> March 2021, Apple reportedly agrees to preinstall Russian software
Wait, this regulation is a result of an antitrust case against Google and Apple started by Yandex, as both were using their platforms against their direct competitor. The same thing that many people want to see in EU and US. Clearly it doesn't belong to the list and the author did zero research on this, but included anyway because it fits the bad guy narrative they are trying to push.
What's even funnier is that Apple threatened to withdraw from the russian market rather than having to do this, so the question is who's the real bad guy here (how about "a tech giant threatens an unimportant country to be able to bully domestic competitors"?). I guess everybody is horrible in this story, because the government had to compromise and omit the requirement to be able to uninstall this software, and they also included many companies who were large enough to be able to lobby their interests, because obviously they didn't want to make a single company special. Now Samsung reportedly has a backdoor deal with Yandex to install their software as system on Samsung phones, so it's being shoved down customers' throats. Nice.
And unlike say the copies of Facebook that Samsung has preinstalled, you can delete these afterward if you change your mind and decide you don’t want it. They’re not unremovably baked into the system.
> What's even funnier is that Apple threatened to withdraw from the russian market rather than having to do this, so the question is who's the real bad guy here
Problem is that Apple for years claims moral high ground, while they’re happily cooperating with authoritarian governments around the world. They can claim moral high ground if they leave after threatening, not just for threatening.
You have to put your money where your mouth is. Like Facebook did with China (not saying they have moral high ground, but that’s an example of company losing tons of profits and helping competition grow, to avoid bending to authoritarian government).
Exactly. I have been saying Apple is now walking on the same path as Google once did. Their "Do No Evil" line.
Had Apple never claimed moral high ground, they would then have the benefit of doubt. And increasingly there are more and more evidence their words and actions differs.
From what I remember Apple had the philosophy caring about their customer, which in 2021 encompass security and data protection. But it's unrelated to banning apps and freedom of speech. They are compliant with local regulations the same as a bank service, a wifi router or any manufactured product have to be compliant. So I would say it's more of a recent marketing problem, it's true they care about customers, but they go too far as saying they are human rights advocates (and also their focus on services put them in a more difficult position like Google or Facebook which IMHO they were not before as a product company).
> Now Samsung reportedly has a backdoor deal with Yandex to install their software as system on Samsung phones, so it's being shoved down customers' throats.
No clear evidence, sorry, you're right. It's only a rumor that is circulating everywhere, I should have made this clear but only realized this now. Another poster above/below noted that it might have been a misunderstanding of the law by Samsung, according to Yandex CEO. Which is also possible of course. (nonetheless, they still shipped unremovable software in a firmware update)
I don’t care whether it was antitrust decision by (kangooroo) courts or not. As a Russian, I don’t want to use Yandex in any capacity since it’s complicit with oppressive regime and gradually becomes part of it, sharing data and targeting citizen with surveillance. One of the reasons I used Apple is because it was relatively free of Russian state-sponsored spyware.
Trust me, I don't have a single illusion about Yandex or the government. Neither I say the solution was perfect (it's terrible and awkward like most regulations are). But I also don't have any illusions about any other company. Making it sound like Apple is cooperating with some nefarious plot is a stretch. They've been forced to back down in a fairly clear case. Dealing with Yandex own business ambitions or the government spyware or regulatory overreach are entirely different questions that are out of the scope of this case and should be solved in their specific ways.
You can delete and not use the yandex software in this case right? It seems more like govt mandated but removable crapware added more for protectionist reasons than spying reasons in this case.
As a Russian you could try to change your government. I don't really understand what people want here. Companies to ignore the laws made by sovereign governments?
That's cyberpunk stuff.
> I don’t want to use Yandex in any capacity since it’s complicit with oppressive regime and gradually becomes part of it, sharing data and targeting citizen with surveillance
Really? So the USA and it’s allies don’t spy, and aren’t oppressive? What do you do with the information revealed by Snowden (about the NSA and Prism), Assange, and with the Crypto AG story?
I’m curious if you see those those things as less severe than Russia’s oppression/corruption?
It's easy to pick on Apple, when you don't know the history of these political issues. Not picking on Red Hat, but because I know this from the first hand it was 18 years ago that they removed the Taiwanese flag from KDE3 control center: https://redhat-list.redhat.narkive.com/b3p8HQaa/bug-70235
Apple is not a government, it's a business. They'll either have to obey the local laws or they'll lose business.
Corporations are not “de facto” governments just because they’re large and profitable. They may have governance structure within themselves, but they don’t have a monopoly on the use of force anywhere, they don’t tax, and they’re not sovereign. Moreover, what de jure government do they functionally supersede in the places where they’re the de facto government? This is a tortured argument.
From an assets and income standpoint, maybe, but they’re not a de facto government unless they have sovereignty, and they don’t. Once they can decide on which wars to start with which countries, maybe we can talk then.
What characteristics of a government do you think it has? Assets and income? A government is something that 'governs', not something that has assets and income.
Presumably not, as long as those government requests/demands are valid within the eyes of local law.
To say otherwise is to suggest that companies should exist above the law, and ignore the rule of law where it’s inconvenient. I don’t think that’s a precedent you want to set.
