Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors
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Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors
#2In case you assumed that corporate responsibility is actually taken to heart by those making corporate strategic decisions, let this show you that it is not. Corporate responsibility moves are little more than good PR, a product selling point, and a way to avoid fines in some jurisdictions. Money matters more than morals. These corporations want access to the Chinese market. To gain access (and profit from) to the Chinese market, you must play ball with the state.
Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors
#3fyi AWS China is different from aws worldwide. It has its own portal https://www.amazonaws.cn, different set of services, policies, etc.
Many cool fancy new features on aws worldwide is not available on aws china. Some of the differences even breaks third party libraries. e.g. some version of boto.
Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors
#4What are they supposed to do? Either they comply or they leave the Chinese market. It's that simple. I hope people don't fault these companies for playing ball with a communist government.
Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors
#5fyi AWS China is different from aws worldwide. It has its own portal https://www.amazonaws.cn , different set of services, policies, etc. Many cool fancy new features on aws worldwide is not available on aws china. Some of the differences even breaks third party libraries. e.g. some version of boto.
GovCloud is isolated an a very similar manner, though still operated by AWS.
CN is operated (and likely owned) by a party other than Amazon, as Amazon ownership would make the org ineligible for an ICP (as of 2014, anyway)
Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors
#6What are they supposed to do? Either they comply or they leave the Chinese market. It's that simple. I hope people don't fault these companies for playing ball with a communist government.
That is what I was curious about. That is a country four times the size of America. It would be interesting to see how the conversation went in Apples and Amazons board room though.
Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors
#7In case you assumed that corporate responsibility is actually taken to heart by those making corporate strategic decisions, let this show you that it is not. Corporate responsibility moves are little more than good PR, a product selling point, and a way to avoid fines in some jurisdictions. Money matters more than morals. These corporations want access to the Chinese market. To gain access (and profit from) to the Ch…
When has that ever been in doubt with regard to China? To do any major business in China you have to partner with a local company --which typically have ties to the CCP.
This is nothing new. Is there a difference btwn opening factories in China and legally outsourcing work to local cos which may or may not comply with even local labor and environmental laws and bowing to their local mores when it comes to softer areas like western ideas about civil liberties? That in no way means I agree with their view --I'm just asking are the two not different sides of the same coin and we (the "west") pretty much fully accepted the one side a long time ago.
Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors
#8Should I, an employee of Amazon, quit, if I do not support this policy?
Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors
#9In case you assumed that corporate responsibility is actually taken to heart by those making corporate strategic decisions, let this show you that it is not. Corporate responsibility moves are little more than good PR, a product selling point, and a way to avoid fines in some jurisdictions. Money matters more than morals. These corporations want access to the Chinese market. To gain access (and profit from) to the Ch…
Maybe there's a middleground? You've still got to pick your battles and understand the scope of them. It's also entirely reasonable for a company to not to choose to follow a particular fight because it's too expensive or would have to much of an impact on the strategy of the company.
If a company decides to not fund healthcare for everyone in the US, even if that aligned with their values and CSR, there's no need to take a cynical look at that.
Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors
#10I wonder how much a publicly traded company could act upon their values, as opposed to the primary value of seeking value for shareholders. For instance, if an Apple or Amazon takes a stand and ends up having to pull out of China, would that be grounds for a shareholder lawsuit?