Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#441

Post by xpe » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 10:47 PM UTC

jiggliemon wrote: post #430

peterkelly wrote: post #40

This reminds me of the story about how the first release of Windows 95 was banned in India because 8 pixels of the map shown in the timezone selection control panel were colored in such a way that suggested parts of Kashmir were part of Pakistan. https://www.cnet.com/news/how-eight-pixels-cost-microsoft-mi... https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030822-00/?p=42...

It’s one thing for India to censor something for a stupid reason. It makes me uncomfortable to have China be able to influence all these other global countries into global (or in this case localized) censorship. Hollywood, News Companies, anything else that China invests heavily has no choice but to fall in line with the censorship.

Yes, this reminds me of a similar, but more general argument:

Free economics tends to promote liberal democracy.

This is debatable of course. Historical patterns are complex:

https://www.economist.com/buttonwoods-notebook/2017/11/06/wh...

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#442

Post by syncsynchalt » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 10:49 PM UTC

sixstringtheory wrote: post #376

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: sa…

> This speaks to how fragile Unicode is, that things that were written in the past may so easily be changed in the future

Unicode does not define code points for individual country flags. It defines 26 code points "Regional Indicator Symbol Letter A" through "Regional Indicator Symbol Letter Z" and implementations use that to represent two-letter ISO codes as the region or country's flag. To use a more neutral example, one implementation might recognize the combination of SU to represent the Soviet flag while another might not.

This is more than a political dodge by the Unicode Consortium (though it is that too), it also uses fewer code points than the 200+ that would be needed for all countries, plus it allows new countries to be represented without a new Unicode version.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#443

Post by NeoBasilisk » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 10:50 PM UTC

Disgusting and cowardly, but if it makes a buck (or billions), am I right?

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#444

Post by AWildC182 » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 10:51 PM UTC

thewholeview wrote: post #438

qwerty456127 wrote: post #427

The whole "unrecognised country" nonsense should begone. Everybody knows Taiwan is a distinct country (and does a reasonable job of being a decent country for the people living in it, it obviously is a better country than a number of completely recognized ones) yet it still has "limited recognition". How about recognizing the facts rather than virtual reality of politicians' imagination? Banning an entire country is…

It's not nonsense, and "everybody knows Taiwan is a distinct country" is a flawed statement. The UN does not recognize Taiwan. Taiwan is recognized as a sovereignty by 19 UN member states. It has formal diplomatic relationships with ~50 UN member states. UN has 193 member states in total. Please refrain from using subjective unprovable ideology to represent the mass.

The UN is a political organization and, importantly, highly leveraged by China for political gain. The objective reality is that Taiwan is an independent country that sets its own laws and is free to conduct its own foreign relations.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#445

Post by paganel » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 10:51 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #101

pradn wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inside Microsoft, there's a whole database of geopolitically-sensitive issues that have been accrued over the years. You can see all sorts of border disputes and differences in language that you had to take into account when working on global products. On a related note, now you have movies with different scenes in China. https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/the_extra_looper_scenes_y https://kotaku.com/why-many-in-china-hat…

At least 30% of my enjoyment of Venom came from it being set in SF and me going “Hey look I know that corner!” or “Wow we’ve been to that restaurant, they totally used a different place for that shop front!” Seeing your town in a movie is incredibly rewarding. Just like a musician is basically required to shout “Hello $PLACE” at some point during a performance PS: for the downvoters, that’s what the linked article ci…

Maren Ade’s excellent movie “Toni Erdman” [1] from a few years ago was taking place in the city I live in, Bucharest, and one of the scenes was set in a mall at whose cinema Multiplex I actually saw the film. It was strange, when that scene came up I said to myself: “hey, this is happening just a few meters away from I where bought the popcorn”.