With regards to moral obligations of US companies seeking to do business in countries that don’t uphold the same standards as the US. I would argue a better place to have that conversation is in Congress, which could then seek to apply export controls to all companies. Rather than just relying on the good will and moral judgment of amoral companies.
I would personally love to see restrictions on trade with China tied to their human rights violations. But don’t think right approach is campaigning individual companies.
I don't think we should expect companies to be moral agents. It's not that they shouldn't be, but more that it's impractical because what's right and wrong (or simply acceptable) depends on who you ask. Furthermore, companies willing to operate immorally have a competitive advantage over those which don't -- if Apple didn't cooperate with authoritarian governments or exploit developing countries for cheap labour they won't stay competitive and a company that does those things will take its place.
The answer IMO has to be regulation. We have to cut off the incentives companies have to act immorally. The problem of course is that this could then make the economy as a whole uncompetitive so politicians are equally unlikely to take action.
Not to be a doomer, but on the issue of China the West has probably waited too long to take action at this point. This would have been easier in the past, but now China has become so dominant, and with Western companies and economies being so dependant on China for labour and manufacturing it's hard to imagine any significant business or political intervention happening.
In fact, this is likely just the beginning, in the future when China is the core market for most multinational companies political intervention basically becomes impossible. No company is going to pull out of their largest market (especially if it's growing faster than the US).
This is gross misrepresentation. They did not lobby against it, they lobbied for some changes including being clearer and more specific about which Chinese organisations were covered. They did ask for some deadlines to be extended but do not oppose the law. Apple has a strong anti-slavery policy, polices it's supply chain and has excluded suppliers for violations. Can you provide any examples of another company doing more?
With the App Store, Apple’s really brought this problem upon themselves whether they agree with what they are told to do or not. Any sort of centralized distribution mechanism is always going to be the first thing an authoritarian government targets when trying to take down content they don’t like. On iPhone it’s even worse because the App Store is not only a centralized distribution mechanism but the only distribution mechanism. If you want something gone, you can just force Apple and that’s that for iPhone.
I sort-of agree. Apple must be bound by the laws of each nation it operates in, but those laws can be in conflict, and even a company cannot be the servant of two masters [0]; the only solutions I can even imagine boil down to properly separate versions of — call it “Apple Software and Services Inc.” — in each jurisdiction. Same for Google.
[0] It’s been annoying me for years that I, a British national living in Germany, have to tell the US federal government about all encryption I use in apps made solely for the German market. What happens if it starts annoying the EU, too, and they pass a law saying we can’t tell the US government anything about it?
This would also seem to be a vulnerability of Canonical's centralised snap store. Would they take down submissions containing content that the CCP objects to?
The "Apple will preinstall apps for the Russian government" bit is untrue, and has spread around due to shoddy tech journalism. iMore, which repeats the falsehood in the article title[0], includes a translation of a Russian news article:
> The agreements stipulate that the first time Apple is purchased in Russia, the user will see a dialog window when setting up, in which he will be asked to install applications from the government-approved list by default, Vedomosti said. It will be possible to refuse installation, removing ticks in front of certain applications, explains the source of the publication.
So really it is an opt-out list of apps presented at setup, which are downloaded and installed after user confirmation. The apps are, presumably, still subject to iOS security policy.
It's clearly not ideal, and reminds me of the dark years of trying to avoid accidentally installing the Yahoo Toolbar. But it's not as evil as it sounds from the headline, and it would be stupid of Apple to pull out of the Russian market over this (as iMore says they once threatened).
Save your rage for when iMessage encryption is nerfed, and government-approved apps are no longer opt-out.
This doesn't sound particularly evil to me and seems perfectly in line with the Russian government's intention of reducing its reliance on American tech companies (by nudging consumers in the direction of their domestic alternatives).
IMO, doing this would be a good idea for Europe, too. To some degree laws like the browser choice thing already go in this direction, but they still mostly present American alternatives.
Most of this "X does Y with authoritarian government" is basically individuals picking up government signals (propagated through the media) for the new enemy of the day.
That's why it gets increasingly more frequent at a particular time (whereas China has been authoritative for decades when the same now "indignant" people didn't write about it), uses the same talking points (often of some bad but useful source that's repeated as gospel, "orange revolution" style opposition, ex-pats with axes to grind, etc.), and is focused on the singled-out "enemy du jour" even if there are tons of allies doing the same or worse.
Selective government talk points, "leaks" to the press, propaganda pieces, "exclusive access", etc, fuels this further.
Until there's another enemy to focus on, when it all deflates.
Even though I agree with your view in general, it's worth pointing out that the article author is not a random "individual picking up government signals".
Jesse Squires is quite prominent contributor to the Apple's macOS/iOS development ecosystem and he definitely cares about Apple's reputation and the future. Apple is his bread and butter and if he's concerned with what's going on on this front there is something to think about...
Yes. In the past year I have heard endless breathless "news reports" about how China supposedly manufactured Covid in a lab, to how they are committing genocide with Uighur muslims, to how they are not respecting the UK's continuing dominion over Hong Kong, to how they never innovate and only steal technology from the US, to how they are being aggressive in the east China sea, how they're threatening Taiwan, and on and on and on.
