691–700 of 743 posts
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The gun emoji became a toy on all major platforms everywhere several years ago. This is surely related to the political climate but I believe the entities involved applied that change worldwide.
I would love to learn more about backroom emoji politics. It sounds foolish on the surface but emojis have a big reach.
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Apple is literally the group implementing the change, it's accurate to say "Apple is cracking down". You're trying to paint Apple as a helpless victim here, but they didn't get blindsided by CCP tyranny. The company has spent years developing this exact situation and repeatedly choose to do the bidding of the Chinese government. "Just following orders" is a pitiful excuse, and even worse when the orders are coming fr…
> Apple is literally the group implementing the change, it's accurate to say "Apple is cracking down". I think it would be more accurate to say that the CCP is cracking down, and Apple is one target of that push. I don't think it's completely accurate to say that Apple can "choose" these things. There's no "choosing" with the CCP, and there's no "choosing" to manufacture outside of China, at this point [1]. This isn'…
However some people think that Apple should bear the cost in its own, since it’s the not an existential choice. It’s simply the choice between taking a loss this year then recovering later, or continuing to make the maximal amount of money this year.
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True, but invalidated by burner and jailbroken phones which are widespread in China. They can definitely catch somebody with a concerted effort but I'd be surprised if the average Chinese teenager couldnt figure out how to make a burner email
People in China have burner Apple phones? That sounds kind of crazy. Even if jailbroken I doubt they are mitigating for this.
Apple have sold billions of iPhones. All those second hand "recycled" parts go somewhere.
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Taiwan made the transition to democracy. No reason why the mainlanders can't.
They could make that transition, of course. But look at all the countries that somehow got rid of dictators in this century. How many of those turned into stable, free, and democratic societies? Afghanistan? Iraq? Egypt? Lybia? If you add ten more years, did it work out for Russia? Belarus? Ukraine? It did work out for Poland, Latvia and some others. But getting rid of an oppressive regime is the easy part of transfo…
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You know what actually makes sense? Creating a setting that the user can change as they see fit.
But options are so complicated and boring. Can I just pay you to pick the best one for me?
For context: AirDrop was one of the only ways protesters had to communicate en-masse. Signal is unsafe for Chinese protesters, since it requires SMS verification upon signup and is therefore linked to your identity.[0] Mesh networks are the only real solution there, and AirDrop is about the only mainstream one. AirDrop has been used by Asian protesters for years.[1] I highly recomment you read the full China Digital…
There are gag orders in the US and UK too, which companies have to follow or they are breaking the law. Are they unethical too?
Or do you mean, it is unethical for apple to not tell Americans what the Chinese government has asked them to do within China, to Chinese citizens, in order to benefit from being legally in good standing and able to continue to do commerce within China?
If so, then is it unethical for them to follow US gag orders and not tell the Chinese public?
I have to admit that when you actually look at the details this is a rather perplexing change. Ditto for reading the comments here. Is Apple being Pro-CCP with this change? If you open airdrop to everyone, your device can be tracked and identified individually. When this setting is disabled, this becomes far harder. I'm of the opinion that this change is good and actually increases security across the board, includin…
> Is Apple being Pro-CCP with this change? I don't think Apple is Pro-CCP, Apple is Pro-Being-Able-To-Do-Business-In-China, which means doing whatever the CCP tells you to do, even if it means compromising your ethics.
Is disabling a feature for all citizens within a geographical region "compromising your ethics" I would argue not. Different countries have different laws, including what kind of radio spectrum a phone is able to use. These have to be respected. As distasteful as it is, "respecting" the laws of an autocratic country.
Now if Apple was handing over geolocation information for apple users on bulk to the CCP, or compiling lists of "likely" dissidents or then I think we are at least knee-deep in unethical waters. But they'll probably be some people out there who say Apple-the-company is completely ethical unless they themselves are the ones pulling the trigger. I kind of disagree on this outlook, but legally again they might be right. (If you take your ethical/moral bases on that of current law.)
For context: AirDrop was one of the only ways protesters had to communicate en-masse. Signal is unsafe for Chinese protesters, since it requires SMS verification upon signup and is therefore linked to your identity.[0] Mesh networks are the only real solution there, and AirDrop is about the only mainstream one. AirDrop has been used by Asian protesters for years.[1] I highly recomment you read the full China Digital…
> ethical duty to make that public There are gag orders in the US and UK too, which companies have to follow or they are breaking the law. Are they unethical too? Or do you mean, it is unethical for apple to not tell Americans what the Chinese government has asked them to do within China, to Chinese citizens, in order to benefit from being legally in good standing and able to continue to do commerce within China? If…
> If Apple is complying with a Chinese government orders, then it has an ethical duty to make that public, and again, we have, as of yet, no reason to assume there are gag orders related to this.
I am saying that if there's no gag order, they have an ethical duty to reveal why they're doing this.
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> I think it's a pretty futile effort to make a completely open phone. No, it's not: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5 .
The Librem 5 is not completely open -- neither the hardware nor software. https://puri.sm/faq/ The Librem 5 is the best effort to this date, but the wifi, bluetooth, and baseband software are proprietary, as well as much of the silicon, and part of the boot chain. There simply aren't any open source options that exist for these components, and due to regulatory constraints, it's unlikely that an open source baseband…
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> ethical duty to make that public There are gag orders in the US and UK too, which companies have to follow or they are breaking the law. Are they unethical too? Or do you mean, it is unethical for apple to not tell Americans what the Chinese government has asked them to do within China, to Chinese citizens, in order to benefit from being legally in good standing and able to continue to do commerce within China? If…
Please read the full sentence. > If Apple is complying with a Chinese government orders, then it has an ethical duty to make that public, and again, we have, as of yet, no reason to assume there are gag orders related to this. I am saying that if there's no gag order, they have an ethical duty to reveal why they're doing this.
Considering we live in a world of constantly updating SaaS, where is the ethical obligation to explain changes?
I'm happy to receive a change log that says 10% of what has changed, and generally expect to not get a reason.
How many entire products has Google killed with no explanation?
I have a feeling this is only become a question of "ethics" because this change tangentially touches protests & CCP.