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I totally get that people want companies to act with dignity, but the idea that a company, even one as large as Apple, is going to make any sort of difference w

I totally get that people want companies to act with dignity, but the idea that a company, even one as large as Apple, is going to make any sort of difference with respect to China's oddities is wishful thinking. Apple has a business to run. They abide by all sorts of requests in various countries in which they operate. Of course there has to be a line somewhere, I'm just not sure this is it.

gonehome 5y ago
I think these things have a corrupting influence on the principles of the company over time: https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/13/zoom-in-china.html https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/13/zoom-in-china.html It's better to figure out an exit (imo) than continue to capitulate on these kinds of things, particularly in a country that is hostile to foreign companies and IP (and particularly if one of your company values is the privacy of your users). --- >>Peter Thiel: Well I think, again those aren’t the only two possibilities, I don’t think they created very much, I think a lot of it was just handed over from the west so it wasn’t even stolen. You know, I criticized Google a few years ago for refusing to work on its AI technology on Project Maven with the U.S. military, but working with Chinese universities and Chinese researchers. And since everything in China is a civilian- military fusion, Google was effectively working with the Chinese military, not with the American military. And there was sort of this question, “Why Google was doing this?” And one of the things that I was sort of told by some of the insiders at Google was they figured they might as well give the technology out through the front door, because if they didn’t give it – it would get stolen anyway. >>Peter Thiel: I had a set of conversations with some of the Google people in the deep mind AI technology, “is your AI being used to run the concentration camps in Xinjiang?” and “Well, We don’t know and don’t ask any questions.” You have this almost magical thinking that by pretending that everything is fine, that’s how you engage and have a conversation. And you make the world better. And it’s some combination of wishful thinking. It’s useful idiots, you know, it’s CCP fifth columnist collaborators. So it’s some super position of all these things. But I think if you think of it ideologically or in terms of human rights or something like that, I’m tempted to say it’s just profoundly racist. It’s like saying that because they look different, they’re not white people, they don’t have the same rights. It’s something super wrong. But I don’t quite know how you unlock that. https://nixonseminar.com/2021/04/the-nixon-seminar-april-6-2021-transcript/ https://nixonseminar.com/2021/04/the-nixon-seminar-april-6-2...
- kelnos 5y ago
  Not disagreeing with what Thiel is saying here, but it's pretty hypocritical for him to be criticizing here considering he's the co-founder of Palantir, a company that feeds some tasty tasty morsels to the surveillance state and military-industrial complex.
  - gonehome 5y ago
    I can’t go into it, but this is a misunderstanding of what Palantir does.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      I can't go into it, but ...
  - brandall10 5y ago
    It seems he's drawing a distinction at domestic vs. foreign actors. The criticism at Google here is against working to enable the US military vs. what is a thin veil of enabling the Chinese military hiding behind a veil.
    - gonehome 5y ago
      It’s also about a defense of the west and western liberalism over China and the CCP authoritarianism. It’s Google leadership capitulating to the (imo naive) politics of its workforce to not work with the USG, while continuing to support the governments of adversaries (because largely American politics ignores the plight of people in places like KSA and China under a weak kind of moral relativism).
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    Pointing out someone else's hypocrisy isn't an inconsistency. If someone says doing business with a military is unacceptable and then proceeds to do business with a military, they're a hypocrite. That's still true even if the person telling you this does business with a military.
kelnos 5y ago
I know this would never happen, but I wish companies would just default to not doing business in China, unless they are able to sell their product, uncompromised. I wouldn't mind legislation to that effect, though I'm sure that would come with a ton of unintended consequences. If China (and similar repressive regimes) wants these sorts of products with onerous restrictions built in, they should have to build them themselves. Of course, I do recognize that this is perhaps somewhat hypocritical: the OFAC list in the US comes to mind (which makes it illegal for US entities to do business with entities in certain "bad" countries). I'm reminded of GitHub's fight to allow people from Iran to use GitHub. I get the purpose of sanctions on Iran, but hurting regular Iranian citizens with these sorts of bans does nothing to punish or put pressure on the people who are actually the targets of sanctions.
- vmception 5y ago
  When I see state capital or communist societies, I see "single whale that has to purchase at inflated prices" I'll spin up a British Virgin Islands company or buy another passport first in response to any legislation aimed at preventing business with those whales Others are already 5 steps ahead of me
  - ShroudedNight 5y ago
    Why not simply renounce your citizenship now if you feel you should owe no duty to maintain any kind of national security policy?
    - vmception 5y ago
      Private citizens don’t maintain the US’ national security policy, as this article clearly shows, but you are commenting on a theoretical reality that has lacked consensus or wasnt even on the table during every administration of the same country. Alternatively, US citizenship doesn't guarantee any beneficiary of national security or evacuation from another place when shit hits the fan. So before I answer your question, what did you mean specifically?
- 5y ago
ipv6ipv4 5y ago