Of course I have been hearing the same thing at various times about Cubans, Venezuelans, Russians, Palestinians, Iraqis, Syrians, Iranians, Libyans - Blinken just denounced the arrests of those involved in the post-coup massacre in Bolivia. And on and on. This piece is an example of the drive for ever expanding imperial policy under an authoritarian government.
I am sorry some people downvoted you, this supposedly-rational forum is not immune from extreme anti-China prejudices either.
Indeed these constantly-negative news reports are ridiculous and serve further to indoctrinate everyone that "China is evil". People should visit China for themselves and understand just how screwed the media portrayals are. Today's "free speech" media seem to think that their shit doesn't stink and everything they do is holy. They can't even write positively about China's successful lockdowns and somehow manage to blow up a single case of local authorities overstretching (then getting both politically and publicly reprimanded for it) into "China covered up covid". Absolutely ridiculous.
Thanks for bringing that up. It was very obvious last year and is now that the election period is over. While the issues are real, the correlation between geopolitical consideration du jour and the media putting the spotlight on democracy issues is important to keep in mind, so that we remember to not be blind to other regions (e.g. Yemen) or don't let it deflates like you said when the focus move.
Thnak you for outlining this. I’d even say the “enemy” is more often than not one that disturbs the established neo-colonial structure. The moment a “new player enters the chat” - countries start with the “enemy speak” that you talk about.
This should be in the mind of anybody using an Apple device for its privacy / security feature and not living in a democratic country and even in democratic country, but there is usually more safe-guard against police overreach in democratic country.
Apple will "take a stand for their users" when they can do it with no consequence (for example when they refused to decrypt an iPhone for the FBI). But if the country can ban you from doing business for not "fully cooperating" with their law enforcement, they will abide (unless the country is irrelevant for their business).
I won't say that it is any better than using a non-encrypted device, or less secured device, since, in a lot of cases, even Apple cannot "break-in" their own device. But don't think that Apple won't send everything they know about you to your local police.
I don't think it should surprise most people (and in a way, don't you want company to comply with your laws ?). But when Apple talk about privacy, remember that it's privacy toward other company, not the government.
Which governments are "bad"? Who gets to make that decision?
The UK government is defying international law in the Chagos Islands and has broken its treaty with the EU over checks to/from N. Ireland. Does that make it a "bad" government that private companies should not do business with? If the UK demands that an app is withdrawn from the app store, or that private communications should be turned over to government agents with no justification, should a private business refuse to do that? The same arguments can be made for the USA (as the article does).
People generally get the government they deserve. If a country is authoritarian, then it's up to the people of that country to deal with that problem, not private companies. China's government is representative of the wishes of its people, and if it's not then China's people will deal with that.
Contrast that with Myanmar: the democratically elected government has been overthrown by the military, who are in the process of killing anyone who protests about it. This is clearly different. There can clearly be no international co-operation with this regime, because it's obviously been taken over by bad people. There should be international outrage over this, and action from the international diplomatic community - part of which should be guidance to private companies about whether to co-operate with the military regime.
Well the U.K. government is a democratically elected one for a start. On the Northern Ireland border, wasn’t it the EU that that unilaterally broke the protocol by invoking article 16 without even checking with Ireland? My point is that governments do things that anger other countries all the time. That doesn’t make them a bad government, that’s just politics. There is however a clear and significant difference between a democratically elected government and an authoritarian regime.
The UK is a literal kingdom with a first past the post voting system and a media dominated by Tories (including the BBC). Recently they’re trying to ban all protest while the police is beating up those of us that resist.
China’s elected national congress that includes easy recall and competence-based civil servant positions doesn’t seem any less democratic.
> favouring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom
This currently describes a lot of European countries. The proponents will make the argument that this is only "temporary authoritarianism" in the pursuit of "safety", but we've seen how that works out before.
Your attitude to Myanmar is directly at odds with your criticism that people deserve the government they get. There's no difference between what the junta in Myanmar is doing now and what the CCP did to reformist protesters in Tiananmen Square. You can't say the Chinese people deserve that, but the people of Myanmar don't. That's completely inconsistent. Belarus is still under the control of an autocratic dictator despite many months of protests, which will almost certainly fail. Do the people of Belarus deserve to lose?
This is a good point. I would say there is a difference of degree, but it's very debatable.
My stance has been heavily influenced by my experience living in Cambodia. They have an authoritarian government. But they have also an authoritarian culture. Attempts to create a democratic government there haven't failed because the regime are a bunch of bastards (they are, but that's not the point), but because the people generally haven't supported it. Part of this, I'm sure, is their traumatic experience with the Khmer Rouge. I see so many parallels with what's going on with Myanmar. I don't see so many parallels with what's going on in China.
Can we measure the legitimacy of a government by the number of protesters it has killed? Seems like a better measure that "compatibility with Western economic interests" which seems to be the current measure.
You can't really compare CCP with the likes of Tatmadaw or Lukashenko's clique. While all of them are authoritarian, the quality of their governance is quite different.
The difference with CCP and Tatmadaw (Myanmar army) generals, is that the CCP actually understands how to govern.
Tatmadaw is making things objectively worse for everyone economically, while CCP has succeeded in improving the lives of Chinese people. (Yes, and it is authoritarian and suppresses ethnic minorities but these qualities do not signify it as inept).
