8 ms·

Apple publishes human rights policy, commits to freedom of information

78 points by evo_9 6y ago

fsflover 6y ago
What about the freedom of users?
MrStonedOne 6y ago
(As long as we can extract a 30% cut from the platform the information is on by removing the freedom of our users to install what they want on their devices.)
Ekaros 6y ago
So I take they are going to allow software to flow freely to their devices now?
liability 6y ago
Reads like a cheap attempt to bolster their recently tarnished reputation.
- r00fus 6y ago
  Tarnished to the tune of $2T market cap?
  - liability 6y ago
    Tarnished to the tune of attention received for anti-competitive behavior. I'm sure you realized that's what I was referring to, but trying to dunk on me with an inane "yeah but they're rich" response was too hard to resist I guess?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
maallooc 6y ago
So they are not going to cooperate with CCP? Nice.
Shivetya 6y ago
The money line “Where national law and international human rights standards differ, we follow the higher standard. Where they are in conflict, we respect national law while seeking to respect the principles of internationally recognised human rights.” In other words, business as usual, more virtue signalling. This weasel word statement means they stand for nothing. They will still do business in the country. They are upholding no values if they allow national law to trump their ideals.
- throwaway4good 6y ago
  What are they supposed to say? We would go against the local laws of a country if we think they violate human rights?
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    If you’re not going to stand for human rights, at least don’t claim that you are.
  - wpurvis 6y ago
    "We refuse to work with countries that engage in ongoing human rights abuses."
    - throwaway4good 6y ago
      Which countries are those? And who decides which go on the list?
      - adamsvystun 6y ago
        I doesn't matter much as long as there is a list. Apple can even publish it's own list, then everybody can debate if this is a good list or bad list. Currently there is no list - no discussion.
      - jkinudsjknds 6y ago
        Obviously Apple. That's the entire point of taking a principled stance on something. If a country is not on the list, Apple is declaring they don't think it does human rights abuses.
dessant 6y ago
We have the freedom to express ourselves by giving Apple $99/yr to share our open source apps, apps which ultimately further enrich their platform. If you are poor and have been donated an iPhone, then express yourself somewhere else. And if you have expressed yourself on macOS in the past, now pay up there too, or we are going to suggest that your art is dangerous to view on our devices, and we'll make it difficult [1] to run. Nathalie Lawhead's article [2] is a heartbreaking exploration of how open source developers and artists experience Apple's chokehold. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24217116 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24217116 [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20200602003250/http://www.nathalielawhead.com/candybox/the-future-of-my-games-on-apple-post-catalina-and-what-this-means-for-art-games-in-general https://web.archive.org/web/20200602003250/http://www.nathal...
- guiltygods 6y ago
  Come on..You get listing and visibility and distribution worldwide, Consumers don't have to worry about your credentials and bonafides because app store due diligence checks help keep out malicious and fraudulent apps. People can download appstore apps without worry as opposed to some random guy publishing an open source app that most don't have time or expertise to vet.
  - FreakyT 6y ago
    Yes, there are costs associated with running the App Store, but I would be very surprised if those costs came anywhere near what Apple is charging devs. I don’t feel that Apple shouldn’t charge at all, only that what they’re charging is unreasonably high.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Not on macOS, there you’re getting the advantage that macOS doesn’t mark you as malware.
  - wayneftw 6y ago
    You can't see how that's a double edged sword though? I buy a device, I even buy a special computer so I can build programs for the device... and now I have to pay $99/year just to comfortably run my own program on my own device? Even worse, I can't even continue to digitally interface with my own customers, people who Apple never helped me land as clients, without passing through Apple's arbitrary store rules AND paying them 30%? That's fucking dog shit and it's going to have to change, especially given that they have 50% of the market in the US.
cblconfederate 6y ago
> At its February annual general meeting a shareholder proposal calling on Apple to publicly commit “to respect freedom of expression as a human right” received more than 40 percent support from shareholders. what?
gman83 6y ago
Having end-to-end encryption on icloud backups would be better than this vague press release.
- m463 6y ago
  Or be allowed to run a firewall on your phone. Seriously, to see what your phone is doing and who it is connecting to is a fundamental right they deny.
  - AnonHP 6y ago
    Would an open source app like Lockdown [1] help you? It can block requests and it also has logs. I haven’t used it, but you could check it out. I’d love to have something like Little Snitch/LuLu on iOS and by default disallow outgoing and incoming connections to all (or at least new) apps. [1]: https://lockdownhq.com/ https://lockdownhq.com/
