341–350 of 673 posts
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To be pedantic, Apple does allow Progressive Web Apps which can bypass the App Store. (The Xbox cloud gaming app is a big one that goes down this path) Note that I don’t support at all this decision to cooperate with an autocrat.
>To be pedantic, Apple does allow Progressive Web Apps which can bypass the App Store. Apple is the company that is actively sabotaging PWAs.
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> Usually, we would sanction countries that did this. Maybe time to sanction companies? Otherwise, why do anyone expect them to do anything other than what is the most profitable? Its even illegal not to. Sanction for what exactly? Sanctions against nations don't work. USA has been sanctioning Cuba, Iran for half a century, no regime change whatsoever, it only hurt the population in these countries. USA are sanctioni…
Not to say I am generally in favour of sanctions, but they did help in South Africa's case.
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That's just an outright lie. The product they pulled was search. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China it had a 36% search market share.
> That's just an outright lie. Your citation literally contradicts your rebuttal! > By November 2013, Google's search market share in China had declined to 1.7% from its August 2009 level of 36.2% ^ that's literally in the Wiki article you posted! So I have no idea why you're assuming I'm lying (which is an accusation that I'm intending to deceive you ffs) nor even why you think that link backs up your claim when it…
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Then Google employees would start getting arrested, and whatever would be left of Google in the country would comply anyway, achieving nothing but the imprisonment of more people. Google Russia's employees don't have diplomatic immunity.
How long would other western companies continue doing business in Russia if that started happening?
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Russia's too big of a market Russia's GDP: $1.710 trillion Texas GSP: $1.9 trillion
So Texas is also too big a market?
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/06/21/how-texas-inflic...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/us/texas-history-1836-pro...
Apple do have the resources, influence and brand equity to make some strides here and it doesn't have to be completely philanthropic either - it can make business sense to edge towards being better in some of these areas.
At the moment it feels a bit disingenuous to be so self-congratulatory on the environmental progress [1] when we're constantly reading articles about the conditions in their supply chain (which they do have responsibility for, despite the often touted excuse of "they're not their factories").
[1] I don't mean to talk down the importance of the environmental stuff - just that it's only one part of a wide spectrum of ethical areas that I think Apple could be addressing.
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> That's just an outright lie. Your citation literally contradicts your rebuttal! > By November 2013, Google's search market share in China had declined to 1.7% from its August 2009 level of 36.2% ^ that's literally in the Wiki article you posted! So I have no idea why you're assuming I'm lying (which is an accusation that I'm intending to deceive you ffs) nor even why you think that link backs up your claim when it…
Google pulled out in 2010, of course their market share declined.
Google Search was never really what one would normally describe as a "successful product" in China even when it was at it's hight in terms of market share. It sucked and given Google still operate in China, have development offices there and actively promote Android (amongst other services), it's a real stretch to say that Google discontinued Search in China over ethical reasons. Search was just, like many of their services in the west that get canned, just not proving successful enough to be worth the hassle supporting. Which was my original point.
edit: Christ on a bike. I'm getting downvoted when even the citations backs up my statement. Googlers must have logged on for their morning dose of internet outrage.
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I don't think liberal democracies care about these freedoms, other than as a rhetorical stick to hit countries that "illiberal" with. E.g. imprisonment of Julian Assange, removal of Trump from twitter, Atlantic Council as official part of FB content moderation team (w/ the probably-not-coincidental) subsequent removal of pro-Venezuela and far left groups. (Plus also IMO being banned from FB and Twitter are materially…
Yes, I agree there is much hypocrisy amongst those in power regarding this issue, and liberal democracies as such do not "care" about freedoms. But then, why do they have laws punishing corruption in a foreign country? And why do they care if one of their citizens travels to a foreign country and performs a sexual act which, while not technically a crime at the current location, would be a crime back home? Whether th…
If I were to hazard cynical guesses, I'd say anti-corruption drives are genuine, in that corruption hurts American business interests, and anti-sex-crimes stuff is convenient to intelligence services who use sexual transgressions as black mail (e.g. Alexander Acosta explaining why he cut a sweet-heart deal for Epstein: "I was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to leave it alone").
There is obviously a conflict of interest here, but strategic voting scams are generally harmful to the political process. In particular they tend to concentrate power in the two incumbent parties over time. You don't need an app for strategic voting. The proponents of the scheme will tell you who to vote for.
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> None of them think refusing to trade with china is in Chinese citizens best interests. Well, then is it a matter of principle for western democracies or not? Meanwhile, the west is financing the CCP.
There are definitely principles at stake. We should not work with or support oppressive activities themselves. Western countries selling gear to be used in the great firewall is a disgrace. Selling software tools to be used in censorship is also despicable. We should check supply chains to exclude forced labour to the best of our ability.