Or in DD terms, Tatmadaw is borderline chaotic evil while CCP is lawful evil.
Apple complies with all governments in markets that are sizeable to their business.
Authoritarian governments that are into surveillance love looking into your icloud and itunes accounts. They use FISA and National Security Letters to pry into your and everyone elses life.
> July 2017, Apple removes VPN apps from China App Store
This is the only thing keeping me from buying an iPhone. Their control on what apps you can run on your phone is absolute. This may not be a problem in liberal countries where pretty much every website is available. But in some places VPNs have become a necessity.
And you are the one voting for them. A government isn’t an isolated entity, people vote for them in democratic countries.
However, it’s much easier for people to vote with their wallets in their everyday life (for ex. by buying from companies with certain environmental policies or labour policies) than to expect governments to change.
You can choose to buy a phone or computer that is less involved in this type of behaviours.
The USA (possinly EU as well, I havent followed the news on this) are also actively supporting other extremely repressive regimes - most notably and uncontroversially, Saudi Arabia. They have even all but endorsed Saudi Arabia's murder of an American journalist on foreign soil (they have officially condemned it, but have taken 0 measures beyond a declaration).
I have an issue with hypocrisy, like maybe you are a gay CEO or promote yourself as LGBT friend , respecting of women equality and at the same time kiss the ass to some governments that would stone you to death if they could get their hand on you.
When an individual is promoting itself as a green tree lover person on social media to score points and then you find he is a fake because money is more important, then IMO is fair to call on the hypocrisy/facade.
from the scandal where the whole world found that Apple tracks you each time you open an app I personally concluded that privacy is an after-thought at Apple. The entire thing would have been designed different if the developers at Apple were competent and at the same time care for privacy (so either they don't care about privacy or they are incompetent but care a lot)
When the company we are talking about has the wealth and power of a nation, well, we have the right to criticize it. Also, we are able to criticize both governments and companies at the same time, with the same effort.
What makes you think that wealth gives you power of a nation? Unless Apple starts making its own laws, hire or train its own army, it is just another cow for the government.
While I agree, I think in most cases there is a “morally right thing to do”. If the laws in certain countries go against the right thing, then maybe it’s time to go against those laws. Of course that’s easy to say as an individual. For a company it essentially means giving up your market in that country.
I find the word "problematic" in the first paragraph. That's usually a sign, but it is a word that people use, so whatever, let's ignore it and continue.
Sure enough, the article enters a tirade about the "human rights violator in chief." Draws motive from an advertisement with the then president of the US in it, and advertisement of an american company, the first trillion dollar company who reached that valuation under that president, and attributes it to the CEO. The CEO of apple will stoop to any level to garner favor, lower than cooperating with authoritarian dictators even, so says the article.
Adidas, H&M, Nike etc were all signatories to the Better Cotton Initiative which were heavily critical of widespread human right abuses in Xinjiang.
They have been subjected to pretty harsh treatment from China including their online stores being disabled, frozen out of third party stores, supply chain disruptions and lots of critical media stories from government mouthpieces.
Google refused to censor search in China, and got the GFE blocked by the GFW.
Later they bent over backwards to get back in with a special censored search (Project Dragonfly) which got "cancelled" due to western and employee backlash (but wasn't really), continued a bit in secret, then really cancelled (so it was reported).
It happens, but not often - I’m struggling to think of an example. I am sure they exist.
It isn’t that surprising that an authoritarian power structure whose sole purpose is to create wealth for the owners of the structure would ally themselves with... an authoritarian power structure whose sole purpose is to create wealth for the owners of the structure.
> (Note: you may be wondering why I have included the US in a list of authoritarian governments. Let me remind you of the outrageous police brutality that we saw last summer. And let’s not forget the orange elephant in the room.)
Okay then. OP seems to suggest that a private company should take the responsibility to defy government requirements and orders because the government is labeled bad?
I don't think it's very practical.
Besides, an OS or device vendor can arbitrarily dictate what kind of app a user can get, in my opinion, is the true elephant here.
Unfortunately there is no money for Apple, or anyone, in putting your family safety and privacy first, since selling you out is far more profitable since most people don't care. By the time it gets bad enough for them to care, it will be too late to turn back.
Disillusionment with the way things are going is the reason I've kinda decided to step away from tech. I will miss the income, but I won't miss the dystopian hellscape. I'm buying a farm. Gonna raise chickens. Will automate as much of it as I can with non-cloud FLOSS and my own code and sweat. I will not try to grow it to billions, I will prioritize my time.
I think people would have far less problems with tech companies selling to anyone if they didn’t push moral crusades themselves. Apple is clearly interested in pushing its own ethical views, but only when they don’t risk serious profits for it. It’s a special kind of self-serving hypocrisy; paint yourself as noble when nothing is on the line, but keep mum when you might lose something.
If they stopped acting like moral crusaders and simply said, “We sell computers to anyone with money,” there would be much less of an issue.
There are zero companies going to war with China. It is simply outside the sphere of their influence. I know you haven’t used the word war but the general and unwarranted disappointment with Apple for doing business with the people of China is deeply rooted in an unrealistic understanding of geopolitics. I think it would be great for Apple to openly denounce the PRC and defy them utterly but I also think it would be great if they would gift each citizen of the world a brand new iphone.
