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We all have accepted this kind of compliance from every company doing business in China and move on where it's an authoritarian government, because profits. We

We all have accepted this kind of compliance from every company doing business in China and move on where it's an authoritarian government, because profits. We should hold the company to the same standards regardless, it's going to probably take many years for that to happen.

mattmaroon 2y ago
Do we expect corporations to take on other governments for us? It’s not unethical to comply with the law in foreign countries and, while I obviously don’t agree with China’s censorship, they can point out lots of poor human rights abuses on our end yet Chinese companies are expected to follow our laws here too. Apple is just doing what any rational actor would, obeying the laws of recognized governments, and I don’t think it’s fair to expect them to do more. If the American people care that much about the free speech of Chinese citizens it’s a matter for our government, not our corporations.
- spywaregorilla 2y ago
  Nice. A simultaneous conflation of law with ethics, an appeal to others' immorality as a way to justify your own, and an appeal to corporations only being held to the fiscal rationale ethics system, which is to say, none.
  - mattmaroon 2y ago
    No conflating, ethics are subjective, laws are not. (Or at least, close to not.) One can't build a system on non-codified ethics because they change so much and vary from place to place. Our own legal system has plenty of ethical issues. We lock up almost 5x as many people per capita as China. Should they not do business with us? If corporations stopped doing business with any country someone on HN found to be doing something unethical, we'd all go back to the economic stone age. There's no real argument here, your sentiments are just "big company bad, China bad" with more words.
    - spywaregorilla 2y ago
      I haven't said anything about China or any company. Compliance with laws is not ethically relevant. You are trying to justify unethical behavior with appeals to pragmatism or "fairness" with whatabout appeals to other countries. Which maybe you believe, but it is cowardly and manipulative to imply that the behavior is not unethical because you think it should be done anyway. That's just modern evil 101.
      - mattmaroon 2y ago
        You are putting a whole lot of words in my mouth that aren’t there. And we were discussing something that happens in China, so I was giving you credit (unfairly, apparently) for having any point at all. I’ll discontinue this since it’s merely off-topic, nonsensical ad hominems.
        spywaregorilla 2y ago
        Ok great let's be explicit and cite your own stupid words You believe that Apple should follow a law that is unethical. evidence: > I obviously don’t agree with China’s censorship You believe this is ok though because other countries have bad laws sometimes. evidence: > they can point out lots of poor human rights abuses on our end yet Chinese companies are expected to follow our laws here too. > Our own legal system has plenty of ethical issues. We lock up almost 5x as many people per capita as China. Should they not do business with us? You also believe it's ok to do this because it's practical evidence: > Apple is just doing what any rational actor would, obeying the laws of recognized governments, and I don’t think it’s fair to expect them to do more. If the American people care that much about the free speech of Chinese citizens it’s a matter for our government, not our corporations. > If corporations stopped doing business with any country someone on HN found to be doing something unethical, we'd all go back to the economic stone age. pathetic
        mattmaroon 2y ago
        What’s pathetic is that you think your third grade level of reasoning on the topic makes you morally superior. It doesn’t. It just makes you a buffoon. Every government requires corporations (and thus people) to do things I think are unethical. All of them. I still expect foreign ones to follow our laws, and us theirs, because to not do so is also unethical. It’s not the role of a corporation to fight every battle. Apple shouldn’t tank a trillion dollar company (their profits come entirely from things manufactured in China) to fight removing two more apps. A lot of livelihoods in both countries might be lost over something that makes no difference, which itself could be considered ethical. The world isn’t as simple as you are. And you’d remove those apps in two seconds if Apple were dumb enough to put you in charge.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 2y ago
  Unless corporations have more actual influence on politics than citizens. People are used to reject referendum that still gets applies in some other ways by the politicians. Sure, voters can then get them ousted at the next opportunity but at some point, people realize that money have far more power than votes to impact the real world.
  - mattmaroon 2y ago
    They don’t in China though, see what happened to Jack Ma.
- rcbdev 2y ago
  No, of course not. The governments of where these global digital infrastructure providers reside should sanction China. These global companies will then be forced to close their China businesses down just like what is happening right now in Europe with Russia at the US' request. Of course this would mean that, unlike in banking where Europe is the biggest loser when liquidating their Russia business (see Austria and their RBI), this time the US would be the biggest loser. Ergo, the only way we'll ever see betterment is if someone else (i.e. the EU) sees these sanctions through. Since the lobby building is right next to the EU's HQ in Brussels and they go partying together every Thursday, I highly doubt this will ever happen.
  - mattmaroon 2y ago
    Right, if we truly cared about Chinese citizens, we would do this, not just get mad at Apple for not sabotaging one of the world’s most lucrative businesses just for being asked to remove a couple apps. I’ve actually long thought we should create a global free trade regime among democratic nations, along with sanctions for the rest. Just set some basic standard of human rights (it’d have to be low so we can meet it despite our mass incarceration) and tariff the rest.
- 31337Logic 2y ago
  > It’s not unethical to comply with the law in foreign countries and, It is, when that very law itself is unethical. > while I obviously don’t agree with China’s censorship Oh? And why is that an "obvious disagreement" for you? Are you trying to say something like everyone has a right to freedom of expression? If so, then you should stand with companies that try to promote those rights, rather than those who help remove those rights at the expense of turning a profit. Last I checked, Apple has plenty of money already. They could have done better, in this case, and set the moral example.
