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The same Apple that censors the Taiwan flag emoji[1]? Apple will do whatever the CCP tells them to do because they are not willing to lose a market of a billio
by heavyset_go 4y ago
The same Apple that censors the Taiwan flag emoji[1]?
Apple will do whatever the CCP tells them to do because they are not willing to lose a market of a billion+ potential customers.
Companies have no problem being complicit in enabling authoritarianism as long as it's profitable.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/7/20903613/apple-hiding-taiwan-flag-emoji-hong-kong-macau-china https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/7/20903613/apple-hiding-tai...
- atlasunshrugged 4y agoNot just losing the market but losing access to their network of fabricators and suppliers that make the iphone possible at Apple's healthy (to say the least) margins
- 323 4y agoTo be fair, not even the US govt recognizes the Taiwan flag. One could say that Apple it's following US guidance on this. > the White House deleted a social media post on COVID-19 vaccine donations that included Taiwan's flag. A spokesman for the White House National Security Council called the use of the flag "an honest mistake" by the team handling graphics and social media that should not be viewed as a shift in U.S. policy towards Taipei https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-asks-us-not-cause-misunderstanding-after-flag-tweet-removed-2021-07-08/ https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-asks-us-no...
- indymike 4y ago> One could say that Apple it's following US guidance on this. Emoji are governed by the Unicode Consortium, not the US government. In this case, the Taiwan flag is character number 1848, codes: U+1F1F9 U+1F1FC
- avar 4y agoUnicode doesn't have the flag of Taiwan, it has a way of encoding "tw" in the context of an ISO county code.
- indymike 4y agoI pulled the above from the Unicode Consoritum's specs.
- avar 4y agoWhich parts? Maybe they do mention it along with other flags in examples, as far as I know any actual official specifications are intentionally coy on the matter. I.e. the Unicode consortium explicitly didn't want to get into the mess of deciding whether Palestine, Taiwan etc. are "real countries", or need to release updates if one country annexed another etc. So the official standards for the regional indicator symbols[2] just provide a way to encode two-letter ISO country codes, leaving it the implementation's and ISO's problem to map that to political entities. 1. https://unicode.org/reports/tr51/#Flags https://unicode.org/reports/tr51/#Flags 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_indicator_symbol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_indicator_symbol
- indymike 4y agoYou are describing how flag emoji work.
- heavyset_go 4y agoThis is an really wide stretch considering that I can type the Taiwan flag emoji in the US and any country that isn't China or claimed by China.
- czzr 4y agoNo company operating in China uses the Taiwanese flag in its products.
- heavyset_go 4y agoMy point exactly. Expecting Apple to operate differently is wishful thinking, at best, or outright naivety.
- smoldesu 4y agoWhich is why even morally reprehensible companies like Microsoft, Google and Facebook balked at this censorship and ceased business relations with China. Apple is the last man standing, ironically preaching their independence and dedication to the end-user.
- ashwagary 4y agoThey didnt cease business voluntarily, they were kicked out or banned.
- LorenPechtel 4y agoBecause they wouldn't comply with CCCP requirements. They chose being kicked out rather than compliance.