Apple is trying to disentangle itself from China slowly, as are all the smart companies with labour investments in the country. Is Apppe supposed to be the only company willing to take a massive hit to their business by defying China? Almost all of their manufacturing is being held hostage in the country.
I hate the PRC, extremely counter cultural, hate wealth disparity, all that but I can’t fault Apple for playing ball here.
I would rather Apple cease being a moral arbiter entirely. I don’t need a computer company in California telling me what I’m allowed to do, say, think, or read. That is the business of governments and individuals.
It's specially annoying when your're not american, but I feel it way more with Google and Social Media. It feels like having anglo political frame pushed down the throat, it gets boring pretty quick.
The worst is that it is successful with newer generations, and they divert their attention to anglo issues instead of local ones.
I don’t see Apple pushing their web moral views. They sell to a particular audience. In the US, they cater to a specific audience and want to be careful with how that segment views Apple on particular social or political issues.
You or I don’t have to agree with Apples policies or public statements on these matters, and we certainly don’t have to buy their products.
Companies or their founders pushing certain policies is nothing new. In my opinion, there’s an unreasonable standard tech companies are held to. At the end of the day, their job is to make money for their stakeholders, for better or worse.
You said it perfectly. It is surprising to see so many people coming to the defense of poor pitifual Apple, the richest company in the world. They have little reservation over doing business with vile regimes to squeeze a few more pennies per unit out of an iPhone. Then they buck dance for every social cause under the sun back home. Hypocrites.
> If they stopped acting like moral crusaders and simply said, “We sell computers to anyone with money,” there would be much less of an issue.
I'm not so sure. There are (a loud minority?) of "woke" software developers now that will try to drum up pressure on your company from within and without if you sell to "anyone with money" (see: GitHub selling to ICE). Google frequently has to deal with this, I'm sure Apple does too.
Maybe mitigating/ignoring woke outrage is preferable to the corporate ethical schizophrenia you described (it's certainly simpler), but I don't think the issue would go away.
woke developers are acting as moral crusaders just like Apple is. renaming "master branch" to "main branch" doesn't solve anything. posting the latest Twitter slacktivism hashtag doesn't solve anything. it's just for show, to appear virtuous while still collecting big tech paychecks.
I'd have more sympathy if he didn't include, in his primary examples, one that he himself admits there's no evidence for.
there is little direct evidence to support this exact claim. While I am willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt and consider this an inconvenient coincidence, I would not be surprised if this were a deliberate move.
"I would not be surprised if" is not how honest argument works. On the other hand, at least he admits it. A hit piece would have insisted it's all true.
It is reasonably likely that, in a pinch, the US uses iPhones to target missile strikes. There is no way the iPhone isn't being used in cooperation with the NSA spying program either.
It isn't new for corporations to cooperate with the ugly parts of government. I don't really understand why Apple is being singled out here. They are better than average because at least their abuses are fairly obvious and they don't make plays to control people's data like certain other companies.
Apple made this problem itself. They wanted to retain a full, complete control on what users can do with their product. This made their App Store a single point of failure. Coincidentally, those authoritarian governments want the exact same control on their people so it's perfectly natural to see their relentless attempts to control App Store. The solution is obvious, but I'm 100% sure that Apple won't take that path unless it's forced to do so.
I think it is kind of an unreasonable expectation that businesses will flout the law of countries they operate in out of some sense of principle. There are plenty of unsavory actors right here at home Apple answers to, and I’m not sure that a world of sovereign corporations would be improvement anyway.
This seems like it misses the point - American companies doing business with authoritarian regimes that don’t have American interests at heart, are inherently un-American and unworthy of American support.
Either we’re in this together, or the invisible line in the dirt means nothing and I want my money back.
> authoritarian regimes that don’t have American interests at heart, are inherently un-American and unworthy of American support
Foreign democracies don’t have American interests at heart. Should we cut trade ties with Germany as a result?
Our power comes from trade. Backing up into ideological autarky would be self defeating. Similarly, asking individual companies to stop trading with countries their competitors may legally trade with is dumb.
Convince your fellow voters to put on sensible, targeted tariffs and sanctions. Or accept that commerce plows wider fields than ideology.
I think it's pretty damn weird people think Apple should probably be solving the problem of authoritarian governments around the world.
Apple isn't Superman. It's just a company selling phones and some other things. Their leverage over the legal and regulatory systems various countries is limited... a very good thing, BTW. If they had more, do you really think they would use it only for good?
Apple definitely listens to China, since their entire manufacturing is there and it's a huge market for them, but the claim that Apple listens to Myanmar has no basis at all. Why would they care? And there's a ton of other VPN apps.
The author indirectly advocates sanctioning these regimes. If that is the case, their best path is through government. Playing whack-a-mole with individual companies is, while decent clickbait and PR fodder, useless with respect to real-world outcomes.
> In Seattle, Apple has given the feds vital evidence from one of its iCloud users who was arrested for firebombing cop cars during the George Floyd protests in late May.
> The case shows how Apple is willing to help even where the context of the crime is controversial, namely the Black Lives Matter protests.
EXCUSE ME??? Are you saying that firebombing cars is somehow an acceptable act in the context of a protest, and that helping track down the perpetrator of such an act is a bad thing?