We can have a very long debate about that but I think it's beside the point with regards to Apple's CSAM effort. The point is that Apple is inventing a tool that is very amenable to being wielded as a weapon of mass surveillance, and oppression. The maps analogy is that it's one thing for the Chinese government to tell Apple to implement a mapping app from scratch so that it can be used to display bogus mapping data. It's quite another for the Chinese government to tell Apple to modify its existing Maps app data. In light of the inherent amorality of companies that you are pointing out, the people working in these companies should be smart enough not to go out of their way to place themselves in situations with such moral hazards. Apple shouldn't be building weapons.
- simonh 5y ago
  We’ll, what Apple built with CSAM checking is a tool that checks images uploaded to their servers, and only those images, against a digital fingerprint. There is no novel technology in this. It’s very basic stuff doing a specific thing. It’s in no way a meaningful stepping stone to doing anything else. If you’re against Apple scanning images uploaded to iCloud for CSAM that’s fine, say that, but it’s no stepping stone. If you’re not against Apple scanning CSAM uploaded to their servers, as they are actually required to do by law, then it’s a non-issue.
  - ipv6ipv4 5y ago
    > We’ll, what Apple built with CSAM checking is a tool that checks images uploaded to their servers, and only those images, against a digital fingerprint. No, that's not how any of it works. Apple scans and matches your photos, on your device, against a list of hashes that represent government provided images that Apple has no knowledge of. The stipulation that images are only scanned when uploaded to Apple servers is a courtesy, not a technical limitation. The exact courtesy that would be rescinded by pressure from the Chinese government. > If you’re not against Apple scanning CSAM uploaded to their servers, as they are actually required to do by law, then it’s a non-issue. The law explicitly stipulates that Apple is _not_ required to scan photos for CSAM. The text of the law [1] explicitly protects people's privacy in the section titled "Protection of Privacy". [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2258A https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2258A
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
> Apple has a business to run. They abide by all sorts of requests in various countries in which they operate. And then people rightly condemn them for it. Because not getting a pass even when the pressure is strong -- especially when the pressure is strong -- is the only incentive we can give them to even try to resist that pressure. That sucks for them. It puts them between a rock and a hard place. Too bad. Because the alternative is that nobody fights against wrong.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > Too bad. Also, too bad because they are hardly orphan children caught on a battlefield. They are among the most power actors out there. I'd say, 'deal with it', but they don't complain.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Ironically the same people that at the end of the day might have plenty of "made-in-china" products at home.
wolverine876 5y ago
It seems fashionable to preach helplessness. Apple can't change China by themselves, but they are not by themselves. If we all follow that reasoning, then nothing ever happens. To surrender and retreat from the field of battle is a sure way to lose. Despair is a leading psyops tactic - targeted at enemies; let's not help them. It would be interesting to talk about what organizations like Apple can and cannot do; what is effective and what isn't. Is there any research? Apple should not be deceiving people outside China with CCP propaganda, which is what the maps are.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Well, everyone could start by avoid buying "made-in-china" as much as possible, yet I see exactly the opposite. Lots of moral on the Internet, but then when it touches getting the next gadget, or saving some bucks...
- misnome 5y ago
  How are they deceiving people outside China when only showing the difference inside China?
  - joakleaf 5y ago
    Well, for one thing because we outside China would automatically assume they are showing the same thing inside China as we see. Now we know that is not true. That is deceptive. ... And a a shareholder, I was also kept in the dark -- Which is actually also pretty problematic and deceptive.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - Sebb767 5y ago
      > Well, for one thing because we outside China would automatically assume they are showing the same thing inside China as we see. Now we know that is not true. That is deceptive. Would you expect a big pop "WARNING: THIS CONTENT IS SHOWN DIFFERENTLY IN MAINLAND CHINA DUE TO REGULATIONS!"? Also, this will mostly yield a well-duh response. The only "appropriate" option in scale would be to put it somewhere in the fine print (IMO), but this is so close to not mentioning it at all that they might as well not. Also, I don't think there's a general expectation for website to be the same everywhere. If you open google.com from Germany, would you be suprised to see Google in German? Project Gutenberg also was unavailable in Germany for quite some time; I don't think they informed every non-German reader about it. > ... And a[s] a shareholder, I was also kept in the dark -- Which is actually also pretty problematic and deceptive. I'm pretty sure they don't inform shareholders over standard legal requests. They probably didn't ping you about FCC restricted radio frequencies either. It's not that I generally agree with censoring, but I don't think Apple acted unreasonably here.
burntoutfire 5y ago
> Apple has a business to run. "Apple" is not some abstract entity. There are people behind Apple (the shareholders, the managers, the employees). Real people, with real morals and values. I don't think that the only thing all of them care about is "running a business" and that all of them feel it absolves them from acting humanly. It's more complicated than that. (having said that, of course, greed is always strong).