  - mattmaroon 2y ago
    We have plenty of unethical laws too. We lock up far more people than they do, for instance. We’re getting ready to ban Tik Tok despite no allegations of any wrong doing, just because it’s Chinese. Should Chinese corporations refuse to do business here? Should Apple not comply with our government when it bans Tik Tok too? “Plenty of money already” doesn’t mean much when your entire business is selling hardware made in China. Are they supposed to bankrupt the company just because China doesn’t want Threads on people’s phones?
  - maccard 2y ago
    > It is, when that very law itself is unethical. Great, so Apple should pull out of the US due to the TikTok ban. > If so, then you should stand with companies that try to promote those rights, rather than those who help remove those rights at the expense of turning a profit. Which mobile phone manufacturer am I going to do that by using. Samsung might not sell phones in China, but they've got the exploding batteries, photoshopped camera images, throttling of third party apps. Huawei and Xiaomi _are_ chinese, Motorola have consistently been in support of oppressive regimes, Google are in the midst of bad press for their handling of the protest this week. My bank and workplace all but require a modern iOS or Android device to participate, and this is not a hill I'm going to die on against multiple bilino dollar companies.
    - mattmaroon 2y ago
      Don’t worry, the big corporations are supposed to fall on their sword, not you.
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
I'm torn. On one hand, yes, companies need to obey the law where they operate. On the other hand laws in China and laws in the US are very different things. Look at how many hurdles there are in the US to write a bill that may result in a ban of TikTok. In China, the communist party waves their hand and it's gone. Calling that "law" is a perversion.
- beepbooptheory 2y ago
  Genuinely curious: what were the hurdles? It seems hardly contentious to the lawmakers here. Im struggling to even understand what distinction you want to make?
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
    When people say they're genuinely curious they usually aren't. In China there are no checks and balances and a law that essentially says: I do whatever I want. Laws can be created out of thin air since the communist party has ultimate authority over all government. In the US bills fail to pass all of the time. People often complain that Congress can't agree or get anything done. Those hurdles.
    - beepbooptheory 2y ago
      When people answer a specific question with generality, it maybe says something about the extent of their critical thought, or ability to incorporate context. But im not one to assume! For this issue specifically in the US, there is broad bipartisan support. There have been hearings, but very little debate. And its not like anybody campaigned for this issue specifically! Like, I hear you, I get that this is good ole American democracy at work on some fundamental level, but I fail to see how it is really being an effective vehicle for this change specifically. And I am genuinely curious if we can see an actual distinction here given that! In general, when it comes to issues specifically around the threshold between business and the state, one maybe benefits a little on not relying 100% on the nominative ideologies at play. Especially in a "properly" capitalist country. I don't want to dictate your heuristics, but I'm just saying you dont want to be on the side defending what businesses the US deals with or not simply because it is a democracy.
quesera 2y ago
This moral absolutism is superficially appealing, but can you think of any examples* from history where it brings positive results for the majority of parties involved? Parties, in order of importance: citizens, vendor, dictatorship. [*] Examples should not include any that devolve into military conflict.
- testrun 2y ago
  South Africa
  - quesera 2y ago
    Great example. But it did require a very broad near-global economic embargo/war, which is only practical against smaller countries. And ZA was not a dictatorship, so it did have the mechanism for change from within.
    - boxed 2y ago
      Well.. it was partly a dictatorship at the very least. Even whites were afraid to speak openly and even to listen to whatever music they wanted.
      - quesera 2y ago
        Repression of civil liberties is a common trait of dictatorships, but it does not define one. Dictatorships require dictators. PW Botha was a lot of bad things, but he was not a dictator. China is considered a dictatorship because Xi has dictatorial powers. Anyway this is all just semantics. The more important point is probably that it corrupts corporations to do business in countries with repressive governments, and to follow their repressive laws. China is further along the repressive-government scale than many of us would like. I believe that Apple management are among the truly bothered, but moral complications abound, and ultimately their fiduciary-duty options are limited.
    - miramba 2y ago
      It was a dictatorship of a minority with a right to elect their leader over a large majority without that right.
elforce002 2y ago
If so, the West must ban China from accessing Western markets. It's unfair to everyone to allow China to play ball in our yard while We can't go there and play. Any company trying to make it in China will eventually collapse since the same government will help its counterpart defeat the foreign company.
- ngcc_hk 2y ago
  Should be.
- tzs 2y ago
  > If so, the West must ban China from accessing Western markets. It's unfair to everyone to allow China to play ball in our yard while We can't go there and play. We can go there and play. We just have to obey that same rules in China that Chinese companies have to obey there. The same applies in the US--foreign companies can operated here but have to obey the same rules here that US companies have to obey.
  - ahiknsr 2y ago
    > We just have to obey that same rules in China that Chinese companies have to obey there. The same applies in the US--foreign companies can operated here but have to obey the same rules here that US companies have to obey. No. China and US are not the same. from https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-chin... > Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident--albeit a significant one--was something quite different. > First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors--have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities. Is US government hacking Chinese companies operating in US?
tqi 2y ago
Holding other countries to your standards is colonialism.

