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Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

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Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#51

Post by yters »

beisner wrote: post #44
alkonaut wrote: post #23

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.

This is a simplistic view. When push comes to shove, companies don't behave with political principles. Apple is not going to throw away access to 1/6 of world's population over a political dispute. It's unrealistic to expect any company to, if they're sufficiently large. The only way to achieve political goals is to apply political pressure directly at the state level, or to work with domestic movements that seek to…

"What does it benefit to gain the whole world if you lose your soul?" - Jesus

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#52

Post by untog »

alkonaut wrote: post #23

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.

But that would require companies to prioritise something other than profit and the incentive structure to do that simply doesn’t exist. It’s sad.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#53

Post by goblin89 »

pcurve wrote: post #26

Anyone hazard to guess China's next few chess moves?

Depends on their near-term goals. If dismantling HK’s SAR status is on the list, make sure that protests in Hong Kong remain violent and feature people waving flags of USA. Use that as an excuse to intervene in order to fight terrorism and/or maintain national sovereignty against foreign powers.

Status re Taiwan is unlikely to radically change in near future, as far as my understanding of the situation goes.

As an aside, while in times like these any information may turn out to be propaganda, this looks like a thoughtful analysis of the current situation in Hong Kong (Google Translate works adequately with it): https://gateway.pinata.cloud/ipfs/QmUg7C7s7umWp24Qr9x9kc68zE...

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#54

Post by awayfromhomenow »

duxup wrote: post #19
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 it is petty. At the same time it's a good gauge for them to figure out what else they can do. Start with "hey man don't show that one pic" and the company figures "it's one pic, whatever we're not really compromising our values". A few more steps and then it seems less dramatic when it comes to "give us that information on that one user"... and so on. Personally I would expect an external social credit score…

Pretty scary thought, but progress being what it is, I don't see anything blocking it. I'm sure they already decline to do business with anyone that is vocally critical of China, or for example, highly complementary of the Dali Lama.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#55

Post by paxys »

tinus_hn wrote: post #12

In other news, when you were able to visit Google Maps in China you would see the Chinese view of the world where disputed regions are part of China, while the rest of the world would see something else. https://qz.com/224821/see-how-borders-change-on-google-maps-...

This is true for every country in the world. Google Maps in the US displays borders/countries which the US government recognizes.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#56

Post by behnamoh »

peterkelly wrote: post #40

This reminds me of the story about how the first release of Windows 95 was banned in India because 8 pixels of the map shown in the timezone selection control panel were colored in such a way that suggested parts of Kashmir were part of Pakistan. https://www.cnet.com/news/how-eight-pixels-cost-microsoft-mi... https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030822-00/?p=42...

Man that's crazy! They must've paid real close attention to it, but I think it's partly due to low resolution screens available in circa 1995. On a low-res screen, it's impossible to draw maps completely according to the borders, so this was probably inevitable and unintentional.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#59

Post by dmitrygr »

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 would not actually work due to how unicode works. There really is not a code point for Taiwanese flag, or Russian flag, or American flag. In fact, each flag is made of two code points, making up the ISO code for the country. So, for Taiwan, the flag is made of code point "flag T" and "flag W". And yes, this means that to correctly render unicode, you need to know the current geopolitical situation in the world (fun, right?)

This also means that you cannot easily add non-existent countries. They do not have country codes

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