Nice faux outrage. Perhaps he is saying that utilitarianism is a race to the bottom and that our actions shouldn't be based on an evaluation of an actions consequences but rather on the universality of it, such that we act only according to that maxim by which we can also will it to become universal law?
It's not only apple. Almost all of the big tech doing that these days, either out of concern about their manufacturing resources, or other motives.
Something I won't support, but can understand their motives behind.
But I am trying to understand how this part fits in the list.
"November 2019, Trump re-election campaign ad shot in Apple’s Mac Pro plant in Austin
Given the context and the headline, Apple working with authoritarian governments. Unless the author thinks the US is authoritarian.
I don't see any problems with any high tech executive supporting one politician or another, if the author is making the alleged Tim Cook's support for Trump the reason to include that in the list of incidents showing Apple working with authoritarian regimes.
I don’t remember the exact controversy, but I remember some controversy during the Obama years where a prominent US company complied with some censorious Chinese requirements. Obama said something along the lines of “I wish you’d come to us before agreeing to this. We would have helped.”
As these the list starts in 2017, I wonder how much of this is the result of the US’s decreased willingness to export its values abroad during the Trump years.
What I like about his blog, is he makes it pretty clear why he's saying what's he's saying, both when defending and criticising Apple. You may disagree with him (I often do), but it would be nice to see you showing disagreement with Gruber's line of argument, rather than just TL;DR part. Makes the argument less tribal.
His _why_ is his beliefs. He doesn't _believe_ that Apple would do what was claimed.
It's hard to rebut him when it's all the language of belief - I have no more facts about the situation than he does. That's the beauty of beliefs, facts are optional.
Apple fanatics- they are just following orders, Google does it too, it's no big deal
Apple fanatics about any other company- privacy, security, lies. Off with their heads.
I genuinely can't tell if Apple has been astroturfing for decades to create this kind of loyalty because their actions have been poor to customers and employees since the 2000s.
Capitalism is perfectly compatible with Authoritarianism, Fascism, and worse.
We cannot rely on the agents of Mammon to rid the world of authoritarianism. That is a hopelessly naive approach. They’re just not that interested, and they’re a poor fit for the job.
Capitalist companies are good at making things, they’re good at making profits, but by design they are useless for meaningful social change and increasing freedom, because they themselves require the maintenance of a world of peasants and kings.
I am always amazed and surprised when reading comments on HN regarding Apple, even though I know what I will read.
No matter what Apple does, the Apple apologists come out of the woods to defend their overlords.
I always like to play a little game, which I believe could also be a nice browser extension.
Read the comments and articles, but replace the word Apple with Microsoft. Opinions and stances would shift dramatically under a minute.
I cannot fathom that there are adult educated people living in a free democracy defending a company which works with a authoritarian government which is involed in a GENOCIDE.
Can we retire this argument already? Or at least show hard data to back up this tired claim—it’s been made so often, it should be doable by now.
From anecdotal observation, any big company mentioned on HN will have critics, apologists, critics of the apologists, and (perhaps most relevant) fans of the company who criticise their behaviours. Apple isn’t special in that regard, except it seems to draw the most fervorous irrational hate towards its users. It reminds me of meat-eaters who won’t shut up about vegetarians being annoying, while remaining ironically oblivious that they’re far worse offenders of the behaviour they decry.
I mean capitalism goes together with authoritarianism pretty good. Just look at the companies that still exist today that helped the Third Reich. Perhaps it's time to want a different underlying system that wouldn't have a bottomline for profit maximization? idk
Please don't take HN threads into generic ideological arguments. It just leads to tedious, lame, and nasty flamewar—always the same—and those are off topic here.
It's quite incredible how bad the internet is at discussing this stuff thoughtfully. It's clearly not the medium for it. It bonds with all its failure modes (e.g. snark, screaming, and paranoia) into one hell of a compound. We're trying for something different on HN, and for that to work we need users to be aware of this and not go there.
Doesn't this thread already pose an ideological argument (e.g. country x and y are authoritarian/bad, while country z isn't)?
I personally find it really hard to refrain from commenting when there is a very once sided view presented on a front-page topic.
The issue I have is that some topics feel like they are either flamewar or a one-sided view where people feel like they can't comment because going against that view might start a flamewar. Neither promote curiosity
edit: My comment isn't necessarily connected to that of parent, but more to your reply
Here's a fun bit from an attempt to hold to account IG Farben, manufacturers of Zkylon B.
> All defendants who were sentenced to prison received early release. Most were quickly restored to their directorships and other positions in post-war companies, and some were awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.
Not sure why you've been downvoted, the list of complicit orgs is long.
IBM, takes pride of place for their tabulation machines.
Ford, and GM, for converting their German subsidiary factories to wartime usages, while declining to do the same in the USA. Nevermind Henry Ford's proclivity for funding anti-semitism.
Then of course, all the German manufacturers of note.
Krupp, Daimler, IG Farben, Hugo Boss...
I'm keen on your examples from Iran. Was it the time that the British asked the CIA to depose the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, and reinstall the Shah, for the benefit of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now a subsidiary of BP)?
