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Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent

nytimes.com

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Re: Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent

#91

Post by option »

smallnamespace wrote: post #85
_ptgt wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This amount of cultural relativism is silly and frankly just plain ignorant. China doesn't restrict free speech for cultural reasons. The CCP restricts free speech because it fears losing its ruling status.

While you may be right about the CCP's motives, China has its own long history of political thought, including the correct role of the State and public dissent. Guess what? For the vast majority of Chinese history, rulers viewed public dissent as tantamount to open rebellion and reacted accordingly. Political systems are in part products of their culture. Free speech is not part of the cultural or political history o…

This is called culturalism. Saying X is not for race Y is racism. Saying that X is not for culture Y is culturalism. There is really not that much difference here. Because I am Chinese/Saudi/Russian etc. in no way implies that I, or my culture, does not value such a basic right as free speech

Re: Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent

#93

Post by prewett »

Is this a news piece or an opinion piece? The article is terrible. Apple has two choices: comply with the laws of China when operating in China or not operate in China. They can refuse to comply on principle, get kicked out of China, and get sued by their shareholders for breach of fiduciary duty. They can use all available means (none) to fight it. Or they can obey the laws of the country they are operating in.

I bet the author would take a dim view of a Chinese company refusing to obey an American law in America.

Re: Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent

#94

Post by mustacheemperor »

smallnamespace wrote: post #85
_ptgt wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This amount of cultural relativism is silly and frankly just plain ignorant. China doesn't restrict free speech for cultural reasons. The CCP restricts free speech because it fears losing its ruling status.

While you may be right about the CCP's motives, China has its own long history of political thought, including the correct role of the State and public dissent. Guess what? For the vast majority of Chinese history, rulers viewed public dissent as tantamount to open rebellion and reacted accordingly. Political systems are in part products of their culture. Free speech is not part of the cultural or political history o…

>Free speech is not part of the cultural or political history of China

And that has absolutely no impact on whether or not free speech is a fundamental human right. There's many examples of cultures with abhorrent traditions. It doesn't make them just and that's why many of those cultures reject those traditions today.

Re: Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent

#95

Post by evanlivingston »

sriku wrote: post #12

Apple stood for privacy in the US where privacy is part of law. It didn't stand by privacy in China where privacy in some forms is prohibited as part of law. Asserting the US law in China would discount China's sovereignty, implicitly declaring "your principles are inferior to ours". A global company needs to be sensitive to these political/cultural differences and accommodate them. Even in the US where "privacy" is…

I don't think this logic holds. Apple and Amazon both spend millions every year on lobbying. I don't think their attempt at influencing policy has to do with championing a particular political ideology.

These companies don't follow required business practices out of a political sensitivity or an underlying respect for sovereignty, they do so because it is financially expedient and they demonstrate an eager willingness to modify those legislated business practices when presented a route to do so.

Re: Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent

#96

Post by balls187 »

olalonde wrote: post #87
schoen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with attempts to prevent governments from controlling speech, have spent a fair amount of time working on that, and was disturbed by Apple's role here, I don't think the dichotomy you present works as cleanly as you suggest. State power and culture shape and reinforce each other in an extremely complex way.

That's true. I lived in China for a few years and was surprised to find out that most people seemed relatively (if not very) happy with the CCP. Ignorance plays a role but it's mainly that they value economic growth (and therefore, political stability) over anything else. Free speech would be nice but when you go from near starvation to owning a house and a car, you learn what economic growth does and start to value…

> I lived in China for a few years and was surprised to find out that most people seemed relatively (if not very) happy with the CCP.

What happens if you make your displeasure with the CCP known publically?

Re: Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent

#97

Post by tristanj »

Inconel wrote: post #84
Steko wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the point John Gruber made: To me, the more interesting question isn’t whether Apple should be selling its products in China, but rather whether Apple should continue to make the App Store the only way to install apps on iOS devices. A full-on “install whatever you want” policy isn’t going to happen, but something like Gatekeeper on MacOS could. Keep iOS App Store-only by default. Add a preference in Settings…

As someone who just recently started using an iOS device and finds the lack of sideloading mildly annoying, can anyone with some expertise in iOS security chime in with whether or not allowing sideloading of apps on iOS represents any serious security implications for iPhones? From my admittedly amateurish understanding, iOS sandboxing is significantly more robust than Android, is this just a way for Apple to maintai…

The decision to prevent sideloading dates back to the release of the App Store. Upon release of the App Store, Apple charged a 30% royalty on every app sold. Developers were outraged by these fees, and fought against them. If Apple allowed side loading, then developers would sell their apps on their own websites and then tell users to sideload the apps. Apple had to prevent side loading to ensure success of their App Store. At the time, people with a developer account could always sideload apps, however they were much more difficult to obtain back then (had to send in verification).

Security was not the primary consideration. iOS was a rushed project and it took them many revisions to implement security features. In iOS 1.0, all apps ran as root. iOS didn't have ASLR until 4.3. This was fine since mobile malware barely existed back then.

I would argue Apple's sideloading motivations are primarily monetary based and for "protecting the user experience" (typical Apple PR talk). Why though, does android allow sideloading? I'd say it is because Android was ~2 years behind iOS and they needed to catch up. Therefore they made it very easy to build apps for their platform and let any developer install/test apps without an Android Market account. Also Android chose to be open source and there is little stopping someone from building their own version of Android without sideloading restrictions.

Re: Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent

#98

Post by ksk »

Wow, this is quite a ridiculous article.

>When Apple took a public stand for its users’ liberty and privacy, the American government blinked.

Nope. They got access via other means, and didn't need Apple's help.

>While American tech companies frequently criticize decisions by American officials, they appear loath to do so in China.

Do you also expect a Bulgarian company to comment on Sri Lankan politics just because they're doing business there? Its not wrong to feel for citizens of another country, but that is a personal matter. I don't see why a corporation should be meddling in the internal politics of another country.

To the author: Have the US tech companies stopped dealing with the NSA and the CIA? Has the CIA given up their backdoor access to Google/FB/MS/Apple/Oracle/etc?

Re: Apple’s Silence in China Sets a Dangerous Precedent

#100

Post by olalonde »

balls187 wrote: post #96
olalonde wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true. I lived in China for a few years and was surprised to find out that most people seemed relatively (if not very) happy with the CCP. Ignorance plays a role but it's mainly that they value economic growth (and therefore, political stability) over anything else. Free speech would be nice but when you go from near starvation to owning a house and a car, you learn what economic growth does and start to value…

> I lived in China for a few years and was surprised to find out that most people seemed relatively (if not very) happy with the CCP. What happens if you make your displeasure with the CCP known publically?

Assuming it was a rhetorical question: I am basing my observation on many private conversations I had over the years (e.g. with my wife). I think most foreigners in China would agree with this as well.

In case your question wasn't rhetorical: nothing would happen. That is, unless you were a very public figure or made it your life's mission. Fun fact: China has a very low incarceration rate, about 15% that of the USA. It's not like people are getting thrown in jail right and left for opening their mouth.

I know, it's a hard pill to swallow.

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