12 ms·

Apple censors engraving service, report claims

98 points by unfunco 5y ago

jakelazaroff 5y ago
This is really hyperbolic — "engraving" in this context means words Apple will etch into your device when you buy it (see https://www.apple.com/shop/engraving-and-gift-wrap https://www.apple.com/shop/engraving-and-gift-wrap). We're really going to act like it's censorship because Apple won't write certain words on the back of your iPhone?
- mdoms 5y ago
  Ah yes thank you for defining engraving, but I don't think anyone had mistaken this for anything else.
- filoleg 5y ago
  It isn't about them not allowing certain words, it is about which specific words they aren't allowing. Afaik, they had restrictions on it since the feature was introduced. It was mostly just restricting vulgarity and trademarked stuff (just like with all products that allow customizable strings, e.g., you cannot buy custom adidas shoes that have customized text saying "NIKE" on them or "FUCK", but you can put "abcdef" or your name or whatever other random string you want). What this is actually about is which specific strings they are banning this time. And while restricting vulgarity or trademarked stuff makes sense, I think it is reasonable for people to consider it censorship when a number (8964) used to reference the date of a historical event gets banned simply because CCP doesn't like their citizens to remember that date. That scenario above sounds like proper censorship to me, as opposed to simply blocking trademarked stuff.
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    If you really want 8964 on your iPhone, just find an engraving service and get them to do it for you? There are thousands of them on Etsy; I'm sure there are plenty in China too. Frankly, calling this censorship just seems like a category error to me. We're talking about one company not selling you a thing — even though thousands of other companies who will ostensibly gladly sell you that same thing! We need to stop defining censorship as "any time I can't force someone to do something I want".
    - filoleg 5y ago
      It isn't about them not letting me engrave whatever I want. If Apple said "sorry, we cannot engrave 8964 because we don't allow strings that are shorter than 5 characters" that's one story. But Apple essentially says "sure, we can engrave 8964, but only as long as you are not a customer residing in China, because eeeeh reasons. Please pick another 4-digit number instead.". That's pretty telling. They are also banning "STANDWITHHONGKONG" as well. I would have no problems with that if Apple came out and said "we don't support the ongoing free Hong Kong movement, because we are on the side of CCP in this situation, so we won't engrave it". But guess what? They won't do that. And what about 人权 (human rights) and 新聞自由 (Freedom of the press) being on that banlist as well? And don't try to bring up the "muslim bakery refuses to make that specific gay-themed cake for a couple" incident. In their case, it makes sense. The bakery owners agreed to make the cake for the couple, as long as it isn't gay-themed, because homosexuality is against their religious beliefs, and the bakery owners have openly stated so. How about Apple actually having the decency to do the same? If Apple refuses to make those engravings, sure, but Apple should explain to us where they stand on this issue in the open then.
    - lupire 5y ago
      Tell us how your dictionary defines "censor"
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
MajorSauce 5y ago
"It found: 1,045 keywords blocked in mainland China 542 in Hong Kong 397 in Taiwan In contrast, Japan, Canada and the US had between 170 and 260 filtered words." A bit unrelated, but I find interesting that keywords are "blocked" in China and "filtered" in Japan/Canada/US.
- barbegal 5y ago
  I wouldn't read into blocked vs filtered. The report itself doesn't differentiate. This is just a BBC journalist trying to use varied vocabulary which is nicer to read.
  - cat199 5y ago
    or, it's a BBC editor ensuring that china 'blocks' and the west 'filters' because that matches editorial policy. for all we know the original text from the journalist could say 'remove' in both places - without context, we don't really know.
    - jjulius 5y ago
      >... that matches editorial policy. Can you please link us to their editorial policy that you're using as a source for this? For all we know this could just be an entirely speculative, biased asserition on your part - without context, we don't really know.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
vvatermelone 5y ago
>if the engraving resembles SQL content (e.g., “; DELETE FROM”) ... then the API crashes and returns an HTTP 403 code and an HTML error page as opposed to the expected JSON response Poor Bobby Tables can't even get his name on his phone.
filoleg 5y ago