IMO the best example is Chiquita -- they conspired with the CIA to overthrow the democratically elected government of Guatemala to secure their banana fields against the "godless communists." Naturally, they left Guatemala with a right-wing dictatorship. This kicked off a 46 year long civil war and the fallout has directly contributed to the migrant crisis at the border. They called it Operation PBSuccess. [1]
I once, naively, bought into the benevolent dictator spiel. The coordinated hit on Parlor dispelled my rose colored glasses respective to that narrative.
It's all BS and past time for Apple (and Google for that matter) to be forced to open up and allow authorized alternatives to the "official" stores. And yes, while there is a generic open sourced version of Android, let's be honest - the one everyone wants is Android integrated with Google's services and for that one you have to go through the Play store.
> March 2021, Apple reportedly agrees to preinstall Russian software
Wait, this regulation is a result of an antitrust case against Google and Apple started by Yandex, as both were using their platforms against their direct competitor. The same thing that many people want to see in EU and US. Clearly it doesn't belong to the list and the author did zero research on this, but included anyway because it fits the bad guy narrative they are trying to push.
What's even funnier is that Apple threatened to withdraw from the russian market rather than having to do this, so the question is who's the real bad guy here (how about "a tech giant threatens an unimportant country to be able to bully domestic competitors"?). I guess everybody is horrible in this story, because the government had to compromise and omit the requirement to be able to uninstall this software, and they also included many companies who were large enough to be able to lobby their interests, because obviously they didn't want to make a single company special. Now Samsung reportedly has a backdoor deal with Yandex to install their software as system on Samsung phones, so it's being shoved down customers' throats. Nice.
To be clear, this line is incorrect: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/03/16/apple-to-offer-governme...
They will be offered to be installed immediately, but not preinstalled.
Maybe not great, but certainly better than preinstalled.
And unlike say the copies of Facebook that Samsung has preinstalled, you can delete these afterward if you change your mind and decide you don’t want it. They’re not unremovably baked into the system.
> What's even funnier is that Apple threatened to withdraw from the russian market rather than having to do this, so the question is who's the real bad guy here
Problem is that Apple for years claims moral high ground, while they’re happily cooperating with authoritarian governments around the world. They can claim moral high ground if they leave after threatening, not just for threatening.
You have to put your money where your mouth is. Like Facebook did with China (not saying they have moral high ground, but that’s an example of company losing tons of profits and helping competition grow, to avoid bending to authoritarian government).
Exactly. I have been saying Apple is now walking on the same path as Google once did. Their "Do No Evil" line.
Had Apple never claimed moral high ground, they would then have the benefit of doubt. And increasingly there are more and more evidence their words and actions differs.
From what I remember Apple had the philosophy caring about their customer, which in 2021 encompass security and data protection. But it's unrelated to banning apps and freedom of speech. They are compliant with local regulations the same as a bank service, a wifi router or any manufactured product have to be compliant. So I would say it's more of a recent marketing problem, it's true they care about customers, but they go too far as saying they are human rights advocates (and also their focus on services put them in a more difficult position like Google or Facebook which IMHO they were not before as a product company).
> Now Samsung reportedly has a backdoor deal with Yandex to install their software as system on Samsung phones, so it's being shoved down customers' throats.
Yandex CEO says there is no backdoor deal, just misunderstanding of the law by Samsung, and they asked Samsung to make those apps uninstallable: https://www.facebook.com/tigrankh/posts/10157500257791403
Apple already did it [1] "Apple bent its rules for Russia—and other countries will take note"
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/apple-bent-its-rules...
Do you have any evidence to call it "a backdoor deal"? Please stick to the facts.
No clear evidence, sorry, you're right. It's only a rumor that is circulating everywhere, I should have made this clear but only realized this now. Another poster above/below noted that it might have been a misunderstanding of the law by Samsung, according to Yandex CEO. Which is also possible of course. (nonetheless, they still shipped unremovable software in a firmware update)
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I don’t care whether it was antitrust decision by (kangooroo) courts or not. As a Russian, I don’t want to use Yandex in any capacity since it’s complicit with oppressive regime and gradually becomes part of it, sharing data and targeting citizen with surveillance. One of the reasons I used Apple is because it was relatively free of Russian state-sponsored spyware.
Trust me, I don't have a single illusion about Yandex or the government. Neither I say the solution was perfect (it's terrible and awkward like most regulations are). But I also don't have any illusions about any other company. Making it sound like Apple is cooperating with some nefarious plot is a stretch. They've been forced to back down in a fairly clear case. Dealing with Yandex own business ambitions or the government spyware or regulatory overreach are entirely different questions that are out of the scope of this case and should be solved in their specific ways.
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> I used Apple is because it was relatively free of Russian state-sponsored spyware.
You may search for "icloud servers Russia", it is likely the same deal as with China, people's iCloud data accessible by state agencies.
What I'm curious about, is how it applies to people with dual citizenship, living in another country for decades?
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As a Russian, I'm using Yandex from time to time and see it no better or worse than FAANG. Keep in mind that parent doesn't speak for everyone.
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You can delete and not use the yandex software in this case right? It seems more like govt mandated but removable crapware added more for protectionist reasons than spying reasons in this case.
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As a Russian you could try to change your government. I don't really understand what people want here. Companies to ignore the laws made by sovereign governments? That's cyberpunk stuff.