    - m463 6y ago
      I have been using an old version of adblockios which apple made them change (crippling the product).
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  And when the average user forgets their iCloud password and loses their everything? Apple decided the trade off for that is worth it, and they provide an alternative for people who want fully encrypted backups: iTunes local backups.
  - sneak 6y ago
    That doesn’t matter when everyone else you iMessage with has their (on by default!) non-e2e iCloud device backups enabled. Your entire chat history plaintext gets made available to the feds without a warrant anyway, regardless of the settings on your own device—the plaintext escrow then happens on the device at the other end of the conversation pair. Apple does not care about your privacy. There was a plan to fix this glaring what-amounts-to-a-backdoor in iMessage encryption, but they cancelled it to avoid crossing the FBI. The Reuters reporting on the matter cited six sources.
danShumway 6y ago
Has this been coupled with any actual policy changes, donations, or new products? Is there anything concrete that Apple is going to do differently now that it's made this statement?
vorpalhex 6y ago
So the linked news story makes it sound like this document was proposed and accepted: > At its February annual general meeting a shareholder proposal calling on Apple to publicly commit “to respect freedom of expression as a human right” received more than 40 percent support from shareholders. > According to The Financial Times, Apple's board of directors approved the policy and published it ahead of a deadline of Sept. 5 for shareholders to submit motions for next year's investor meeting. When attempting to read the document through the link in the story, I get directed to Reuters who says: > While it was defeated, it gained 40.6% of votes cast - far more than similar motions put forward previously and enough to push the company to respond, experts said. So, this sounds like Apple may have published the proposal but still actually declined it?
brian_herman__ 6y ago
Here is the link to the document refered to in the article. I wish this wasn't a link to the newspaper rather what apple posted :\ https://s2.q4cdn.com/470004039/files/doc_downloads/gov_docs/2020/Apple-Human-Rights-Policy.pdf https://s2.q4cdn.com/470004039/files/doc_downloads/gov_docs/...
throwaway4good 6y ago
I think the organisation "sum of us" is interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SumOfUs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SumOfUs Some of the campaigns they are running: https://www.sumofus.org/campaigns/ https://www.sumofus.org/campaigns/
simion314 6y ago
What about the freedom to show your app user the information that they could buy some products cheaper on a website?
qiman 6y ago
In the course of trying to determine whether a specific company was participating and profiting from human rights abuses in China just earlier this morning, I came across this mention of Apple: https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/china-83-major-brands-implicated-in-report-on-forced-labour-of-ethnic-minorities-from-xinjiang-assigned-to-factories-across-provinces-includes-company-responses/ https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/china-83... TLDR; Apple is one of a number of companies directly implicated and has not even bothered to respond to these reports.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Apple has responded, just not there: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/10/apple-imported-clothes-from-xinjiang-firm-facing-us-forced-labour-sanctions https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/10/apple-imp...
  - qiman 6y ago
    That's a response to _different_ allegations. Please see pp 23-27 of the original report by the ASPI: https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ad-aspi/2020-03/Uyghurs%20for%20sale_Final.pdf https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ad-aspi/2020-03/Uygh...
expert700 6y ago
All empty words. Don't look at what they say, look at what they do; Apple has a long history of acquiescing to the CCP's every demand so that they can keep their access to the Chinese market. They probably just put this out because they ran some focus groups and determined that this would improve their image among American / European consumers.
sebow 6y ago
Yeah right, that's why plenty of political platforms were banned on their store.(Nothing illegal mind you, just wrongthink by "Apple standards").
rektide 6y ago
... so long as you use a web browser which supports only Apple approved capabilities & features.
madis 6y ago
There are no human rights. Only privileges. Some have more, some less. The most powerful ones give and take them as they see fit and is convenient to them. It has always been so. Laws are for the masses.
aftergibson 6y ago
I have been such an Apple fan over the years. The recent negative press Apple is getting doesn't affect me in any meaningful way. At the same time it does hit home that a device I use for many hours of the day is heavily controlled by their internal company policies. I always felt like free software was a nice concept I didn't really care about day to day, my opinion is changing on that. I am really excited by a usable Linux on mobile offering.

