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Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

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Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#21

Post by president »

degenerate wrote: post #6

The degree that China goes to censor things reminds me of kindergarten. Pull the shades down, and kids won't want to go outside? Is it simply a reminder to their people of who's in charge, at this level of pettiness?

They do it because it works. Combine censorship with a populace that is largely taught not to exercise critical thinking and you get China. Many of my Chinese colleagues who did not know about Nazi concentration camps, let alone the concentration camps that are currently running in their own country today.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#22

Post by seph-reed »

slimed wrote: post #15
seph-reed wrote: post #7

Maybe I'm being naive, but it seems like a better response would be to add a bunch of other "not real country" flags. Flags from ancient civilizations, or countries that no longer exist. Then they wouldn't be taking a stand as the people responsible for defining what is and is not a country.

That's not how it works in China. Plausible deniability, benefit of the doubt, etc, is not in the CCP's vocabulary.

I'm less worried about China than the precedent they're setting. I think, perhaps, if they'd done something like this a while ago, it might have taken China that much longer to care.

There are (generally) very few "solutions" in these things, so it's best to focus on small gains, cracks that things slip through, and temporary safe spaces.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#23

Post by alkonaut »

Stop sucking up to dictatorships. If they don't want to do business with you because your map or flags or search engine shows something they don't like - leave. Don't censor your search engine or modify your maps to fit their worldview.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#24

Post by rolltiide »

georgeecollins wrote: post #8

I don't know if things are different now, but when I went to school in HK a long time ago, most Chinese people in Hong Kong I talked to felt Taiwan should be part of China.

Using the US as an example: Americans defer their understanding of a region based on people with tangential relationships to the region. So in America, people's understanding of Taiwan is represented only by people from Taiwan that left. Generations ago. Same goes for "China", in whatever state it was at the time the Asian-American's family left.

This is from people that actively try to avoid being insensitive. But it means there are always limitations in perspective. It requires that any one person represent the 'truth' for an entire group of people, and never understanding if that 'truth' has consensus. Cohesion in American society means never challenging the consensus of someone representing a group that you aren't a part of.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#25

Post by maweki »

degenerate wrote: post #6

The degree that China goes to censor things reminds me of kindergarten. Pull the shades down, and kids won't want to go outside? Is it simply a reminder to their people of who's in charge, at this level of pettiness?

I think most people on Hacker-News would know that Taiwan exists, even though a flag is missing on their phone. I think for the general population in the US or Europe that's not so clear.

If one would never hear about Taiwan, would we really "know" it exists?

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#27

Post by mikelyons »

To fight the censorship cancer, would the western world have to agree to exclude and isolate China?

Would this inevitably end up in a west vs. China+Russia world war?

Will China eventually grow to the size that it can successfully invade and annex the west?

One Earth = one China?

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#28

Post by lostlogin »

seph-reed wrote: post #7

Maybe I'm being naive, but it seems like a better response would be to add a bunch of other "not real country" flags. Flags from ancient civilizations, or countries that no longer exist. Then they wouldn't be taking a stand as the people responsible for defining what is and is not a country.

> add a bunch of other "not real country" flags.

I’d prefer that they altered the flags of despotic countries in some way that indicated their inferior ruling system.

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