Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#371

Post by mav3rick » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 8:57 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #342

munchbunny wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither time did I have a safety net ready. But my life still continued. Did you mean safety net as in another job lined up or substantial personal savings? Having a safety net generally means that your situation might be tough but you're okay if you quit/lose your job. Getting deported because of your H1B would be an example of "doesn't have a safety net". The definition has gray area (such as if your family in your…

Did you mean safety net as in another job lined up or substantial personal savings? I had neither. I took menial temp jobs and short-term manual labor jobs for a while until I could get something full-time in my field. Took about six months the first time, and nine months the second time. Getting deported because of your H1B would be an example of "doesn't have a safety net". Is it? It's not like if you lose your job…

Reeking of privilege here. "I got born in a developed country, life goes on ".

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#372

Post by AmericanChopper » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 8:57 PM UTC

tibbon wrote: post #360

AmericanChopper wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you apply the idea that in order to work for a company that you must ethically agree with every single one of its decisions and associations consistently, you’ll end up with absolutely nowhere to work. This comment doesn’t represent a principled stance, only a case of moral outrage (and over an emoji). If you actually behaved like this, you’d get fired, and somebody else would simply ship this simple change (that…

I used to think that, but after long searching I have found that there are actually companies (often non-profits, but not always) that do hold reasonable morals. If this act didn't stand to hurt anyone, why did China care in the first place so much? Let's look at the converse, what does having a flag in a phone do that hurts China?

China is a totalitarian regime. Any form of expression against their authority hurts them. Not complying with their demands would hurt Apple who want to do business with them.

Your response doesn’t really address the issue though. Say you can find a company that conforms most to your own moral standards (which is already unlikely, depending on where you arbitrarily choose to draw that line), that’s not good enough. You need to find a company that meets those standards, that only does business with other companies who also meet those standards, and only employs people who again meet those standards. That’s simply not realistic in any way.

The real answer to this question is that in order to participate in society, you need to accept that you’re going to have to interact with people you disagree with. Otherwise you can choose between trying to exclude all those you disagree with, or excluding yourself. Neither of which are tenable. If a company goes further than you’re willing to participate in, then your only option is to not work for them. Anybody working at Apple today likely started knowing that Apple did business with China. If they can’t handle that they should leave, and prepare themselves for a difficult job search for a company that doesn’t. But trying to force others to make the same decision is just completely unreasonable.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#373

Post by dirtyid » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 8:59 PM UTC

djohnston wrote: post #347

chrischen wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the public reason but i’ve also heard they simply could’t compete and decided to use that excuse to save face.

by couldn't compete, i assume you mean, "didn't want to hand over all their IP to CCP, who would in turn give it to the native competitor", right?

No by couldn't compete, the OP probably means western tech companies do a remarkably poor job of understanding the Chinese market and frequently gets out innovated. When Google first entered the Chinese market, Google PinYin input lifted data from Sogou Pinyin because they couldn't get basic input prediction right. Baidu RankDex predates Google PageRank and was referenced by Larry Page when he submitted patent for PageRank. Before Youtube left China, they were the worlds top video streaming site, in China they didn't even break top 10. Same story for Twitter. Amazon today is unimpressive compared to major Chinese online retailers.

The truth is, these companies were never competitive in China because they never put in the work. Established western companies are not use to the level of competition in China. It's simplistic to say CCP is just arbitrarily picking domestic winners. Thousands of domestic companies (as in the case with ecommerce going toe-to-toe with Amazon) were busy out competing each other and western challengers. When it came to western social media bans post 2007, Chinese companies were hiring tens of thousands of content moderators with understanding of Chinese filtering rules for compliance. Western companies simply gave up and didn't learn how to scale content moderation until the last few years when social media had to deal with the same violent extremism that China did during the Tibetan and XinJiang riots that lead to FB/Twitter ban. As evidenced by current Youtube debacles, Google still can't / refuse to get human content control right. BTW both these companies can reenter anytime as long as they conform the same rules like Bing. Regardless, the government didn't have to tip the scale much to crown a domestic champion over western companies.

See AI Superpowers by Lee Fu Lee,previous head of Google.cn for an overview of Chinese competitive environments. There's lots of extremely technical fields where China is actively conducting industrial espionage and coercing tech transfers in (IC, airplane engines, military stuff). But cloning and improving software is not really one of them.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#374

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 9:00 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #342

munchbunny wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither time did I have a safety net ready. But my life still continued. Did you mean safety net as in another job lined up or substantial personal savings? Having a safety net generally means that your situation might be tough but you're okay if you quit/lose your job. Getting deported because of your H1B would be an example of "doesn't have a safety net". The definition has gray area (such as if your family in your…

Did you mean safety net as in another job lined up or substantial personal savings? I had neither. I took menial temp jobs and short-term manual labor jobs for a while until I could get something full-time in my field. Took about six months the first time, and nine months the second time. Getting deported because of your H1B would be an example of "doesn't have a safety net". Is it? It's not like if you lose your job…

[deleted]

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#375

Post by tcmb » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 9:01 PM UTC

tibbon wrote: post #182

What's it take for an engineer in the US to actually do something like this? If my boss/product manager wanted me to do something like this, I'd be calling them out for shitty politics, and telling them they need to find a new engineer because I'd quit immediately - and likely incite others to come with me. Maybe I have a higher sense of morality than others, but I'm no shill for China's power over Taiwan. I can use…

They should have done it the VW way: make it so the flag doesn't show up for the manager in internal review, but is still visible when the OS is out in the wild.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#376

Post by sixstringtheory » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 9:01 PM UTC

Personally I hate seeing this happen both as a specific instance in the case of HK/Taiwan but just in general with corporations and politics.