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Apple has an actual fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. And via survival bias, companies that act purely morally simply cease to exist as they are out competed by companies that focus on profit instead. Such entities simply can't survive via capitalism without, perhaps, government regulation that ensures everyone is playing with the same set of rules.
  - Eelongate 5y ago
    > Apple has an actual fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. That fiduciary responsibility meme needs to die already. The flimsiest business justification is enough to cover company leadership's ass. Instead of "We refuse to do business with China because it's immoral" they need merely say "because we believe it's in the long term strategic interests of the company."
    - ShroudedNight 5y ago
      Furthermore, this has already come up in the past for Apple: When pressed about the financial prudence of prioritizing environmental outcomes Tim Cook snapped: "When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don't consider the bloody ROI." It was also not limited to accessibility, but applicable to many areas Apple desires to lead. The conclusion is that Apple is explicitly not interested in prioritizing individual liberty.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      > That fiduciary responsibility meme needs to die already. Again, stop it. The companies you want exist, they just go insolvent before you ever notice them. If you want to change the way the companies operate, you have to change the system, you can't just expect companies to "do the right thing" in an environment that penalizes them for that. You can't have the free market cake and eat the ideological high ground at the same time.
mistrial9 5y ago
I was at a company that defied the 1980s business embargo in South Africa. They said similar things at the time. The government of South Africa did fall, and most of the world applauded if I recall. The net effect for this business was, that they earned more money by ignoring the embargo, whatever the outcome. There are insulting names in most languages for this kind of behavior, it is not new.
- girvo 5y ago
  There is no embargo on China (in this context) though. The world has not agreed to not do business with them.
  - FpUser 5y ago
    The world as a whole never will. If Western powers try and sanction non compliant countries this will effectively split the world into 2 parts and it is not going to end well. I think this would be total disaster.
Dma54rhs 5y ago
IBM, Hugo Boss etc also had business to run. But for the western people Apple taking out the rainbow flag and talking about their social responsibility I'd enough.
ksec 5y ago
I dont have a problem with your narrative. Actually I agree with your narrative. Every companies has business to run. I just have a problem with Apple suggesting they are doing "good" with X, promising "good" with Y, with a big smile on its face in marketing, pumping up PR to the maximum. But every time you scrutinize the details they just dont hold up. BTW people may want to look at Samsung's market share in China. Hint: it is a single digit number.
eloisius 5y ago
That’s all op said. Regardless of the moralizing, if you buy into apple because they market themselves as the company who will stand up for your privacy, remember that it’s just marketing. Apple has a business to run, and they’ll fold to government pressure like a lawn chair.
quitit 5y ago
That is a good question about why there is more emphasis on companies doing political advocacy rather than one's own government. It seems too weighted in companies doing the heavy lifting when this is likely to interfere with business objectives. Local investment requests however aren't novel - India have made similar requests which Apple have also fulfilled. China is only notable here because they have consistent human rights abuse issues, and with that there is a certain idealism that any kind of interaction with such a country is a form of consent. While Apple's situation here isn't particularly noteworthy, it's a good proxy for a wider question about US companies reliance on China. Also those with a keen eye would notice that China hasn't given Apple much here - they are still regularly admonished by the state-run press and Apple have only a handful of their most basic services available in the country.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > That is a good question about why there is more emphasis on companies doing political advocacy rather than one's own government. Great point. Some movements are so anxious to minimize (or undermine) goverment that people get carried away, and forget all the things democracies can do and have done. We simply have to decide to do things as a people. China, for sure, is happy to see us divided.
felipelemos 5y ago
> but the idea that a company, even one as large as Apple, is going to make any sort of difference with respect to China's oddities is wishful thinking. They don't need and shouldn't make any difference at all. They could actually leave the Chinese market and make a difference for the rest of the world. They don't have and shouldn't have this responsibility anyway. And they have the money, market share, and power to ignore China and not only survive it but continue to generate a lot of wealth for the shareholders.
twobitshifter 5y ago
I somewhat agree, I’m not saying it would be the right or intelligent thing to do, but if we as a country collectively feel that we should not do business with China in certain fields, the only answer with teeth is an embargo. Even then the risk of Apple sales to China doesn’t go to zero, everyone remembers IBM selling typewriters to the Nazis. Do we think companies today are less greedy than IBM?
- landemva 5y ago
  Consider removing MFN trade status from China. Back in 1993, Clinton and Pelosi supported MFN status for China. Just undo it. https://china.usc.edu/statement-president-clinton-most-favored-nation-status-china-1993 https://china.usc.edu/statement-president-clinton-most-favor...
arvinsim 5y ago
Don't be an apologists for these companies. These megacorps have a big influence on the fabric of society. They must be held to a higher standard.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Each should start by their own circle of influence by not buying products made against their morals.

