181–190 of 449 posts
That's why corporations will never help against dictatorship. They may do it if it's convenient but in the end they will prioritize money over everything else and fall in line with dictatorships. Happened during the Nazi time, it's happening in China now.
I wouldn't call China a dictatorship... it's an authoritarian state, but calling Xi Jinping a dictator isn't really accurate.
You cannot do business in China without doing what they tell you. Period. Either you do it or you leave. I work for a big company (you would all know) and we have a large business unit in China, they own 52% of it. They decide what goes in and how customers can use it. We don't get to decide anything without government approval. It's so easy to claim the West shouldn't do what the leadership of China wants in China,…
I suppose there are the questions of law and fiduciary duties. If it's the law, it's the law. In China, it's the law to remove VPN apps. I suppose it's really not much different than the laws in the US that compel companies to give the government access to my information if they request such access. It's just the law, it's not really Facebook and Google trying to screw me. All that said, I think what most posters are…
It is very different. Censorship with the main objective of keeping an unelected regime in power by suppressing free speech is not the same as any problematic side-effects of fighting crime and terrorism. Granted, there are some grey areas such as oppression of sexual minorities, but the distinction between political oppression and crime fighting should not be lost completely.
The least Apple could do is allow sideloading of apps.
Perhaps some free-speech provision should be part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
You cannot do business in China without doing what they tell you. Period. Either you do it or you leave. I work for a big company (you would all know) and we have a large business unit in China, they own 52% of it. They decide what goes in and how customers can use it. We don't get to decide anything without government approval. It's so easy to claim the West shouldn't do what the leadership of China wants in China,…
That line of "reasoning" makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy, then.
(It additionally feels ethically unsound to me; the "if I don't do it, someone else will, therefore it's okay" — no, it's still not okay. And that's what people are upset about.)
You cannot do business in China without doing what they tell you. Period. Either you do it or you leave. I work for a big company (you would all know) and we have a large business unit in China, they own 52% of it. They decide what goes in and how customers can use it. We don't get to decide anything without government approval. It's so easy to claim the West shouldn't do what the leadership of China wants in China,…
The mentioned 52% or 51% ownership is nothing but protectionism. It is nothing different from Trump asking certain US products to be made in the US.
This is awful, but in England and America, I foresee similar policies will come - in the name of law, safety, and security.
Neither America nor the U.K. have national firewalls in place.
Just common sense, given that the China gobertment has made usage of VPNs illegal. What do you expect? People in China could continue using app store accounts created in other countries as usual. And most educated people continue using VPNs too. Normal people are becoming experts in encription, security... It worries me more that countries like the UK and the US want to follow China, in that order.
What I expect them to do is this: 1) Put up as much of a fight as possible, just as they have done in the US. 2) Allow sideloading of apps.
Can't you install your own (self-compiled) apps on your own iDevice these days with a free apple developer account?
That could work with an open source iOS client that people compile themselves.