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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

#101

Post by [deleted] »

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?

[deleted]

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

#102

Post by Sacho »

option wrote: post #91
smallnamespace wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't understand the point you're trying to make. Is it culturalism to say that Western cultures value free speech? If you just wanted to say that parent was wrong that Chinese don't value free speech, why the diatribe about culturalism and racism?

You also haven't really put forward any argument that the Chinese value free speech - you can make a base argument that it's valued in some Western countries because they've codified it in their laws - most notably the FA in the US(it's questionable how much this "basic right" is respected in reality). Calling it a "basic right" is culturalism by your own definition, as you apply your own cultural values(whatever they may be) over the whole of humanity. What makes you think humanity as a whole values this "basic right"? Millions of people live in countries where free speech is not as important as religion, for example, and blasphemy laws exist.

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

#103

Post by npunt »

prewett wrote: post #90
npunt wrote: post #74

Worth pointing out that this happened on the same day that TestFlight increases the number of beta testers from 2k to 10k. If someone open sources an iOS VPN app, you've now got 10k people that can sideload an app via the efforts of a single person with an apple developer account. Obviously this is a loophole and not meant as a mainstream solution, but past solutions to getting around the great firewall (including VP…

I think anyone can download Xcode and compile to their device, so there's nothing stopping an open-source VPN app.

True, and really there's always some kind of super-high friction loophole in computing. For these types of loopholes to have an impact though a) people have to know about them, b) people have to be able to do them, and c) they have to be easy to do.

TestFlight is as easy as getting an email, downloading the testflight app, and downloading the app you need. Its a trivial amount of steps, which makes it a powerful loophole.

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

#104

Post by i_am_nomad »

Iv wrote: post #42
IBM wrote: post #6

I'll repost my comment from the other thread that got flagged for being a dupe: They absolutely stake out moral positions on issues like this all the time. The difference is they only do it in the West where rule of law prevails and they can actually exert influence. They've done it with various anti-LGBT efforts that have taken place around the US, they've done it with the fight with the FBI and they're doing it rig…

This situation underlines and ideological stance that we all take for granted but that actually went questioned in the past: That business and human rights are perpendicular issues. Actually it all started from the idea that free market causes a freer society. I think it is now clear that this causality is not true, but now proponents of unregulated free markets changed their stance to "Meh, that's the way we have do…

> My stance is that a global free-market is a good objective and should be encouraged, that borders should gradually disappear.

Thankfully, people around the world are waking up to the horror of neoliberalism like yours and rebelling against it.

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

#105

Post by seanmcdirmid »

thr1234 wrote: post #68
adventured wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jack Ma stealing tens of billions of dollars from Softbank and Yahoo by giving himself a very large stake in Ant Financial (completely unsupported by his ownership % in Alibaba), divesting it out of Alibaba without proper compensation. Something like that is nearly unthinkable in the US or Western Europe. It would be equivalent to Jeff Bezos spinning off AWS and giving himself 2/3 ownership of it, without approval fr…

You aren't making a fair comparison here. You will never be able to make a 1-1 comparisons between individuals in two countries. Jeff Bezos and Jack Ma are different people and live in different countries; their actions are based on their environment. The heart of your argument is that a corporation is executing a transaction that could possible be illegal elsewhere: the US or Western Europe is better because this wo…

What aboutism Malaysia's 1MDB? It ain't just American companies involved in that mess, plenty of Chinese companies are as well.

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

#106

Post by [deleted] »

thr1234 wrote: post #68
adventured wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jack Ma stealing tens of billions of dollars from Softbank and Yahoo by giving himself a very large stake in Ant Financial (completely unsupported by his ownership % in Alibaba), divesting it out of Alibaba without proper compensation. Something like that is nearly unthinkable in the US or Western Europe. It would be equivalent to Jeff Bezos spinning off AWS and giving himself 2/3 ownership of it, without approval fr…

You aren't making a fair comparison here. You will never be able to make a 1-1 comparisons between individuals in two countries. Jeff Bezos and Jack Ma are different people and live in different countries; their actions are based on their environment. The heart of your argument is that a corporation is executing a transaction that could possible be illegal elsewhere: the US or Western Europe is better because this wo…

[deleted]

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

#107

Post by forapurpose »

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…

> most people seemed relatively (if not very) happy with the CCP

Did you really encounter enough people to collect more than a tiny amount of anecdotal experience?

If the CCP is so popular, there's no reason they can't hold an election.

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

#108

Post by hartator »

Sacho wrote: post #102
option wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't understand the point you're trying to make. Is it culturalism to say that Western cultures value free speech? If you just wanted to say that parent was wrong that Chinese don't value free speech, why the diatribe about culturalism and racism? You also haven't really put forward any argument that the Chinese value free speech - you can make a base argument that it's valued in some Western countries because the…

You seem to omit that's possible that we have universal pricinciples that's superior to whatever culture. You can attain these principles via philosophy. Any individuals can rediscover the values of free speech, freedom of government arbitrary, freedoms of thoughts and actions by just reflexion itself.

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

#109

Post by hartator »

Sacho wrote: post #102
option wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't understand the point you're trying to make. Is it culturalism to say that Western cultures value free speech? If you just wanted to say that parent was wrong that Chinese don't value free speech, why the diatribe about culturalism and racism? You also haven't really put forward any argument that the Chinese value free speech - you can make a base argument that it's valued in some Western countries because the…

You seem to omit that's possible that we have universal pricinciples that's superior to whatever culture. You can attain these principles via philosophy. Any individuals can rediscover the values of free speech, freedom of government arbitrary, freedoms of thoughts and actions by just reflexion itself.

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

#110

Post by forapurpose »

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?

You can find many reports of the government locking people away, on a significant scale, without trial or, IIRC, even notice. For example, this happens to people who go to Beijing to petition the national government.

China recently has gone so far as to kidnap critics in other countries and bring them to China. Nationals from other countries also sometimes are locked up.

A simple search of the NY Times, for example, will find many, many stories.

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