gonehome 5y ago

I think these things have a corrupting influence on the principles of the company over time: https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/13/zoom-in-china.html https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/13/zoom-in-china.html It's better to figure out an exit (imo) than continue to capitulate on these kinds of things, particularly in a country that is hostile to foreign companies and IP (and particularly if one of your company values is the privacy of your users). --- >>Peter Thiel: Well I think, again those aren’t the only two possibilities, I don’t think they created very much, I think a lot of it was just handed over from the west so it wasn’t even stolen. You know, I criticized Google a few years ago for refusing to work on its AI technology on Project Maven with the U.S. military, but working with Chinese universities and Chinese researchers. And since everything in China is a civilian- military fusion, Google was effectively working with the Chinese military, not with the American military. And there was sort of this question, “Why Google was doing this?” And one of the things that I was sort of told by some of the insiders at Google was they figured they might as well give the technology out through the front door, because if they didn’t give it – it would get stolen anyway. >>Peter Thiel: I had a set of conversations with some of the Google people in the deep mind AI technology, “is your AI being used to run the concentration camps in Xinjiang?” and “Well, We don’t know and don’t ask any questions.” You have this almost magical thinking that by pretending that everything is fine, that’s how you engage and have a conversation. And you make the world better. And it’s some combination of wishful thinking. It’s useful idiots, you know, it’s CCP fifth columnist collaborators. So it’s some super position of all these things. But I think if you think of it ideologically or in terms of human rights or something like that, I’m tempted to say it’s just profoundly racist. It’s like saying that because they look different, they’re not white people, they don’t have the same rights. It’s something super wrong. But I don’t quite know how you unlock that. https://nixonseminar.com/2021/04/the-nixon-seminar-april-6-2021-transcript/ https://nixonseminar.com/2021/04/the-nixon-seminar-april-6-2...

