restrictions” to counter “foreign disinformation and manipulation,” which they believe threaten the world’s “security and stability.” http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-24/obama-signs-countering-disinformation-and-propaganda-act-law http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-24/obama-signs-counter... But instead of controlling the media they want to fund their own "fact-based" counter propaganda by building centralized media strategies with input from across the government, including the intelligence agencies, department of energy, state, etc. Additionally they want to partner and fund private firms, NGOs, and local journalists to help them. > The first priority is developing a whole-of-government strategy for countering THE foreign propaganda and disinformation being wages against us and our allies by our enemies. The bill would increase the authority, resources, and mandate of the Global Engagement Center to include state actors like Russia and China as well as non-state actors. The Center will be led by the State Department, but with the active senior level participation of the Department of Defense, USAID, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the Intelligence Community, and other relevant agencies. The Center will develop, integrate, and synchronize whole-of-government initiatives to expose and counter foreign disinformation operations by our enemies and proactively advance fact-based narratives that support U.S. allies and interests. > Second, the legislation seeks to leverage expertise from outside government to create more adaptive and responsive U.S. strategy options. The legislation establishes a fund to help train local journalists and provide grants and contracts to NGOs, civil society organizations, think tanks, private sector companies, media organizations, and other experts outside the U.S. government with experience in identifying and analyzing the latest trends in foreign government disinformation techniques. This fund will complement and support the Center’s role by integrating capabilities and expertise available outside the U.S. government into the strategy-making process. It will also empower a decentralized network of private sector experts and integrate their expertise into the strategy-making process. It's not clear how explicit this will be. Hopefully it will be obvious, so the public doesn't have to then invest in identifying the US propaganda, which is countering Russian/China propaganda.
- sedachv 10y ago
- hota_mazi 10y agoIn the US, we are dealing with the problem of fake news and in China, they are dealing with the problem of real news.
- jwtadvice 10y agoIn the US we are dealing with the problem of real news. So is China.
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoIt actually sends the opposite signal: news sites, books, etc...aren't taken seriously until they are banned. The communist party hasn't heard of the Streisand Effect yet. If Wen Jiaobao's family didn't accumulate so much wealth, why would they have blocked nytimes in the first place? It must be true, they never even tried refuting the facts presented in theat seminal article.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sfoon 10y agobowing to Chinese dictatorship, so sad. then again, Facebook/Snapchat also has no shame bowing as well. good thing Google has a backbone
- c3534l 10y agoThe alternative is to get banned from China, ensuring the only alternative is a company entirely beholden the government and unable to fight back against them in the battles that they can win.
- Pica_soO 10y agoAlternativlos? Yes, they must bow to local laws. But not taking some of the spoils and directing that via back channel donations into subversive software like TOR - that is a choice they have.
- nkristoffersen 10y agoWhat has Google done that shows a "backbone" in China?
- DINKDINK 10y agoGmail warns if they believe “Your Account May Have Been Targeted by State-Sponsored Actors”[1] in a prompt[2]. I saw this first hand on a friend's machine in Hong Kong. [1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303665904577449562114786378 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023036659045774495... [2] https://sophosnews.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/google-warning.jpg https://sophosnews.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/google-warnin...
- skybrian 10y agoHow quickly we forget. https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-approach-to-china-update.html https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-approach-to-chin...
- elastic_church 10y agoor protection from ad driven fake news
- wyager 10y agoI wonder what is the largest legal entity a company like Apple or Google would be willing to flip the middle finger to and say "No, you are ridiculous, feel free to ban us." At some point the demands just become so onerous that you either have to have separate SKUs for that legal region (extra expensive) or you have to put the same backdoors or restrictions in all your products (which makes the product inferior for customers outside of the legal region as well as within).
- MBCook 10y agoApple clearly isn't going to, although at least they have a very pro-encryption stance that we already know China isn't keen on. Google already bowed years ago. They tried to stay out of China on principle with search didn't they? But in the end the market was just too big and they entered it. It's easy to take a principled stance against North Korea (where users don't get a choice) or a smaller country that's pretty big like even Iran if they wanted to. China is just too big for people to resist. At a certain point you're not going to grow much unless you go to China.
- wyager 10y agoLet's take the UK as an example. It's a medium-sized country, and no one has significant production there. Let's say the UK keeps passing insane backwards anti-privacy laws and at some point told Apple to drop the encryption from the iPhone. If Apple told them to pound sand and got banned from the UK, how much sales could they recoup if they kept Irish Apple stores extra well-stocked? If the response to Brazil's VAT is any example, thrifty entrepreneurs will do all the hard work of getting iPhones into the UK for a modest but very profitable overhead. A couple iPhones sold at 25% markup is more than enough to pay for a RyanAir round-trip and a week living in a cheap flat.