[1] https://m.imdb.com/title/tt4048272/?ref_=m_nmfmd_dr_1

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#446

Post by thewholeview » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 10:53 PM UTC

AWildC182 wrote: post #444

thewholeview wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not nonsense, and "everybody knows Taiwan is a distinct country" is a flawed statement. The UN does not recognize Taiwan. Taiwan is recognized as a sovereignty by 19 UN member states. It has formal diplomatic relationships with ~50 UN member states. UN has 193 member states in total. Please refrain from using subjective unprovable ideology to represent the mass.

The UN is a political organization and, importantly, highly leveraged by China for political gain. The objective reality is that Taiwan is an independent country that sets its own laws and is free to conduct its own foreign relations.

The objectivity in your eyes is subjectivity to another. Similarly objectivity in others is subjective in yours. There is never true objectivity in our collective presence. If UN ceases to be your objectivity, that's respected.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#447

Post by xpe » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 10:53 PM UTC

msla wrote: post #432

woah wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there a pretty objective and non-political case that Taiwan is it's own country? It has its own laws and government, and has presided over its own affairs for more than 50 years. Whether the CCP wishes this was not the case doesn't affect the reality on the ground.

All politics is a charade to some extent, a social game humans play to achieve a result which we can't really get to otherwise; international politics is simultaneously more obviously a charade and precisely the place where keeping up the charade is most important, because the consequences are far more present. In national politics, there's a government and that government has a police force and a military. Regardles…

Can you unpack what you mean by ‘charade’...? In particular, why did you choose that word? Are you suggesting it is fake? Fake in what sense?

One useful definition of politics is this: systems and behavior that result from people disagreeing without violence.

Politics can occur in convincing a group of people where to go to dinner, that your technical idea is worthy of effort, or that a President must be held accountable to the rule of law.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#448

Post by gwright » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 10:54 PM UTC

woah wrote: post #413

dirtyid wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related to the original discussion, I wonder if there's a story behind how Taiwan got a emoji flag in the first place. Unicode Consortium referenced ISO 3166 for eligibility. Taiwan and a few other disputed regions didn't the cut until 3166-2 revision. The maintenance agency consists of representative from only western agencies. Interesting politics.

Isn't there a pretty objective and non-political case that Taiwan is it's own country? It has its own laws and government, and has presided over its own affairs for more than 50 years. Whether the CCP wishes this was not the case doesn't affect the reality on the ground.

You must be new to this dispute. Personally I tend to agree with you but in the international game of power politics, stating explicitly what is implicitly clear to everyone can have large repercussions.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#449

Post by hawkice » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 10:54 PM UTC

thewholeview wrote: post #438

qwerty456127 wrote: post #427

The whole "unrecognised country" nonsense should begone. Everybody knows Taiwan is a distinct country (and does a reasonable job of being a decent country for the people living in it, it obviously is a better country than a number of completely recognized ones) yet it still has "limited recognition". How about recognizing the facts rather than virtual reality of politicians' imagination? Banning an entire country is…

It's not nonsense, and "everybody knows Taiwan is a distinct country" is a flawed statement. The UN does not recognize Taiwan. Taiwan is recognized as a sovereignty by 19 UN member states. It has formal diplomatic relationships with ~50 UN member states. UN has 193 member states in total. Please refrain from using subjective unprovable ideology to represent the mass.

I mean, you can take a plane to Taipei. It isn't subjective or unprovable: the ROC will check your passport. They issue the currency you will use to buy food. The police work for them. Taxes are collected, exclusively, by them.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#450

Post by kuzimoto » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 10:55 PM UTC

bllguo wrote: post #431

kuzimoto wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are parts of US history where terrible things happened. It's important to acknowledge that, and be compassionate towards those it has affected. However, now that the US exists, it does a lot of good for many, many people. As a first generation immigrant, I'm glad that I was able to come here, as I think conditions are much better than my country of origin. That being said, am I complicit in everything bad that…

> Can any amount of money even make up for what happened? maybe not, but that is hardly a reason to do nothing instead

I wasn't trying to say do nothing, but that just giving a bunch of money just seems somewhat patronizing and wouldn't really make that big of a difference.