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As someone who has appreciated the privacy stance Apple has had and the privacy assisting steps it has taken for a long time (long before iPhone), I believe App
by newscracker 7y ago
As someone who has appreciated the privacy stance Apple has had and the privacy assisting steps it has taken for a long time (long before iPhone), I believe Apple is coming out to be completely hypocritical and anti-privacy/anti-freedom on this app. I cannot believe that Tim Cook and other senior executives haven't examined this deeper and taken a bold stance to let the app stay! Shame on you, Apple!
Even John Gruber agrees: [1]
> I still haven’t seen which local laws it violates, other than the unwritten law of pissing off Beijing.
> This is a bad look for Apple, if you think capitulation is a bad look.
[1]: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/10/10/apple-pulls-hkmaps https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/10/10/apple-pulls-hkm...
- bigpumpkin 7y agoDefinitely agree. Privacy is protected by this app. By knowing the physical locations of the police, protesters can evade these anti-privacy forces.
- personjerry 7y agoNothing in Twitter photo statement talks about privacy. It's clear why the app is problematic: It's being used to target law enforcement, putting those people into danger. The debate here should be between the tradeoff of said danger versus the dangers to the protesters, factoring in the standing-up-to-China.
- lilyball 7y agoI admit to being confused what this has to do with privacy.
- larkeith 7y agoWhile there are privacy concerns from the precedent it sets (can a journalist trust Apple not to bend to CPP information requests?), I agree that this seems to conflate privacy with an only indirectly-related subject.
- austhrow743 7y agoPrivacy is good. By being better for privacy than the worlds largest advertising company/consumer spy agency, Apple announced its intent to be for all that is good in the world. That it's a shining beacon of morality. Protector of Italian virginity. China is bad. By capitulating to them after having declared themselves the enforcer of all that is good and holy, Apple has thus committed hypocrisy.
- simonh 7y agoApple has simply said it will pursue user privacy and security to the limits of what the law will allow. That is all.
- noisem4ker 7y agoPrivacy and personal freedom go hand in hand.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- kypro 7y agoApple only cares about privacy because it's a threat to Google and Facebook's business model. They don't care about privacy, they only care about "caring about privacy" when it is good for their business.
- jhymn 7y agoRight, and in marketing-speak it's called positioning. Taking a privacy stance allowed Apple to differentiate against their competitors without actually innovating.
- otalp 7y agoApple banned an app - 13 times that gives you a notification whenever there is publicly available news about a [drone strike](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/538kan/apple-just-banned-the-app-that-tracks-us-drone-strikes-again https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/538kan/apple-just-banned-...). The chances that they keep up an app that people use to gain unwanted transparency into any state is exactly 0%
- sandworm101 7y agoAt a more basic level, apple doesnt see people as customers. They have already maxed out thier target market. Expansion now turns on access to new markets: the will of governments. Governments are now the customer. Any app that angers them is for the block.
- Shivetya 7y agoWell the same can be said about human rights, they only care about it when it affects their business model in a positive way. if it cost them money they are very willing to turn their backs on it. privacy is not possible in a world where governments are free to suppress the speech and will of the people. any company claiming otherwise simply sees their bottom line as more important than people, whether they are employees or customers. To me Apple is the worst here because Tim and team have no shame, they will strut upon their stage at their own conferences about how they stand for rights but when the show lights are off they act completely different.
- 7y ago
- smsm42 7y agoThey are fine to piss off US government, because they know US government will play by the rules and let them do it. China won't, so as soon as China gives them a dirty look, they wet their pants and bend over.
- lph 7y agoAgreed! If Apple caves in to Chinese pressure on this, what else will they do? Does Xi Jinping's brutal authoritarian regime now effectively make decisions for Apple abroad, since they can always threaten to cut Apple out of the lucrative mainland market?