7 ms·

What's the point when the world is legislating our privacy away? It's a pointless self-defeating marketing ploy then and nothing more.

• simonh 7y ago
  Do you think it is ethical for a company to require it's employees to break the law?
  • m0xte 7y ago
    It's not about breaking laws but about not having to break laws by not operating in regimes like China.
    • simonh 7y ago
      Do you not buy any goods made in China?
      • m0xte 7y ago
        It's not possible to boycott China so no.
      • noisem4ker 7y ago
        I try not to.
      • deogeo 7y ago
        "If you can't be perfect, don't even try."
        • leppr 7y ago
          There's that and then there's being minimally consistent in one's efforts. Kind of like someone who would make a fuss about not using plastic straws but systematically takes their car for <500 meters trips and washes their pants 5 times a week. It's not a bad idea to remind people that if they make the effort of not using online services which compromise for China, they also should make the similar effort of reducing their physical Made in China goods consumption.
      • redwall_hp 7y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
  • missosoup 7y ago
    Yes. Ethics is quite explicitly orthogonal to the law. E.g. It was ethical but illegal for some to refuse participation in the holocaust. Law encodes what those in power want you to do. Ethics encodes what society wants you to do. The two are rarely entirely aligned.
  • rorykoehler 7y ago
    If the law is unethical yes. “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
    • simonh 7y ago
      And also force others to do so, via exploiting your power over them as an employer? Really?
      • rorykoehler 7y ago
        In this case no one would have to do anything as the app was already live on the appstore.
    • drclau 7y ago
      And, in this case, the company will decide what laws are unethical?
  • notyourday 7y ago
    > Do you think it is ethical for a company to require it's employees to break the law? Unless Apple happened to be a Chinese company I'm having a trouble at finding the law that Apple is breaking. I'm sure the customers can decide if a shiny iPhone produced by an company subject to Chinese law is worth it and employees can decide if they want to be employed by a Chinese company.
  • geomark 7y ago
    It might be a bit much to require employees to break a law as it might expose individual employees to some legal consequences. But there are plenty of laws that are immoral. There are a number of good examples in the peer comments (some of the laws of Hitler's Germany for example). Any company manager or officer that insists on enforcing such laws is themself immoral. But it takes some skill to craft a company policy that could address the situation adequately.
    • simonh 7y ago
      I think you're being a bit cavalier with the distinction between complying with a law and enforcing it. If complying with a law is morally equivalent with enforcing it, you're tarring a lot of Jews in Nazi Germany with a very nasty smelling brush. I really don't get this. Apple has done far more than any other company in the whole industry to fight for privacy rights. They have gone right up against the legal limits every time, while all the other vendors rolled over belly up at the slightest chance. iMessage is one of the most secure messaging systems available anywhere and is very widely used in China. For most Chinese it's the only practical secure communications system they can buy. It puts industrial strength end to end encryption in the hands of millions of Chinese. So I get you're angry about china, that's fine. I have family over there, so I know what it's like. But going after Apple, of all the companies doing business in China you could go after, just makes no sense to me whatever.
      • zzzcpan 7y ago
        > It puts industrial strength end to end encryption in the hands of millions of Chinese. But China doesn't allow stuff like that, surely there is a backdoor.
        • lern_too_spel 7y ago
          There is. https://www.wired.com/2015/09/apple-fighting-privacy-imessage-still-problems/ https://www.wired.com/2015/09/apple-fighting-privacy-imessag...
      • geomark 7y ago
  • bduerst 7y ago
    Apple used to think so when privacy was on the line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_San_Bernardino_attack#Phone_decryption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_San_Bernardino_attack#Pho...