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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

#151
post #30

So again, companies are fighting and vocal about "freedom", equality, lgbt rights etc only when it's convinient for them, as soon as they see that it might make them lose money - they will do whatever it takes to keep that cash flowing. Look at Tim Cook, how vocal he was in US with his LGBT support and anti-Trump position and other topics, but as soon as he sees that he can lose cash from China he does almost the sam…

> as soon as he sees that he can lose cash from China

...or the company being severely damaged by asset seizures, manufacturing capabilities decimated, and people going to prison for flagrantly engaging in illegal activities.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#152
post #79
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's going to be up to you, the amazon employee.

(Unrelated: is this a reference that I don't get? 4 people have responded with exactly this!)

on another post, i saw a comment suggesting that kite employees leave that company; not sure if related.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#153
post #40
post #33

I'm glad everyone is so anti-censorship in this thread! Should tech companies also ignore censorship at the hands of European governments or Canada via "right to be forgotten" legislation? I seem to recall people on this site saying that it would be wrong for tech companies to resist the government in those cases. At least China isn't attempting to force censorship in other countries, unlike the Canadian government.

Google is fighting the Canadian court right now. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/google-sues-in-u...

Good, but my point was that people on HN were generally in support of Canadian censorship.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#154
post #133
post #33

I'm glad everyone is so anti-censorship in this thread! Should tech companies also ignore censorship at the hands of European governments or Canada via "right to be forgotten" legislation? I seem to recall people on this site saying that it would be wrong for tech companies to resist the government in those cases. At least China isn't attempting to force censorship in other countries, unlike the Canadian government.

That "forced censorship" isn't about a right to be forgotten or any reasonable definition of freedom of expression. It's about a company violating IP rights. The US government puts the same pressure on Google. Worse actually, because the DCMA expects it to be done without a court order (which has lead to rampant abuse on sites like youtube).

Of course, I should have figured that our censorship was for good reasons, but not Chinese censorship. After all, copyright interests are clearly worth censoring for, but whatever excuse the Chinese government used (State interests?) aren't.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Africa is tiny, China is an 800 pound gorilla upon which the majority of the world's manufacturing depends. The decision of whether to "play ball" with China needs to be made at the government level, and 10+ years ago. It's too late now, the horse is out of the barn. China, and only China , will decide how they act on the world stage.

Why are you acting like Apple is the first company to face this dilemma? Google faced a decade ago and chose not to play ball with China with no assistance from any government.

How am I acting like that?

How do you recommend Apple goes about terminating its relationship with China? Do you think it would have comparable costs and disruption to their business that Google's did?

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#156
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, everyone who says China is doomed due to demographics overlooks the huge pool of under-utilized labor. People are looking at percentages when they should be looking at raw numbers.

With a shrinking demography, one problem is that the size of pool of elite is also shrinking. Physics professors in top universities of China has complained on social media that the younger generation lacked both dedication and intuition, that he had to lower the bar for his final exam to extremely easy.

> the size of pool of elite is also shrinking.

China has a bench of hundreds of millions of people they can call on. With their track record, I don't think Chinese leadership needs to take advice on how to develop a country from anyone.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We're" already in trouble. Just like HN commenters wisely advise not to build your company on top of someone else's service, the entire planet has built their service on China's manufacturing. The thinking (if there even was any, I personally doubt it) was that we'd just use them for labor intensive but low intellectual assembly work, but it seems no one considered if China was happy to continue being the servant of…

Amazon's Cloud services aren't made in China - it's the Chinese market they want, not Chinese factories. China depends on foreign markets for its factories output, but generally isn't as keen on having its (huge) market buying foreign goods and services. Having saturated their other markets, Western companies are desperate to tap into China to keep their growth numbers.

> Western companies are desperate to tap into China to keep their growth numbers

Yes they are, and China isn't stupid enough to allow that, and there's nothing the west can do about it without sinking the ship they are in. With the west being a democracy with most major decisions being made by individual corporations, to me it looks like a near certain checkmate for China, provided they don't have something like a major financial crisis.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#158
post #149
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All gay internet content is illegal in China[1]. By blocking VPNs, Tim Cook is helping to ban all gay content. [1] http://fortune.com/2017/06/30/china-homosexuality-internet-w...

are you suggesting that apple engage in illegal activities?

Do you consider Google to be engaging in illegal activities by refusing to censor content according to China's wishes? Then yes, I am suggested Apple engage in illegal activities.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#159
post #158
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you suggesting that apple engage in illegal activities?

Do you consider Google to be engaging in illegal activities by refusing to censor content according to China's wishes? Then yes, I am suggested Apple engage in illegal activities.

consider? the law is the law. apple will simply be subjected to massive damage.

Re: Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors

#160
post #30

So again, companies are fighting and vocal about "freedom", equality, lgbt rights etc only when it's convinient for them, as soon as they see that it might make them lose money - they will do whatever it takes to keep that cash flowing. Look at Tim Cook, how vocal he was in US with his LGBT support and anti-Trump position and other topics, but as soon as he sees that he can lose cash from China he does almost the sam…

Tim Cook runs a multi-national corporation. His obligation is to a shareholders as CEO. It is a simple as that. A lot of us don’t agree with these policy decisions by these companies, but there they are.

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