Professionally and philosophically it's another interesting wrinkle in the implications of the emoji technology.

It reminded of something we saw a couple years ago when Apple changed the depiction of the gun emoji [0]. Interestingly, that blog post's proposed solution (note: same author as the OP article):

> Hide it.

This speaks to how fragile Unicode is, that things that were written in the past may so easily be changed in the future (like the replacement for Taiwan in China) or hidden in various ways. Another article mentions how emoji might be used by e.g. fascists to minimize uncomfortable concepts [1]. Even after you apply Hanlon's razor, there's still opportunity for good old-fashioned miscommunication [2].

[1] specifically mentions the mosquito emoji being introduced for health awareness, but what if we eradicate Malaria or even the mosquito as a whole, and then the irrelevant emoji is replaced with something not widely feared or hated, or maybe even beloved (like another social awareness campaign)? Then there'd be a lot of "Man I hate :positive-thing:" messages out there.

I'm not saying let's ban emoji, it's just interesting to think about. Still, I hope the whitewashing effect mentioned in [1] doesn't gain more ground, here or otherwise.

[0]: https://blog.emojipedia.org/apple-and-the-gun-emoji/ (discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12240386)

[1]: https://openspace.sfmoma.org/2018/07/the-absolute-denial-of-... (discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17552067)

[2]: https://grouplens.org/blog/investigating-the-potential-for-m... (discussed briefly, couldn't find a better thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11446047)

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#377

Post by DangitBobby » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 9:03 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #342

munchbunny wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither time did I have a safety net ready. But my life still continued. Did you mean safety net as in another job lined up or substantial personal savings? Having a safety net generally means that your situation might be tough but you're okay if you quit/lose your job. Getting deported because of your H1B would be an example of "doesn't have a safety net". The definition has gray area (such as if your family in your…

Did you mean safety net as in another job lined up or substantial personal savings? I had neither. I took menial temp jobs and short-term manual labor jobs for a while until I could get something full-time in my field. Took about six months the first time, and nine months the second time. Getting deported because of your H1B would be an example of "doesn't have a safety net". Is it? It's not like if you lose your job…

Many people talk big game about morals and ethics, but when the chips are down, they will happily forget all that if they have to sacrifice even the smallest amount of comfort. Good for you. Seriously.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#378

Post by daveslash » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

organsnyder wrote: post #185

tibbon wrote: post #182

What's it take for an engineer in the US to actually do something like this? If my boss/product manager wanted me to do something like this, I'd be calling them out for shitty politics, and telling them they need to find a new engineer because I'd quit immediately - and likely incite others to come with me. Maybe I have a higher sense of morality than others, but I'm no shill for China's power over Taiwan. I can use…

Perhaps that engineer had a baby on the way and was terrified of losing health coverage, or was in the United States on an H1B visa and was afraid they'd be deported... I'd probably have made the same decision as you (I'm fortunate to have a safety net), but many people don't have that luxury.

Or maybe the Engineer could have been in mainland China? The parent comments assert that an engineer would only do this if they have no morals or are under some pressure -- but it's possible that they might actually agree with this. Edit: As an engineer, I would protest being assigned this work.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#379

Post by tracker1 » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

godelski wrote: post #164

est31 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Isn't that what the newest South Park was about? [0] US companies bending to the political will of China because money. I remember a NPR broadcast a few years ago (when the female ghost busters movie came out) about how movies have become less progressive because they are targeted at world audiences. I think a lot of Westerners feel weird about this, but I think getting involved in the politics is even a step further…

Came to say the same... it's pretty funny how often South Park is on point with the criticism. Love the show more the past couple years than when it first came out.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#380

Post by onetimemanytime » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 9:07 PM UTC

Macuyiko wrote: post #190

organsnyder wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps that engineer had a baby on the way and was terrified of losing health coverage, or was in the United States on an H1B visa and was afraid they'd be deported... I'd probably have made the same decision as you (I'm fortunate to have a safety net), but many people don't have that luxury.

I agree. We shouldn't blame the engineer but the managers asking for this in the first place and knowing they can get away with any sort of "small pressures" they put on their employees.

Not "managers" but the AAPL board. China will ban all iPhone sales in a heartbeat, sending the stock xx% down. Go ahead and keep the Taiwan flag there then...