Hmmm. Would I get banned by the GFW for these two characters? 0x1F1F9 0x1F1FC...? (🇹🇼)
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Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
81–90 of 730 posts
Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
#82The 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?
China is showing the ability to control one of the world's largest, and most advanced companies. It isn't petty–it is scary. The U.S. and others have sold their soul to the devil for $299 flat screen tvs.
Multinational companies conforming to local laws and customs isn't scary, it's status quo. (Most) Companies sell products and services not ideology. Sometimes prexisting ideology comes preloaded in because regionalization and cultural competence cost extra. Mostly that's an economic bug that people have conflated as a soft power feature because non-western markets were too small to advocate for themselves.
It's completely reasonable for larger countries with different values to expect customization that comport to local markets. At the end of the day China isn't forcing Apple or any other companies to make changes in global markets.
Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
#83The 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.
Mmm, yeah, lack of critical thinking combined with a nationalist, "we're number one" media environment.
We would never be like that.. I mean, we're better than them. We're number one.
Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
#84Maybe 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 (…
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Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
China is showing the ability to control one of the world's largest, and most advanced companies. It isn't petty–it is scary. The U.S. and others have sold their soul to the devil for $299 flat screen tvs.
As if the US hadn't sold their soul already? :/ I'm not trying to downplay the horrors of China, but let's not act like the US had clean hands before importing bulk electronics.
I'm not sure the average American benefited as directly to the atrocites of the past. The U.S. simply cannot change course without a serious alteration of the the ethos of the country.
Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
#86Stop 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.
>Stop sucking up to dictatorships.
I bet people have already begun weaning themselves off Apple products!
Just kidding. Most people expect others to do something, but take no direct action themselves. Pity.
Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
As if the US hadn't sold their soul already? :/ I'm not trying to downplay the horrors of China, but let's not act like the US had clean hands before importing bulk electronics.
Always this same comment when anyone points the finger at China.
The comment is just pointing out to the OP that any moral bankruptcy of the US can most certainly not be blamed on China.
Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
#88The 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?
China is showing the ability to control one of the world's largest, and most advanced companies. It isn't petty–it is scary. The U.S. and others have sold their soul to the devil for $299 flat screen tvs.
Currently, most of China's power comes from its economy. There is barely any military presence outside of the mainland, and only a few years ago they opened their first outpost. So it's not surprising that Apple is conforming to their requests. And they are not the only ones. A while back, German carmaker Daimler made an instagram post with a Dalai Lama quote [1]. They ended up apologizing for "hurting the feelings of the chinese people".
China is extremely attractive to businesses because of its gigantic market. There are tons of cars to be sold in a country with over one billion people. Tons of phones. There are tons of chinese hotel guests, chinese search requests, etc.
Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
#89In 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.
I disagree. You may see "contested" borders, but not outright US policy. For example, the US recognizes the sovereignty of Kosovo, but Google Maps shows it as a dotted border. And Wikipedia accurately describes it as a disputed state.
Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
#90The 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?
Imagine that the war of 1812 had resulted a complete British/Canadian conquest of the US, which lasted for the most of the 19th century. Then imagine that Florida had successfully seceded from the US after WWII and joined the Soviet Union, along with all of Canada. Then finally imagine that the Soviet Union won the Cold War and has been the sole world superpower for the last thirty years. How would we feel, in that w…
I don't think censoring facts is ever anything but black and white. The fact that Taiwan exists, Hong Kong exists, Falun Gong, Tibet...
These are all real things. There shouldn't ever be a reason to hide the fact that they exist no matter if todays reality wasn't todays reality.