78 points by evo_9 6y ago

What about the freedom of users?

(As long as we can extract a 30% cut from the platform the information is on by removing the freedom of our users to install what they want on their devices.)

Ekaros 6y ago

So I take they are going to allow software to flow freely to their devices now?

liability 6y ago

Reads like a cheap attempt to bolster their recently tarnished reputation.

r00fus 6y ago
Tarnished to the tune of $2T market cap?
- liability 6y ago
  Tarnished to the tune of attention received for anti-competitive behavior. I'm sure you realized that's what I was referring to, but trying to dunk on me with an inane "yeah but they're rich" response was too hard to resist I guess?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

maallooc 6y ago

So they are not going to cooperate with CCP? Nice.

Shivetya 6y ago

The money line “Where national law and international human rights standards differ, we follow the higher standard. Where they are in conflict, we respect national law while seeking to respect the principles of internationally recognised human rights.” In other words, business as usual, more virtue signalling. This weasel word statement means they stand for nothing. They will still do business in the country. They are upholding no values if they allow national law to trump their ideals.

throwaway4good 6y ago
What are they supposed to say? We would go against the local laws of a country if we think they violate human rights?
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  If you’re not going to stand for human rights, at least don’t claim that you are.
- wpurvis 6y ago
  "We refuse to work with countries that engage in ongoing human rights abuses."
  - throwaway4good 6y ago
    Which countries are those? And who decides which go on the list?
    - adamsvystun 6y ago
      I doesn't matter much as long as there is a list. Apple can even publish it's own list, then everybody can debate if this is a good list or bad list. Currently there is no list - no discussion.
    - jkinudsjknds 6y ago
      Obviously Apple. That's the entire point of taking a principled stance on something. If a country is not on the list, Apple is declaring they don't think it does human rights abuses.

dessant 6y ago

We have the freedom to express ourselves by giving Apple $99/yr to share our open source apps, apps which ultimately further enrich their platform. If you are poor and have been donated an iPhone, then express yourself somewhere else. And if you have expressed yourself on macOS in the past, now pay up there too, or we are going to suggest that your art is dangerous to view on our devices, and we'll make it difficult [1] to run. Nathalie Lawhead's article [2] is a heartbreaking exploration of how open source developers and artists experience Apple's chokehold. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24217116 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24217116 [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20200602003250/http://www.nathalielawhead.com/candybox/the-future-of-my-games-on-apple-post-catalina-and-what-this-means-for-art-games-in-general https://web.archive.org/web/20200602003250/http://www.nathal...

guiltygods 6y ago
Come on..You get listing and visibility and distribution worldwide, Consumers don't have to worry about your credentials and bonafides because app store due diligence checks help keep out malicious and fraudulent apps. People can download appstore apps without worry as opposed to some random guy publishing an open source app that most don't have time or expertise to vet.
- FreakyT 6y ago
  Yes, there are costs associated with running the App Store, but I would be very surprised if those costs came anywhere near what Apple is charging devs. I don’t feel that Apple shouldn’t charge at all, only that what they’re charging is unreasonably high.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Not on macOS, there you’re getting the advantage that macOS doesn’t mark you as malware.
- wayneftw 6y ago
  You can't see how that's a double edged sword though? I buy a device, I even buy a special computer so I can build programs for the device... and now I have to pay $99/year just to comfortably run my own program on my own device? Even worse, I can't even continue to digitally interface with my own customers, people who Apple never helped me land as clients, without passing through Apple's arbitrary store rules AND paying them 30%? That's fucking dog shit and it's going to have to change, especially given that they have 50% of the market in the US.

cblconfederate 6y ago

> At its February annual general meeting a shareholder proposal calling on Apple to publicly commit “to respect freedom of expression as a human right” received more than 40 percent support from shareholders. what?

gman83 6y ago

Having end-to-end encryption on icloud backups would be better than this vague press release.