kelnos 5y ago
Not disagreeing with what Thiel is saying here, but it's pretty hypocritical for him to be criticizing here considering he's the co-founder of Palantir, a company that feeds some tasty tasty morsels to the surveillance state and military-industrial complex.
- gonehome 5y ago
  I can’t go into it, but this is a misunderstanding of what Palantir does.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    I can't go into it, but ...
- brandall10 5y ago
  It seems he's drawing a distinction at domestic vs. foreign actors. The criticism at Google here is against working to enable the US military vs. what is a thin veil of enabling the Chinese military hiding behind a veil.
  - gonehome 5y ago
    It’s also about a defense of the west and western liberalism over China and the CCP authoritarianism. It’s Google leadership capitulating to the (imo naive) politics of its workforce to not work with the USG, while continuing to support the governments of adversaries (because largely American politics ignores the plight of people in places like KSA and China under a weak kind of moral relativism).
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  Pointing out someone else's hypocrisy isn't an inconsistency. If someone says doing business with a military is unacceptable and then proceeds to do business with a military, they're a hypocrite. That's still true even if the person telling you this does business with a military.

kelnos 5y ago

I know this would never happen, but I wish companies would just default to not doing business in China, unless they are able to sell their product, uncompromised. I wouldn't mind legislation to that effect, though I'm sure that would come with a ton of unintended consequences. If China (and similar repressive regimes) wants these sorts of products with onerous restrictions built in, they should have to build them themselves. Of course, I do recognize that this is perhaps somewhat hypocritical: the OFAC list in the US comes to mind (which makes it illegal for US entities to do business with entities in certain "bad" countries). I'm reminded of GitHub's fight to allow people from Iran to use GitHub. I get the purpose of sanctions on Iran, but hurting regular Iranian citizens with these sorts of bans does nothing to punish or put pressure on the people who are actually the targets of sanctions.

vmception 5y ago
When I see state capital or communist societies, I see "single whale that has to purchase at inflated prices" I'll spin up a British Virgin Islands company or buy another passport first in response to any legislation aimed at preventing business with those whales Others are already 5 steps ahead of me
- ShroudedNight 5y ago
  Why not simply renounce your citizenship now if you feel you should owe no duty to maintain any kind of national security policy?
  - vmception 5y ago
    Private citizens don’t maintain the US’ national security policy, as this article clearly shows, but you are commenting on a theoretical reality that has lacked consensus or wasnt even on the table during every administration of the same country. Alternatively, US citizenship doesn't guarantee any beneficiary of national security or evacuation from another place when shit hits the fan. So before I answer your question, what did you mean specifically?
5y ago

ipv6ipv4 5y ago

We can have a very long debate about that but I think it's beside the point with regards to Apple's CSAM effort. The point is that Apple is inventing a tool that is very amenable to being wielded as a weapon of mass surveillance, and oppression. The maps analogy is that it's one thing for the Chinese government to tell Apple to implement a mapping app from scratch so that it can be used to display bogus mapping data. It's quite another for the Chinese government to tell Apple to modify its existing Maps app data. In light of the inherent amorality of companies that you are pointing out, the people working in these companies should be smart enough not to go out of their way to place themselves in situations with such moral hazards. Apple shouldn't be building weapons.

simonh 5y ago
We’ll, what Apple built with CSAM checking is a tool that checks images uploaded to their servers, and only those images, against a digital fingerprint. There is no novel technology in this. It’s very basic stuff doing a specific thing. It’s in no way a meaningful stepping stone to doing anything else. If you’re against Apple scanning images uploaded to iCloud for CSAM that’s fine, say that, but it’s no stepping stone. If you’re not against Apple scanning CSAM uploaded to their servers, as they are actually required to do by law, then it’s a non-issue.
- ipv6ipv4 5y ago
  > We’ll, what Apple built with CSAM checking is a tool that checks images uploaded to their servers, and only those images, against a digital fingerprint. No, that's not how any of it works. Apple scans and matches your photos, on your device, against a list of hashes that represent government provided images that Apple has no knowledge of. The stipulation that images are only scanned when uploaded to Apple servers is a courtesy, not a technical limitation. The exact courtesy that would be rescinded by pressure from the Chinese government. > If you’re not against Apple scanning CSAM uploaded to their servers, as they are actually required to do by law, then it’s a non-issue. The law explicitly stipulates that Apple is _not_ required to scan photos for CSAM. The text of the law [1] explicitly protects people's privacy in the section titled "Protection of Privacy". [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2258A https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2258A