- MBCook 10y agoRight. Either a county is so small it doesn't matter to sales, the grey market will fill it, or it's too big to ignore.
- 10y ago
- bluetwo 10y agoCan anyone from China list what U.S. news apps are available? I would love to know who sold out.
- hawkice 10y agoHonestly, English language material isn't a huge priority for censors in China most of the time. You'd have to be _extremely_ prominent and cover issues relevant to the CCP's interest before I'd assume "sold out" is more likely than "ignored by the censors". [It seems reasonable to note, here, that the same logic applies to coverage of the American government -- despite the lack of censors. Perhaps they leverage access to privileged information -- why leak something important to someone who dredges up garbage about you the other six days a week.]
- westiseast 10y agoIt's not really that clear cut tbh. The blocked ones are well known (you can google it) but what you also have are things like: * throttling of all foreign internet at particular times * effective blocks on sites because they load dependencies from blocked sites. * Temporary local blocking (e.g. It's easier and reliable from my home internet to load reddit, but from a coffee shop 1km away it's noticeably less reliable) * interrupting of pageloads based on keywords. e.g. if you try download a page from a non-blocked domain that features keywords "free tibet" then the connection will get interrupted.
- ChuckMcM 10y agoAt what point do you have two products, one is a subscription to a magazine of fiction and the other a key to tell you how to map the fiction into real events.
- unchocked 10y agoI think that's already the case in China, only the map is informal. Were the map formalized, I doubt the CPC would tolerate it.
- hackuser 10y agoWhy are other publications (the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times are mentioned) doing to keep Chinese authorities happy? This should be a badge of honor for any news source. The NY Times doesn't publish anything about China that they don't publish about many other countries. Certainly coverage of the U.S. and U.K. is much more challenging to those authorities.
- olalonde 10y agoIf I recall correctly, the NYT website was blocked a few months ago when it published an unflattering (e.g. allegations of cronyism) article on Xi Jinping. The NYT is also pretty heavy on "China-bashing" though that's not really unique to them[0]. [0] http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/01/china-bashing.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/01/china-bashing.html
- hackuser 10y ago> The NYT is also pretty heavy on "China-bashing" though that's not really unique to them I don't see it at all. The Times' reporting is equally critical, and in much greater volume, of the U.S., U.K., and probably others. The job of journalists, to a great extent, is to inform the public about problems; afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. It's not bias against China, it's the same journalism practiced everywhere about everyone. The link doesn't really back up its claims. These are the NYT headlines it cites as "bashing": * Hong Kong Protesters Seek Democracy. * Discovery of Melamine-Tainted Milk Shuts Shanghai Dairy. * Index of China’s Manufacturing Rose Sharply in December. * Telecom Company to Pay $3 Million in China Bribe Case. * China: Xinjiang Enacts a Curb on Dissent. * A pioneering editor who resigned amid [government censor] controversy last fall … named editor in chief of a new publication. * China and 10 Southeast Asian nations ushered in the world’s third-largest free-trade area. * Chinese Businesses Resist Eviction by Developers. * U.S. Duties on Pipes From China Approved. * China Executes Briton Despite Appeals. It's not even all negative, and does not differ from reporting about everywhere else. One reason I like the NYT is that everyone thinks the Times is biased against them: The Clintons, Trump, progressives, liberals, conservatives, etc.
- gamesurgeon 10y ago"...Later that day, a separate team from Apple informed The Times that the apps would be removed". Am I reading that right? Seems like the Times is not-so-subtly implying that Apple tipped off the Chinese authorities. Maybe they mentioned the scathing nature of the article that could potentially paint China in bad light. For those that didn't read that article, it unveils billions of dollars in perks given to Foxconn/Apple: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/technology/apple-iphone-china-foxconn.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/technology/apple-iphone-ch...
- droithomme 10y agoIt's reasonable to remove apps for "fake news" sites.
- WildUtah 10y agoRemember all the people that made fun of "don't be evil" as a motto? This is what happens when you're motto is just, "how much is evil and its cheap evil sweatshop labor contributing to the bottom line today?" (Also, touchbar = Darth Vader. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NCm_-GZ-Dc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NCm_-GZ-Dc )
- droithomme 10y agoIt's long past time to end the scourge to democracy that is these fake news sites. It is responsible and reasonable for states to ban them. An act of responsible public service that no reasonable person could disagree with.