Wow, this was not what I was expecting when I originally read the headline. Initially I assumed it was just a pile-on media outrage about Apple, thinking "how is it surprising, pretty much every engraving service bans certain things that are either vulgar or trademark infringing". Reading the article scrapped all of those presumptions I had. For those who want quick numbers from the article, here is the table showing the number of terms banned in each relevant region for engraving: * 1,045 keywords blocked in mainland China * 542 in Hong Kong * 397 in Taiwan * Japan, Canada and the US had between 170 and 260 filtered words The most egregious example imo was the one banning engraving "8964" (literally just a 4-digit number), because it references the date of Tiananmen Square Massacre. Not the name of a politician or some living person. Just a date that is being forcefully attempted to get erased from history.
- istingray 5y ago
  Erased - by Apple themselves "Replying to the group, Ms Horvath said Apple's rules depended on the region - and "no third parties or government agencies have been involved in the process." Nothing to see here says Apple's Chief Privacy officer Jane Horvath
  - filoleg 5y ago
    I have zero idea what their Chief Privacy Officer was trying to achieve with that statement. If they think that makes them look better, that's a pretty wild assumption on their end. In my eyes, even if we take that statement as truth, it makes them look even worse off than not saying it at all.
    - elliekelly 5y ago
      Look better to who? Customers in the west or the Chinese government?
      - istingray 5y ago
        It does have a bend the knee feel to me. "Acknowledge we are controlling you without saying we're controlling you".
haunter 5y ago
List of words are here https://github.com/citizenlab/chat-censorship/tree/master/apple https://github.com/citizenlab/chat-censorship/tree/master/ap...
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  Missing a lot of ethnic slurs but Dr. Assman is safe for now.
mdoms 5y ago
> "As with everything at Apple, the process for engraving is led by our values," chief privacy officer Jane Horvath wrote in a letter provided to CitizenLab If you had any doubt about Apple's values.
nsizx 5y ago
As long as there are filtered words in the US no one can claim the higher moral ground here.
- filoleg 5y ago
  Ah yes, because Apple in the US filters words that fall under an enforced trademark or under vulgarity just like most "custom engraving/writing" services do, it means that the US cannot claim moral ground over a regime filtering strings related to historical events or politics. US would lose its moral high ground on this one when Apple stops allowing people to reference US politics or dates of historical events in their engravings. Which is not something that is the case now, and I do not foresee it becoming the case anytime soon. Check the list of words that are banned for engravings in the US here[0] and then compare it to the list of words that are banned in China[1]. Note how pretty much every single word banned in the US is either a racial slur or something vulgar. While the Chinese banlist (in addition to the list of all the ones included in the US) features gems such as "STANDWITHHONGKONG" and "XIJINPING" and "8964". 0. https://github.com/citizenlab/chat-censorship/blob/master/apple/us.txt https://github.com/citizenlab/chat-censorship/blob/master/ap... 1. https://github.com/citizenlab/chat-censorship/blob/master/apple/cn.txt https://github.com/citizenlab/chat-censorship/blob/master/ap...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
reindeerboy91 5y ago
I had a look at the lists (hosted on Github, sourced from another post here). On the surface, the lists for China, HK, and TW are longer. But if we consider that these lists contain both English filters and their counterparts in Asian languages, by design they will be much longer. For example, US is listed as 170 filters. You can see the majority of them in the HK list + their translations in Cantonese + specific terms for HK. In China, where at least 5 "languages" are covered, including traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, Japanese, rhymes, and pinyin, the 1,045 (6 times more than US' 170) does not seem excessive at all. (Edit: corrected filter counts)
- filoleg 5y ago
  It isn't just about the languages. Check some words in english present on the list of strings banned in China that aren't present on the list of strings banned in the US. Also, I have no idea where you got the 260 number for the US. Here is the official CitizenLab repo link[0] to the US list, it contains only 170 terms. 0. https://github.com/citizenlab/chat-censorship/blob/master/apple/us.txt https://github.com/citizenlab/chat-censorship/blob/master/ap...
- marmight 5y ago
  Some of the words Apple filters in China include 人权 (human rights), 正法 (dharma), 達賴 (Dalai [Lama]), 新聞自由 (Freedom of the press), and 艾未未 (Ai Weiwei [an artist and political dissident]). [1] There is no equivalent to these kinds of words in the US filter. [1] https://citizenlab.ca/2021/08/engrave-danger-an-analysis-of-apple-engraving-censorship-across-six-regions/ https://citizenlab.ca/2021/08/engrave-danger-an-analysis-of-...
fuckfingers 5y ago
Who gives a shit? First world problems for wealthy consumers.