AnthonyMouse 5y ago

> Apple has a business to run. They abide by all sorts of requests in various countries in which they operate. And then people rightly condemn them for it. Because not getting a pass even when the pressure is strong -- especially when the pressure is strong -- is the only incentive we can give them to even try to resist that pressure. That sucks for them. It puts them between a rock and a hard place. Too bad. Because the alternative is that nobody fights against wrong.

wolverine876 5y ago
> Too bad. Also, too bad because they are hardly orphan children caught on a battlefield. They are among the most power actors out there. I'd say, 'deal with it', but they don't complain.
pjmlp 5y ago
Ironically the same people that at the end of the day might have plenty of "made-in-china" products at home.

wolverine876 5y ago

It seems fashionable to preach helplessness. Apple can't change China by themselves, but they are not by themselves. If we all follow that reasoning, then nothing ever happens. To surrender and retreat from the field of battle is a sure way to lose. Despair is a leading psyops tactic - targeted at enemies; let's not help them. It would be interesting to talk about what organizations like Apple can and cannot do; what is effective and what isn't. Is there any research? Apple should not be deceiving people outside China with CCP propaganda, which is what the maps are.

pjmlp 5y ago
Well, everyone could start by avoid buying "made-in-china" as much as possible, yet I see exactly the opposite. Lots of moral on the Internet, but then when it touches getting the next gadget, or saving some bucks...
misnome 5y ago
How are they deceiving people outside China when only showing the difference inside China?
- joakleaf 5y ago
  Well, for one thing because we outside China would automatically assume they are showing the same thing inside China as we see. Now we know that is not true. That is deceptive. ... And a a shareholder, I was also kept in the dark -- Which is actually also pretty problematic and deceptive.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    > Well, for one thing because we outside China would automatically assume they are showing the same thing inside China as we see. Now we know that is not true. That is deceptive. Would you expect a big pop "WARNING: THIS CONTENT IS SHOWN DIFFERENTLY IN MAINLAND CHINA DUE TO REGULATIONS!"? Also, this will mostly yield a well-duh response. The only "appropriate" option in scale would be to put it somewhere in the fine print (IMO), but this is so close to not mentioning it at all that they might as well not. Also, I don't think there's a general expectation for website to be the same everywhere. If you open google.com from Germany, would you be suprised to see Google in German? Project Gutenberg also was unavailable in Germany for quite some time; I don't think they informed every non-German reader about it. > ... And a[s] a shareholder, I was also kept in the dark -- Which is actually also pretty problematic and deceptive. I'm pretty sure they don't inform shareholders over standard legal requests. They probably didn't ping you about FCC restricted radio frequencies either. It's not that I generally agree with censoring, but I don't think Apple acted unreasonably here.

burntoutfire 5y ago

> Apple has a business to run. "Apple" is not some abstract entity. There are people behind Apple (the shareholders, the managers, the employees). Real people, with real morals and values. I don't think that the only thing all of them care about is "running a business" and that all of them feel it absolves them from acting humanly. It's more complicated than that. (having said that, of course, greed is always strong).

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
Apple has an actual fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. And via survival bias, companies that act purely morally simply cease to exist as they are out competed by companies that focus on profit instead. Such entities simply can't survive via capitalism without, perhaps, government regulation that ensures everyone is playing with the same set of rules.
- Eelongate 5y ago
  > Apple has an actual fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. That fiduciary responsibility meme needs to die already. The flimsiest business justification is enough to cover company leadership's ass. Instead of "We refuse to do business with China because it's immoral" they need merely say "because we believe it's in the long term strategic interests of the company."
  - ShroudedNight 5y ago
    Furthermore, this has already come up in the past for Apple: When pressed about the financial prudence of prioritizing environmental outcomes Tim Cook snapped: "When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don't consider the bloody ROI." It was also not limited to accessibility, but applicable to many areas Apple desires to lead. The conclusion is that Apple is explicitly not interested in prioritizing individual liberty.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    > That fiduciary responsibility meme needs to die already. Again, stop it. The companies you want exist, they just go insolvent before you ever notice them. If you want to change the way the companies operate, you have to change the system, you can't just expect companies to "do the right thing" in an environment that penalizes them for that. You can't have the free market cake and eat the ideological high ground at the same time.