- eternalban 10y ago"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers" source: https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/communism-computing-china/censorship.html https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/commu... "Blocking misinformation will help protect the [Facebook's] brand and credibility." source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/facebook-and-the-digital-virus-called-fake-news.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/facebook-an...
- jwtadvice 10y agoI remember when Apple removed the App that reported on US drone strikes and civilian casualties. I remember that Reddit bans foreign news outlets from its news subreddits. I remember that Facebook censored people trying to post Snowden Documents in the US. This is a global phenomenon. We should do everything in our power to reverse this trend in the United States so that we have the credibility to criticize China for doing the same.
- WhitneyLand 10y agoI don't understand why the big hotels in China have so much wider access than normal. It seems like they make exceptions for some places mostly visited by international travelers.
- fowl2 10y agoYes this is exactly it. They don't care / already know foreigner's politics.
- Gustomaximus 10y agoThey have 'free trade zones' I suspect half for being useful for international business guests and half to look more open then they are to the global community. Either way everyone knows how to tunnel out if they want to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Free-Trade_Zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Free-Trade_Zone
- westiseast 10y agoSomething nobody's written about or investigated that publicly is profiling/local blocks. The gov places blocks on whole regions like Tibet/Uighur areas regularly, but I also believe that they have profiles down to a very granular level on which router/IPS has what level of trust. Public wifi is often unreliable for loading foreign websites or connecting to a VPN, whereas big hotels or my home wifi can be fine. I'm 80% sure this is real and not imagination :)
- Zak 10y agoThis is one of the more compelling arguments I've seen for allowing sideloading apart from the obvious philosophical point about users having ultimate control over devices they own.
- radicaldreamer 10y agoApple has de-facto allowed sideloading via enterprise accounts since Crashlytics Beta launched (never heard of a company being capped for having too many users downloading their beta app)
- gilgoomesh 10y agoYou don't even need an enterprise account for open source apps. Assuming you build it yourself, sideloading of open source apps is free (no developer account required) for anyone running iOS 9 and Xcode 7 or later.
- gergles 10y agoAs long as you don't mind reloading the app every week...
- ascagnel_ 10y agoNot really -- the app is just a way to view content that's loaded from a remote server, and the remote server has also been blocked.
- hota_mazi 10y ago> Mr. Sainz declined to comment on what local regulations the Times apps were said to have violated I'll take "What's the punishment for criticizing Chinese political figures in China?" for $100, Alex.
- schoen 10y agoSomething that might be comparably shocking is the extent to which Chinese investors and government representatives influence the content of Hollywood movies that depict or refer to China. There were some news reports about this in the last couple of years; I sat next to a Hollywood studio executive on a flight last month and (rather than arguing about copyright policy) commiserated about this issue. He confirmed that there are organized systems in place with representatives sent to monitor film content to ensure Chinese market access and avoid upsetting investors. This has been reported quite a bit for several years; see, e.g., http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/05/18/407619652/how-chinas-censors-influence-hollywood http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/05/18/407619652/h... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/business/media/in-hollywood-movies-for-china-bureaucrats-want-a-say.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/business/media/in-hollywoo... http://origin.www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/Directed%20by%20Hollywood%20Edited%20by%20China.pdf http://origin.www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/Dire...
- diogenescynic 10y agoFor example, Disney/Marvel changed the location from Tibet in the Doctor Strange movie so as not to offend China.
- GuiA 10y agoAmerican investors and government influence the content of Hollywood movies that depict the US or US activity, so I'm not sure why that should be particularly shocking. This is what happens in a globalized economy.
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoExcept a movie could be totally subversive of the American government (the CIA or military is the bad guy, a national/state/local government is corrupt, etc...) and the movie could still go into wide production and make millions of dollars. Heck, it even is super easy to find examples of that (you want to know the truth? You can't handle the truth!). Now try doing that in China. Make the PLA the enemy or portray a corrupt out of control official in Chongqing like Bo Xilai. Not allowed, because it is way too close to the truth for comfort, maybe.
- Hondor 10y agoIn older news - entire Google Play store removed from Android phones in China. Google cooperates by preventing its play store app being sideloaded and disallowing app downloads from its website to a computer or phone without the play store app.
- frik 10y agoGoogle Playstore is blocked, as well as all other Google domains. Your Android phone feels like a useless brick - you cannot even connect to a WiFi, as it tries to connect to a Google domain to check if it should show up a input WiFi password page served from 1.1.1.1 (iOS does the sae, but Apple.com works fine). Anyway, iOS works fine, as do Android without Google services preloaded. Bing.com is available, but Baidu is way better.