98 points by unfunco 5y ago

This is really hyperbolic — "engraving" in this context means words Apple will etch into your device when you buy it (see https://www.apple.com/shop/engraving-and-gift-wrap https://www.apple.com/shop/engraving-and-gift-wrap). We're really going to act like it's censorship because Apple won't write certain words on the back of your iPhone?

mdoms 5y ago
Ah yes thank you for defining engraving, but I don't think anyone had mistaken this for anything else.
filoleg 5y ago
It isn't about them not allowing certain words, it is about which specific words they aren't allowing. Afaik, they had restrictions on it since the feature was introduced. It was mostly just restricting vulgarity and trademarked stuff (just like with all products that allow customizable strings, e.g., you cannot buy custom adidas shoes that have customized text saying "NIKE" on them or "FUCK", but you can put "abcdef" or your name or whatever other random string you want). What this is actually about is which specific strings they are banning this time. And while restricting vulgarity or trademarked stuff makes sense, I think it is reasonable for people to consider it censorship when a number (8964) used to reference the date of a historical event gets banned simply because CCP doesn't like their citizens to remember that date. That scenario above sounds like proper censorship to me, as opposed to simply blocking trademarked stuff.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  If you really want 8964 on your iPhone, just find an engraving service and get them to do it for you? There are thousands of them on Etsy; I'm sure there are plenty in China too. Frankly, calling this censorship just seems like a category error to me. We're talking about one company not selling you a thing — even though thousands of other companies who will ostensibly gladly sell you that same thing! We need to stop defining censorship as "any time I can't force someone to do something I want".
  - filoleg 5y ago
    It isn't about them not letting me engrave whatever I want. If Apple said "sorry, we cannot engrave 8964 because we don't allow strings that are shorter than 5 characters" that's one story. But Apple essentially says "sure, we can engrave 8964, but only as long as you are not a customer residing in China, because eeeeh reasons. Please pick another 4-digit number instead.". That's pretty telling. They are also banning "STANDWITHHONGKONG" as well. I would have no problems with that if Apple came out and said "we don't support the ongoing free Hong Kong movement, because we are on the side of CCP in this situation, so we won't engrave it". But guess what? They won't do that. And what about 人权 (human rights) and 新聞自由 (Freedom of the press) being on that banlist as well? And don't try to bring up the "muslim bakery refuses to make that specific gay-themed cake for a couple" incident. In their case, it makes sense. The bakery owners agreed to make the cake for the couple, as long as it isn't gay-themed, because homosexuality is against their religious beliefs, and the bakery owners have openly stated so. How about Apple actually having the decency to do the same? If Apple refuses to make those engravings, sure, but Apple should explain to us where they stand on this issue in the open then.
  - lupire 5y ago
    Tell us how your dictionary defines "censor"
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

MajorSauce 5y ago

"It found: 1,045 keywords blocked in mainland China 542 in Hong Kong 397 in Taiwan In contrast, Japan, Canada and the US had between 170 and 260 filtered words." A bit unrelated, but I find interesting that keywords are "blocked" in China and "filtered" in Japan/Canada/US.

barbegal 5y ago
I wouldn't read into blocked vs filtered. The report itself doesn't differentiate. This is just a BBC journalist trying to use varied vocabulary which is nicer to read.
- cat199 5y ago
  or, it's a BBC editor ensuring that china 'blocks' and the west 'filters' because that matches editorial policy. for all we know the original text from the journalist could say 'remove' in both places - without context, we don't really know.
  - jjulius 5y ago
    >... that matches editorial policy. Can you please link us to their editorial policy that you're using as a source for this? For all we know this could just be an entirely speculative, biased asserition on your part - without context, we don't really know.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

vvatermelone 5y ago

>if the engraving resembles SQL content (e.g., “; DELETE FROM”) ... then the API crashes and returns an HTTP 403 code and an HTML error page as opposed to the expected JSON response Poor Bobby Tables can't even get his name on his phone.