mistrial9 5y ago

I was at a company that defied the 1980s business embargo in South Africa. They said similar things at the time. The government of South Africa did fall, and most of the world applauded if I recall. The net effect for this business was, that they earned more money by ignoring the embargo, whatever the outcome. There are insulting names in most languages for this kind of behavior, it is not new.

girvo 5y ago
There is no embargo on China (in this context) though. The world has not agreed to not do business with them.
- FpUser 5y ago
  The world as a whole never will. If Western powers try and sanction non compliant countries this will effectively split the world into 2 parts and it is not going to end well. I think this would be total disaster.

Dma54rhs 5y ago

IBM, Hugo Boss etc also had business to run. But for the western people Apple taking out the rainbow flag and talking about their social responsibility I'd enough.

ksec 5y ago

I dont have a problem with your narrative. Actually I agree with your narrative. Every companies has business to run. I just have a problem with Apple suggesting they are doing "good" with X, promising "good" with Y, with a big smile on its face in marketing, pumping up PR to the maximum. But every time you scrutinize the details they just dont hold up. BTW people may want to look at Samsung's market share in China. Hint: it is a single digit number.

eloisius 5y ago

That’s all op said. Regardless of the moralizing, if you buy into apple because they market themselves as the company who will stand up for your privacy, remember that it’s just marketing. Apple has a business to run, and they’ll fold to government pressure like a lawn chair.

quitit 5y ago

That is a good question about why there is more emphasis on companies doing political advocacy rather than one's own government. It seems too weighted in companies doing the heavy lifting when this is likely to interfere with business objectives. Local investment requests however aren't novel - India have made similar requests which Apple have also fulfilled. China is only notable here because they have consistent human rights abuse issues, and with that there is a certain idealism that any kind of interaction with such a country is a form of consent. While Apple's situation here isn't particularly noteworthy, it's a good proxy for a wider question about US companies reliance on China. Also those with a keen eye would notice that China hasn't given Apple much here - they are still regularly admonished by the state-run press and Apple have only a handful of their most basic services available in the country.

wolverine876 5y ago
> That is a good question about why there is more emphasis on companies doing political advocacy rather than one's own government. Great point. Some movements are so anxious to minimize (or undermine) goverment that people get carried away, and forget all the things democracies can do and have done. We simply have to decide to do things as a people. China, for sure, is happy to see us divided.

felipelemos 5y ago

> but the idea that a company, even one as large as Apple, is going to make any sort of difference with respect to China's oddities is wishful thinking. They don't need and shouldn't make any difference at all. They could actually leave the Chinese market and make a difference for the rest of the world. They don't have and shouldn't have this responsibility anyway. And they have the money, market share, and power to ignore China and not only survive it but continue to generate a lot of wealth for the shareholders.

twobitshifter 5y ago

I somewhat agree, I’m not saying it would be the right or intelligent thing to do, but if we as a country collectively feel that we should not do business with China in certain fields, the only answer with teeth is an embargo. Even then the risk of Apple sales to China doesn’t go to zero, everyone remembers IBM selling typewriters to the Nazis. Do we think companies today are less greedy than IBM?

landemva 5y ago
Consider removing MFN trade status from China. Back in 1993, Clinton and Pelosi supported MFN status for China. Just undo it. https://china.usc.edu/statement-president-clinton-most-favored-nation-status-china-1993 https://china.usc.edu/statement-president-clinton-most-favor...

arvinsim 5y ago

Don't be an apologists for these companies. These megacorps have a big influence on the fabric of society. They must be held to a higher standard.

pjmlp 5y ago
Each should start by their own circle of influence by not buying products made against their morals.