- chipperyman573 10y agoWhy would google cooperate server side? I see no point in blocking Chinese connections if google isn't allowed to operate in China anyway.
- xnull2guest 10y agoIn the United States, it is illegal to portray the assassination of a president. Handling topics of National Security, such as Pearl Harbor, must be screened and if needed edited by National Security personnel. Close partnership and collective ownership of media production facilities has given us movies with fake narratives like the Jessica Lynch story, Zero Dark Thirty, etc.
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago> In the United States, it is illegal to portray the assassination of a president Full stop, no it isn't. > Handling topics of National Security, such as Pearl Harbor, must be screened and if needed edited by National Security personnel. Full stop, no it doesn't. Where the heck are you getting such misinformation? It is not just wrong, it is bordering on libel. > Close partnership and collective ownership of media production facilities has given us movies with fake narratives like the Jessica Lynch story, Zero Dark Thirty, etc. There is an audience for those films. There is also an audience for films that are anti-patriotic and can be considered downright subversive. The American film industry is huge, Chinese aren't aware of even 5% of its output.
- throwaway122916 10y agoSurprisingly, in the UK it is illegal to do that to a king/queen. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a3_3_1-2s8.html http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a3_3_1-2s8... From wiki: According to the law in force, it is treason felony to "compass, imagine, invent, devise, or intend"
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoDidn't know that. The USA has no such rule in place and you can in fact find many movies where the president is assinated (fictional and factual). It is doubly weird for the UK since the monarch is just a figure head. I wonder if the law applies to the prime minsiter (after watching London has Fallen, I guess not).
- IanDrake 10y ago>China’s main internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, did not respond to faxed questions. You have to fax questions to the Chinese Internet regulator?
- RYANCO7 10y agoI had a bad credit score and needed to increase my score, I try some hackers and i paid ,but my credit score saw still the same after paying .. I was hopeless.. Then i met a friend the introduced me to hackwhitewizard@tutanota.com.. he help me increase my credit score from 380 to 710 with in one week to my greatest surprise .. I paid him half payment and when he give me confirmation i paid the rest .. hackwhitewizard@tutanota.com is the best hacker .. try him and get all your credit score increased
- RYANCO7 10y agoI had a bad credit score and needed to increase my score, I try some hackers and i paid ,but my credit score saw still the same after paying .. I was hopeless.. Then i met a friend the introduced me to hackwhitewizard@tutanota.com.. he help me increase my credit score from 380 to 710 with in one week to my greatest surprise .. I paid him half payment and when he give me confirmation i paid the rest .. hackwhitewizard@tutanota.com is the best hacker .. try him and get all your credit score increased
- RYANCO7 10y agoMy husbands credit score was around 580. He had three charge offs on his credit that were actually mine. I was able to get them completely removed from his reports. How much will this raise his credit score? The only negative remaining on his report is one late from 30 months ago.. And i was introduced my a friend to hackwhitewizard@tutanota.com .. it was so amazing to see my husbands credit score increased to 820 in weeks and all negative and late payment was cleared ..hackwhitewizard@tutanota.com is the best hacker .. try him and get all your credit score increased
- RYANCO7 10y agoI've been working hard the past 2 years to repair my credit and have made huge strides. The only negative thing hanging over my head are 90+ day late payments for my student loans which hit me about 3 years ago. I've since made repayment arrangements for all student loans and have not been late on a payment since. The problem I have with the late payments is that I never received anything from the lender after graduation (monthly bill, repayment arrangement info etc.)I was hopeless.. Then i met a friend the introduced me to hackwhitewizard@tutanota.com.. he help me increase my credit score from 480 to 810 with in three week to my greatest surprise .. I paid him half payment and when he give me confirmation i paid the rest .. hackwhitewizard@tutanota.com is the best hacker .. try him and get all your credit score increased
- elcapitan 10y agoThere was an interesting talk on the economics of internet censorship at 33c3, you can watch it here: https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8170-the_economic_consequences_of_internet_censorship https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8170-the_economic_consequences_o... One aspect I found interesting was the hypothesis that states like China use censorship also as a strategic tool to strengthen their own business (Baidu vs Google for example).
- rdlecler1 10y agoChina is a manufacturing economy, while the US is an information economy. This makes two way trade difficult because China wants control of information. It's hard to put up a tariff on Chinese products but it's easy to introduce information controls that cripple American business models.
- loevborg 10y agoApple has always put dollars first and foremost. Its always been odd to me that the Apple fanboys and girls care so little about that.
- jwtadvice 10y agoIt's similar to how RT is fined and banned in the UK. There's a ton of US propaganda in the New York Times. China doesn't appreciate that much.