m463 6y ago
Or be allowed to run a firewall on your phone. Seriously, to see what your phone is doing and who it is connecting to is a fundamental right they deny.
- AnonHP 6y ago
  Would an open source app like Lockdown [1] help you? It can block requests and it also has logs. I haven’t used it, but you could check it out. I’d love to have something like Little Snitch/LuLu on iOS and by default disallow outgoing and incoming connections to all (or at least new) apps. [1]: https://lockdownhq.com/ https://lockdownhq.com/
  - m463 6y ago
    I have been using an old version of adblockios which apple made them change (crippling the product).
colejohnson66 6y ago
And when the average user forgets their iCloud password and loses their everything? Apple decided the trade off for that is worth it, and they provide an alternative for people who want fully encrypted backups: iTunes local backups.
- sneak 6y ago
  That doesn’t matter when everyone else you iMessage with has their (on by default!) non-e2e iCloud device backups enabled. Your entire chat history plaintext gets made available to the feds without a warrant anyway, regardless of the settings on your own device—the plaintext escrow then happens on the device at the other end of the conversation pair. Apple does not care about your privacy. There was a plan to fix this glaring what-amounts-to-a-backdoor in iMessage encryption, but they cancelled it to avoid crossing the FBI. The Reuters reporting on the matter cited six sources.

danShumway 6y ago

Has this been coupled with any actual policy changes, donations, or new products? Is there anything concrete that Apple is going to do differently now that it's made this statement?

vorpalhex 6y ago

So the linked news story makes it sound like this document was proposed and accepted: > At its February annual general meeting a shareholder proposal calling on Apple to publicly commit “to respect freedom of expression as a human right” received more than 40 percent support from shareholders. > According to The Financial Times, Apple's board of directors approved the policy and published it ahead of a deadline of Sept. 5 for shareholders to submit motions for next year's investor meeting. When attempting to read the document through the link in the story, I get directed to Reuters who says: > While it was defeated, it gained 40.6% of votes cast - far more than similar motions put forward previously and enough to push the company to respond, experts said. So, this sounds like Apple may have published the proposal but still actually declined it?

brian_herman__ 6y ago

Here is the link to the document refered to in the article. I wish this wasn't a link to the newspaper rather what apple posted :\ https://s2.q4cdn.com/470004039/files/doc_downloads/gov_docs/2020/Apple-Human-Rights-Policy.pdf https://s2.q4cdn.com/470004039/files/doc_downloads/gov_docs/...

throwaway4good 6y ago

I think the organisation "sum of us" is interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SumOfUs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SumOfUs Some of the campaigns they are running: https://www.sumofus.org/campaigns/ https://www.sumofus.org/campaigns/

simion314 6y ago

What about the freedom to show your app user the information that they could buy some products cheaper on a website?

qiman 6y ago

In the course of trying to determine whether a specific company was participating and profiting from human rights abuses in China just earlier this morning, I came across this mention of Apple: https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/china-83-major-brands-implicated-in-report-on-forced-labour-of-ethnic-minorities-from-xinjiang-assigned-to-factories-across-provinces-includes-company-responses/ https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/china-83... TLDR; Apple is one of a number of companies directly implicated and has not even bothered to respond to these reports.

saagarjha 6y ago
Apple has responded, just not there: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/10/apple-imported-clothes-from-xinjiang-firm-facing-us-forced-labour-sanctions https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/10/apple-imp...
- qiman 6y ago
  That's a response to _different_ allegations. Please see pp 23-27 of the original report by the ASPI: https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ad-aspi/2020-03/Uyghurs%20for%20sale_Final.pdf https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ad-aspi/2020-03/Uygh...

expert700 6y ago

All empty words. Don't look at what they say, look at what they do; Apple has a long history of acquiescing to the CCP's every demand so that they can keep their access to the Chinese market. They probably just put this out because they ran some focus groups and determined that this would improve their image among American / European consumers.

sebow 6y ago

Yeah right, that's why plenty of political platforms were banned on their store.(Nothing illegal mind you, just wrongthink by "Apple standards").

rektide 6y ago

... so long as you use a web browser which supports only Apple approved capabilities & features.

madis 6y ago

There are no human rights. Only privileges. Some have more, some less. The most powerful ones give and take them as they see fit and is convenient to them. It has always been so. Laws are for the masses.

aftergibson 6y ago

I have been such an Apple fan over the years. The recent negative press Apple is getting doesn't affect me in any meaningful way. At the same time it does hit home that a device I use for many hours of the day is heavily controlled by their internal company policies. I always felt like free software was a nice concept I didn't really care about day to day, my opinion is changing on that. I am really excited by a usable Linux on mobile offering.