Russia is next. They just have passed a law to ban VPNs and anonymous proxies.
Apple Removes Apps from China Store That Help Internet Users Evade Censorship
351–360 of 449 posts
Re: Apple Removes Apps from China Store That Help Internet Users Evade Censorship
#352Earlier quoted context omitted.
The market is not "too large to leave". The company is making a choice to stay there because to them profit is more important than ethical considerations. At the same time, the fact that the West generally doesn't care about ethics shows that the West is not necessarily a good model to follow. Maybe China has a better alternative.
I'd hardly claim China cares about ethics, either.
Yeah, that was really strange logic. A does unethical things, B doesn't prevent it therefore B is unethical... but hey maybe A is ethical?
Re: Apple Removes Apps from China Store That Help Internet Users Evade Censorship
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't understand why some people think companies should be above the law. I think certain aspects of justice are above legal frameworks. For instance, slavery is wrong no matter what the law says. Companies like Apple, by lobbying the government for various non-business things (gay rights, climate change, etc.), recognize this. I think wholesale restriction and manipulation of political speech is just wrong even…
> For instance, slavery is wrong no matter what the law says. I hope you realize that you are only saying this because you happen to be born at this particular point in human civilization. For a very long time, people thought slavery is right, including the people who wrote your constitution (assuming your are from US). It is easy to say that slavery is wrong now, but not in 18th century in the US. Think of China as…
> I hope you realize that you are only saying this because you happen to be born at this particular point in human civilization.
And you're only saying that because you were born when and where you were. It's not universally accepted that ethics are relative like that.
Otherwise I'm not sure what you're saying. That slavery was relatively OK in the 18th century so Apple enforcing government censorship is now, too?
It's also worth pointing out that colonial contemporaries were appalled by slavery, though they didn't have the power to universally outlaw it.
Re: Apple Removes Apps from China Store That Help Internet Users Evade Censorship
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is something I never understood. Google has this "do no evil" value and because staying in China involved compromising this value they left. The result is that the Chinese people are short one search engine as well as _any_ good that Google could have done. This seems ultimately more evil to me. It's good for Google because they can say they upheld their values, and it's good for the Chinese government because n…
> Google has this "do no evil" value Former Google engineer here. There's a subtle but significant semantic difference between "Don't be evil" (the real motto) and "Do no evil" (a confusion between the Hippocratic oath and the Google motto).
Can you explain the semantic difference between being and doing in this context?
What I'm mostly interested in is how you can rationalize doing evil while not considering yourself as being evil. Is it based on the idea that you might do evil unintentionally or that you could be coerced into it? Are there other reasons for the distinction?
Re: Apple Removes Apps from China Store That Help Internet Users Evade Censorship
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is something I never understood. Google has this "do no evil" value and because staying in China involved compromising this value they left. The result is that the Chinese people are short one search engine as well as _any_ good that Google could have done. This seems ultimately more evil to me. It's good for Google because they can say they upheld their values, and it's good for the Chinese government because n…
> Google has this "do no evil" value Former Google engineer here. There's a subtle but significant semantic difference between "Don't be evil" (the real motto) and "Do no evil" (a confusion between the Hippocratic oath and the Google motto).
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Re: Apple Removes Apps from China Store That Help Internet Users Evade Censorship
#356Apple is just as evil as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. There really needs to be an alternative for phones other than Apple and Android.
Re: Apple Removes Apps from China Store That Help Internet Users Evade Censorship
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
The western tradition does in fact hold that, in some form, the binding fibers of the universe are the guarantor of certain rights. That's the entire basis for the US Declaration of Independence.
Yes, and China is not really part of that tradition.
Valid first principles aren't subject to tradition.
In less abstract terms, the case is that abridging speech, especially political speech, is dehumanizing, inherently subjective (therefore unjust), a key tool for tyrrany, and harmful on the whole. It also reduces accountability by limiting the availability of facts and investigations.
None of that says anything about democracy, capitalism, or the West.
Re: Apple Removes Apps from China Store That Help Internet Users Evade Censorship
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
They could always do what Google did and abandon China.
Google ended up losing the entire Chinese market to Baidu, who are going to end up being a global competitor, and the general population didn't even care that Google left. Apple learned from this that you could be a big deal in the West, but a nobody in the East.
>who are going to end up being a global competitor
They already demonstrated they cannot compete without help from the government. It's an inferior product that can only succeed because the better competitors are banned. Kind of like iPhone default browser.
Re: Apple Removes Apps from China Store That Help Internet Users Evade Censorship
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is something I never understood. Google has this "do no evil" value and because staying in China involved compromising this value they left. The result is that the Chinese people are short one search engine as well as _any_ good that Google could have done. This seems ultimately more evil to me. It's good for Google because they can say they upheld their values, and it's good for the Chinese government because n…
It's good for Google because they can say they upheld their values, and it's good for the Chinese government because now they have one less external factor to manage in their control of information. Perhaps there is more to this picture than I am seeing but that has always been my view I don't see how they could have stayed in China and not been involved in things that are truly evil. When the government phones you u…
Yes I agree, this is an angle that actually came to my mind after posting my original comment. At the end of the day there had to be Google engineers in China doing the job, real people actually implementing censorship. So if Google being in China meant that employees had to be involved in inhumane acts, I'm not surprised they would leave.
Re: Apple Removes Apps from China Store That Help Internet Users Evade Censorship
#360You 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,…
You can do buisness in china - and reinvest part of the profit via strawmans and donations into open source endavours to circumvent censorship, like meshnet endavours and TOR.
But of course, you could also just be a silent dictatorship supporter (seems like a natural view for a CEO) and hope that blind loyal fans & employees find good apologys for betrayal of core-western values.
And you dont get to pin this on cultural differences. Europe had 2000 years of kings, monarchs and other vermin- and after 2 WorldWars everybody basically had given up on democracy rooting anywhere there (maybe in britain). Its just european culture, to crawl under stomping boots. They need that!
Today, we got 60 years of peace and prosperity, with democracy and alot of freedom. So no- the partyline of ineveitability of itself, does not convince. Though im absolutly against violent unrest or violent transitions. I rather have china another 100 years under party rule, then supporting a violent uprising.