mattmaroon 2y ago

Do we expect corporations to take on other governments for us? It’s not unethical to comply with the law in foreign countries and, while I obviously don’t agree with China’s censorship, they can point out lots of poor human rights abuses on our end yet Chinese companies are expected to follow our laws here too. Apple is just doing what any rational actor would, obeying the laws of recognized governments, and I don’t think it’s fair to expect them to do more. If the American people care that much about the free speech of Chinese citizens it’s a matter for our government, not our corporations.

spywaregorilla 2y ago
Nice. A simultaneous conflation of law with ethics, an appeal to others' immorality as a way to justify your own, and an appeal to corporations only being held to the fiscal rationale ethics system, which is to say, none.
- mattmaroon 2y ago
  No conflating, ethics are subjective, laws are not. (Or at least, close to not.) One can't build a system on non-codified ethics because they change so much and vary from place to place. Our own legal system has plenty of ethical issues. We lock up almost 5x as many people per capita as China. Should they not do business with us? If corporations stopped doing business with any country someone on HN found to be doing something unethical, we'd all go back to the economic stone age. There's no real argument here, your sentiments are just "big company bad, China bad" with more words.
  - spywaregorilla 2y ago
    I haven't said anything about China or any company. Compliance with laws is not ethically relevant. You are trying to justify unethical behavior with appeals to pragmatism or "fairness" with whatabout appeals to other countries. Which maybe you believe, but it is cowardly and manipulative to imply that the behavior is not unethical because you think it should be done anyway. That's just modern evil 101.
    - mattmaroon 2y ago
      You are putting a whole lot of words in my mouth that aren’t there. And we were discussing something that happens in China, so I was giving you credit (unfairly, apparently) for having any point at all. I’ll discontinue this since it’s merely off-topic, nonsensical ad hominems.
      - spywaregorilla 2y ago
        Ok great let's be explicit and cite your own stupid words You believe that Apple should follow a law that is unethical. evidence: > I obviously don’t agree with China’s censorship You believe this is ok though because other countries have bad laws sometimes. evidence: > they can point out lots of poor human rights abuses on our end yet Chinese companies are expected to follow our laws here too. > Our own legal system has plenty of ethical issues. We lock up almost 5x as many people per capita as China. Should they not do business with us? You also believe it's ok to do this because it's practical evidence: > Apple is just doing what any rational actor would, obeying the laws of recognized governments, and I don’t think it’s fair to expect them to do more. If the American people care that much about the free speech of Chinese citizens it’s a matter for our government, not our corporations. > If corporations stopped doing business with any country someone on HN found to be doing something unethical, we'd all go back to the economic stone age. pathetic
        mattmaroon 2y ago
        What’s pathetic is that you think your third grade level of reasoning on the topic makes you morally superior. It doesn’t. It just makes you a buffoon. Every government requires corporations (and thus people) to do things I think are unethical. All of them. I still expect foreign ones to follow our laws, and us theirs, because to not do so is also unethical. It’s not the role of a corporation to fight every battle. Apple shouldn’t tank a trillion dollar company (their profits come entirely from things manufactured in China) to fight removing two more apps. A lot of livelihoods in both countries might be lost over something that makes no difference, which itself could be considered ethical. The world isn’t as simple as you are. And you’d remove those apps in two seconds if Apple were dumb enough to put you in charge.