filoleg 5y ago

Wow, this was not what I was expecting when I originally read the headline. Initially I assumed it was just a pile-on media outrage about Apple, thinking "how is it surprising, pretty much every engraving service bans certain things that are either vulgar or trademark infringing". Reading the article scrapped all of those presumptions I had. For those who want quick numbers from the article, here is the table showing the number of terms banned in each relevant region for engraving: * 1,045 keywords blocked in mainland China * 542 in Hong Kong * 397 in Taiwan * Japan, Canada and the US had between 170 and 260 filtered words The most egregious example imo was the one banning engraving "8964" (literally just a 4-digit number), because it references the date of Tiananmen Square Massacre. Not the name of a politician or some living person. Just a date that is being forcefully attempted to get erased from history.

istingray 5y ago
Erased - by Apple themselves "Replying to the group, Ms Horvath said Apple's rules depended on the region - and "no third parties or government agencies have been involved in the process." Nothing to see here says Apple's Chief Privacy officer Jane Horvath
- filoleg 5y ago
  I have zero idea what their Chief Privacy Officer was trying to achieve with that statement. If they think that makes them look better, that's a pretty wild assumption on their end. In my eyes, even if we take that statement as truth, it makes them look even worse off than not saying it at all.
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    Look better to who? Customers in the west or the Chinese government?
    - istingray 5y ago
      It does have a bend the knee feel to me. "Acknowledge we are controlling you without saying we're controlling you".

haunter 5y ago

List of words are here https://github.com/citizenlab/chat-censorship/tree/master/apple https://github.com/citizenlab/chat-censorship/tree/master/ap...

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
Missing a lot of ethnic slurs but Dr. Assman is safe for now.

mdoms 5y ago

> "As with everything at Apple, the process for engraving is led by our values," chief privacy officer Jane Horvath wrote in a letter provided to CitizenLab If you had any doubt about Apple's values.

nsizx 5y ago

As long as there are filtered words in the US no one can claim the higher moral ground here.

filoleg 5y ago
Ah yes, because Apple in the US filters words that fall under an enforced trademark or under vulgarity just like most "custom engraving/writing" services do, it means that the US cannot claim moral ground over a regime filtering strings related to historical events or politics. US would lose its moral high ground on this one when Apple stops allowing people to reference US politics or dates of historical events in their engravings. Which is not something that is the case now, and I do not foresee it becoming the case anytime soon. Check the list of words that are banned for engravings in the US here[0] and then compare it to the list of words that are banned in China[1]. Note how pretty much every single word banned in the US is either a racial slur or something vulgar. While the Chinese banlist (in addition to the list of all the ones included in the US) features gems such as "STANDWITHHONGKONG" and "XIJINPING" and "8964". 0. https://github.com/citizenlab/chat-censorship/blob/master/apple/us.txt https://github.com/citizenlab/chat-censorship/blob/master/ap... 1. https://github.com/citizenlab/chat-censorship/blob/master/apple/cn.txt https://github.com/citizenlab/chat-censorship/blob/master/ap...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

reindeerboy91 5y ago

I had a look at the lists (hosted on Github, sourced from another post here). On the surface, the lists for China, HK, and TW are longer. But if we consider that these lists contain both English filters and their counterparts in Asian languages, by design they will be much longer. For example, US is listed as 170 filters. You can see the majority of them in the HK list + their translations in Cantonese + specific terms for HK. In China, where at least 5 "languages" are covered, including traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, Japanese, rhymes, and pinyin, the 1,045 (6 times more than US' 170) does not seem excessive at all. (Edit: corrected filter counts)

filoleg 5y ago
It isn't just about the languages. Check some words in english present on the list of strings banned in China that aren't present on the list of strings banned in the US. Also, I have no idea where you got the 260 number for the US. Here is the official CitizenLab repo link[0] to the US list, it contains only 170 terms. 0. https://github.com/citizenlab/chat-censorship/blob/master/apple/us.txt https://github.com/citizenlab/chat-censorship/blob/master/ap...
marmight 5y ago
Some of the words Apple filters in China include 人权 (human rights), 正法 (dharma), 達賴 (Dalai [Lama]), 新聞自由 (Freedom of the press), and 艾未未 (Ai Weiwei [an artist and political dissident]). [1] There is no equivalent to these kinds of words in the US filter. [1] https://citizenlab.ca/2021/08/engrave-danger-an-analysis-of-apple-engraving-censorship-across-six-regions/ https://citizenlab.ca/2021/08/engrave-danger-an-analysis-of-...

fuckfingers 5y ago

Who gives a shit? First world problems for wealthy consumers.