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Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#421

Post by TheKarateKid »

MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #29

I hate how American (and European) companies will virtue signal with commercials and campaigns (Apple and Nike come to mind) toting their ESG credentials but then will be doing stuff like this. People fall for it and it really pisses me off. Welcome to marketing. It’s also crazy to me that China isn’t facing more severe backlash for the treatment of the Uyghurs. It’s reprehensible and disgusting.

It's amazing how Apple is able to maintain and enforce such strict quality and secrecy amongst their suppliers, yet they seem to fail often when it comes to labor and human rights violations.

I don't think it's a coincidence. There's a clear lack of effort here, or at least not on par with their other ones.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#422

Post by FartyMcFarter »

JoshTko wrote: post #230
downrightmike wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are kept in camps, monitored constantly, have no privacy, are searched constantly and on top of that, they are forced to work or go to detention. That is slavery. There's also the problem with them getting gutted for the organ transplants that China's own doctors have reported to be 4 times higher than they should be for the population size. So it is work, or go to detention and possibly get gutted.

What sources are you getting the organ transplants information from?

Directly from Enver Tohti, a Chinese doctor who was involved in organ harvesting:

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/surgeon-cla...

> But when Tohti arrived at the destination, he was shocked to find at least 10 prisoners had been shot in a field by a firing squad.

> Armed police waved the surgeon and his medical team over and directed them to a man lying unconscious on blood-soaked ground.

> Tohti said: “He’d been shot in the right-hand side of the chest but was still alive.

> “I told my chief surgeon he wasn’t dead but he ordered me to remove the man’s liver and kidneys there and then – and to be quick about it. I was ordered not to give the man any anaesthetic.”

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#423

Post by [deleted] »

hedora wrote: post #393
daenz wrote: post #9

"forced labor" It's slavery...modern day slavery. Why are we mincing words? We stand on our soap boxes and preach about historical injustices and how we need to repair them. Well here is your chance to prevent a future historical injustice, and all it takes is for you to take a stand, instead of quietly consuming the products and leaving it for future generations to atone for methods by which those products were prod…

Note that slavery is still legal in the US. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." There’s an active attempt in congress to amend the constitution to abolish slavery in the US: https://www.npr.org/2020/12/03/942413221/democrats-push-abol... Legal, d…

[deleted]

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#424

Post by cutemonster »

hdjtkrnrn wrote: post #48
daenz wrote: post #9

"forced labor" It's slavery...modern day slavery. Why are we mincing words? We stand on our soap boxes and preach about historical injustices and how we need to repair them. Well here is your chance to prevent a future historical injustice, and all it takes is for you to take a stand, instead of quietly consuming the products and leaving it for future generations to atone for methods by which those products were prod…

What is an influencer to do? Switch to Android, like poor people? Nobody who matters is going to boycott Apple. Apple will counter with a plausible narrative, "we didn't know, we cancelled contracts, ..." and everything will be fine again. Oh, and a new woke diversity ad to show how much they care about muslims. And everybody will share and clap and feel good.

What about Fairphone, https://www.fairphone.com?

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#425

Post by dang »

esarbe wrote: post #146
esarbe wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the downvotes? Too close to the truth?

Apparently so! I take your downvotes with pride. Bring them on! Arguments for a productive discussion would be better though I don't seem to get any of these...

Would you please stop breaking the site guidelines? You've done that many times in this thread.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#426

Post by henvic »

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #218

There's a Netflix documentary about the garlic industry where among other concerns journalists reveal that peeled garlic from China is the product of prison slave labor. Many of the prisoners work their hands raw and continue to cut garlic ends with their teeth. Prisoners have a daily quota with punishment for not meeting it. I haven't come across peeled garlic that wasn't from China or was unlabeled. So, I stopped b…

Thanks for the insight. Do you have a great reference?

https://www.ft.com/content/1416a056-833b-11e7-94e2-c5b903247... might be a reference.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#427

Post by dang »

jiofih wrote: post #62

Note for those skimming the clickbait headlines: this is an accusation found in a report. No evidence brought forward yet.

This comment was posted before we merged the threads. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25570247 did indeed have a clickbait headline.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#428

Post by henvic »

hedora wrote: post #393
daenz wrote: post #9

"forced labor" It's slavery...modern day slavery. Why are we mincing words? We stand on our soap boxes and preach about historical injustices and how we need to repair them. Well here is your chance to prevent a future historical injustice, and all it takes is for you to take a stand, instead of quietly consuming the products and leaving it for future generations to atone for methods by which those products were prod…

Note that slavery is still legal in the US. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." There’s an active attempt in congress to amend the constitution to abolish slavery in the US: https://www.npr.org/2020/12/03/942413221/democrats-push-abol... Legal, d…

It's even worse when you remember plenty of victims are behind bars due to victimless "crimes", police fraud, or minor infractions.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#429

Post by threatofrain »

esarbe wrote: post #108
eznzt wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These reviews are not necessarily independent. If they don't yield any results the organisations lose their funding. So they have the incentive to be as dishonest as Apple and China are.

No, they don't. China and Apple have their reputation to protect, so they have a very high stake in the game. The Tech Transparency Project's goal is to uncover misconduct and malfeasance in public life. They don't have to 'prove' any wrongdoing with regards to Apple or China. If their research with regards to Apple or Chine doesn't pan out, they have many, many more potential targets without danger of losing any fun…

But this is just a mitigating argument, and even in this framing Apple and China seem like very big targets.

Re: Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China

#430

Post by TheKarateKid »

f6v wrote: post #331

It's cute that so many HN readers consider this accusation to be true. However I'd like to remind you that China and USA are engaged in a modern edition of Cold War. I'd argue it's naïve to think that such reports can't possibly be part of this war.

It is wreckless to compare the Chinese media -- which is controlled and censored by the CCP -- to the US media which the government has little/no control or punishment over what they publish. At worst, Western media has bias from those in the media, not the government itself.
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