rcMgD2BwE72F 2y ago
Unless corporations have more actual influence on politics than citizens. People are used to reject referendum that still gets applies in some other ways by the politicians. Sure, voters can then get them ousted at the next opportunity but at some point, people realize that money have far more power than votes to impact the real world.
- mattmaroon 2y ago
  They don’t in China though, see what happened to Jack Ma.
rcbdev 2y ago
No, of course not. The governments of where these global digital infrastructure providers reside should sanction China. These global companies will then be forced to close their China businesses down just like what is happening right now in Europe with Russia at the US' request. Of course this would mean that, unlike in banking where Europe is the biggest loser when liquidating their Russia business (see Austria and their RBI), this time the US would be the biggest loser. Ergo, the only way we'll ever see betterment is if someone else (i.e. the EU) sees these sanctions through. Since the lobby building is right next to the EU's HQ in Brussels and they go partying together every Thursday, I highly doubt this will ever happen.
- mattmaroon 2y ago
  Right, if we truly cared about Chinese citizens, we would do this, not just get mad at Apple for not sabotaging one of the world’s most lucrative businesses just for being asked to remove a couple apps. I’ve actually long thought we should create a global free trade regime among democratic nations, along with sanctions for the rest. Just set some basic standard of human rights (it’d have to be low so we can meet it despite our mass incarceration) and tariff the rest.
31337Logic 2y ago
> It’s not unethical to comply with the law in foreign countries and, It is, when that very law itself is unethical. > while I obviously don’t agree with China’s censorship Oh? And why is that an "obvious disagreement" for you? Are you trying to say something like everyone has a right to freedom of expression? If so, then you should stand with companies that try to promote those rights, rather than those who help remove those rights at the expense of turning a profit. Last I checked, Apple has plenty of money already. They could have done better, in this case, and set the moral example.
- mattmaroon 2y ago
  We have plenty of unethical laws too. We lock up far more people than they do, for instance. We’re getting ready to ban Tik Tok despite no allegations of any wrong doing, just because it’s Chinese. Should Chinese corporations refuse to do business here? Should Apple not comply with our government when it bans Tik Tok too? “Plenty of money already” doesn’t mean much when your entire business is selling hardware made in China. Are they supposed to bankrupt the company just because China doesn’t want Threads on people’s phones?
- maccard 2y ago
  > It is, when that very law itself is unethical. Great, so Apple should pull out of the US due to the TikTok ban. > If so, then you should stand with companies that try to promote those rights, rather than those who help remove those rights at the expense of turning a profit. Which mobile phone manufacturer am I going to do that by using. Samsung might not sell phones in China, but they've got the exploding batteries, photoshopped camera images, throttling of third party apps. Huawei and Xiaomi _are_ chinese, Motorola have consistently been in support of oppressive regimes, Google are in the midst of bad press for their handling of the protest this week. My bank and workplace all but require a modern iOS or Android device to participate, and this is not a hill I'm going to die on against multiple bilino dollar companies.
  - mattmaroon 2y ago
    Don’t worry, the big corporations are supposed to fall on their sword, not you.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago

I'm torn. On one hand, yes, companies need to obey the law where they operate. On the other hand laws in China and laws in the US are very different things. Look at how many hurdles there are in the US to write a bill that may result in a ban of TikTok. In China, the communist party waves their hand and it's gone. Calling that "law" is a perversion.

beepbooptheory 2y ago
Genuinely curious: what were the hurdles? It seems hardly contentious to the lawmakers here. Im struggling to even understand what distinction you want to make?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  When people say they're genuinely curious they usually aren't. In China there are no checks and balances and a law that essentially says: I do whatever I want. Laws can be created out of thin air since the communist party has ultimate authority over all government. In the US bills fail to pass all of the time. People often complain that Congress can't agree or get anything done. Those hurdles.
  - beepbooptheory 2y ago
    When people answer a specific question with generality, it maybe says something about the extent of their critical thought, or ability to incorporate context. But im not one to assume! For this issue specifically in the US, there is broad bipartisan support. There have been hearings, but very little debate. And its not like anybody campaigned for this issue specifically! Like, I hear you, I get that this is good ole American democracy at work on some fundamental level, but I fail to see how it is really being an effective vehicle for this change specifically. And I am genuinely curious if we can see an actual distinction here given that! In general, when it comes to issues specifically around the threshold between business and the state, one maybe benefits a little on not relying 100% on the nominative ideologies at play. Especially in a "properly" capitalist country. I don't want to dictate your heuristics, but I'm just saying you dont want to be on the side defending what businesses the US deals with or not simply because it is a democracy.

quesera 2y ago

This moral absolutism is superficially appealing, but can you think of any examples* from history where it brings positive results for the majority of parties involved? Parties, in order of importance: citizens, vendor, dictatorship. [*] Examples should not include any that devolve into military conflict.

testrun 2y ago
South Africa
- quesera 2y ago
  Great example. But it did require a very broad near-global economic embargo/war, which is only practical against smaller countries. And ZA was not a dictatorship, so it did have the mechanism for change from within.
  - boxed 2y ago
    Well.. it was partly a dictatorship at the very least. Even whites were afraid to speak openly and even to listen to whatever music they wanted.
    - quesera 2y ago
      Repression of civil liberties is a common trait of dictatorships, but it does not define one. Dictatorships require dictators. PW Botha was a lot of bad things, but he was not a dictator. China is considered a dictatorship because Xi has dictatorial powers. Anyway this is all just semantics. The more important point is probably that it corrupts corporations to do business in countries with repressive governments, and to follow their repressive laws. China is further along the repressive-government scale than many of us would like. I believe that Apple management are among the truly bothered, but moral complications abound, and ultimately their fiduciary-duty options are limited.
  - miramba 2y ago
    It was a dictatorship of a minority with a right to elect their leader over a large majority without that right.

elforce002 2y ago

If so, the West must ban China from accessing Western markets. It's unfair to everyone to allow China to play ball in our yard while We can't go there and play. Any company trying to make it in China will eventually collapse since the same government will help its counterpart defeat the foreign company.

ngcc_hk 2y ago
Should be.
tzs 2y ago
> If so, the West must ban China from accessing Western markets. It's unfair to everyone to allow China to play ball in our yard while We can't go there and play. We can go there and play. We just have to obey that same rules in China that Chinese companies have to obey there. The same applies in the US--foreign companies can operated here but have to obey the same rules here that US companies have to obey.
- ahiknsr 2y ago
  > We just have to obey that same rules in China that Chinese companies have to obey there. The same applies in the US--foreign companies can operated here but have to obey the same rules here that US companies have to obey. No. China and US are not the same. from https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-chin... > Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident--albeit a significant one--was something quite different. > First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors--have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities. Is US government hacking Chinese companies operating in US?

tqi 2y ago

Holding other countries to your standards is colonialism.