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> I don’t want to use Yandex in any capacity since it’s complicit with oppressive regime and gradually becomes part of it, sharing data and targeting citizen with surveillance
Really? So the USA and it’s allies don’t spy, and aren’t oppressive? What do you do with the information revealed by Snowden (about the NSA and Prism), Assange, and with the Crypto AG story?
I’m curious if you see those those things as less severe than Russia’s oppression/corruption?
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It's easy to pick on Apple, when you don't know the history of these political issues. Not picking on Red Hat, but because I know this from the first hand it was 18 years ago that they removed the Taiwanese flag from KDE3 control center: https://redhat-list.redhat.narkive.com/b3p8HQaa/bug-70235
Apple is not a government, it's a business. They'll either have to obey the local laws or they'll lose business.
While we are here, checkout how Google Maps handles these issues: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/14/google-...
> Apple is not a government
It is a de facto government with assets and income that dwarf most U.S. states, as well as most foreign countries and many multinational companies.
Calling their legal compliance obedient is a cruel disservice to the facts of their constant political maneuvering.
Corporations are not “de facto” governments just because they’re large and profitable. They may have governance structure within themselves, but they don’t have a monopoly on the use of force anywhere, they don’t tax, and they’re not sovereign. Moreover, what de jure government do they functionally supersede in the places where they’re the de facto government? This is a tortured argument.
> It is a de facto government
Say you're a US citizen. You can choose not to buy an Apple product. You cannot chose to not pay your taxes.
This is just one of many distinctions between a government and a corporation.
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From an assets and income standpoint, maybe, but they’re not a de facto government unless they have sovereignty, and they don’t. Once they can decide on which wars to start with which countries, maybe we can talk then.
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It is not a government, de facto or otherwise.
Apple does not have tax authority over you.
Apple does not have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force in any geographic region.
Apple does not pass or enforce laws or have citizens.
It is big and rich and powerful, and like all big and rich things with that much reach, literally cannot do anything without making someone angry.
This does not make it a government, and pretending it is one is a silly distraction from holding it to account when it does something bad.
Money alone does not a government make.
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> It is a de facto government
I can't understand why you'd think that.
What characteristics of a government do you think it has? Assets and income? A government is something that 'governs', not something that has assets and income.
You should have said, Apple has the same amount of POWER as some governments. That would be more appropriate.
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Is there any limit, in your opinion, to what a company should willingly comply with from a government?
Presumably not, as long as those government requests/demands are valid within the eyes of local law.
To say otherwise is to suggest that companies should exist above the law, and ignore the rule of law where it’s inconvenient. I don’t think that’s a precedent you want to set.
With regards to moral obligations of US companies seeking to do business in countries that don’t uphold the same standards as the US. I would argue a better place to have that conversation is in Congress, which could then seek to apply export controls to all companies. Rather than just relying on the good will and moral judgment of amoral companies.
I would personally love to see restrictions on trade with China tied to their human rights violations. But don’t think right approach is campaigning individual companies.
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I don't think we should expect companies to be moral agents. It's not that they shouldn't be, but more that it's impractical because what's right and wrong (or simply acceptable) depends on who you ask. Furthermore, companies willing to operate immorally have a competitive advantage over those which don't -- if Apple didn't cooperate with authoritarian governments or exploit developing countries for cheap labour they won't stay competitive and a company that does those things will take its place.
The answer IMO has to be regulation. We have to cut off the incentives companies have to act immorally. The problem of course is that this could then make the economy as a whole uncompetitive so politicians are equally unlikely to take action.
Not to be a doomer, but on the issue of China the West has probably waited too long to take action at this point. This would have been easier in the past, but now China has become so dominant, and with Western companies and economies being so dependant on China for labour and manufacturing it's hard to imagine any significant business or political intervention happening.
In fact, this is likely just the beginning, in the future when China is the core market for most multinational companies political intervention basically becomes impossible. No company is going to pull out of their largest market (especially if it's growing faster than the US).
Apple lobbying against Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act in the United States goes beyond that.
This is gross misrepresentation. They did not lobby against it, they lobbied for some changes including being clearer and more specific about which Chinese organisations were covered. They did ask for some deadlines to be extended but do not oppose the law. Apple has a strong anti-slavery policy, polices it's supply chain and has excluded suppliers for violations. Can you provide any examples of another company doing more?
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One could argue this to be evidence that Apple is willing to disagree with an authoritarian government.
With the App Store, Apple’s really brought this problem upon themselves whether they agree with what they are told to do or not. Any sort of centralized distribution mechanism is always going to be the first thing an authoritarian government targets when trying to take down content they don’t like. On iPhone it’s even worse because the App Store is not only a centralized distribution mechanism but the only distribution mechanism. If you want something gone, you can just force Apple and that’s that for iPhone.
I sort-of agree. Apple must be bound by the laws of each nation it operates in, but those laws can be in conflict, and even a company cannot be the servant of two masters [0]; the only solutions I can even imagine boil down to properly separate versions of — call it “Apple Software and Services Inc.” — in each jurisdiction. Same for Google.
[0] It’s been annoying me for years that I, a British national living in Germany, have to tell the US federal government about all encryption I use in apps made solely for the German market. What happens if it starts annoying the EU, too, and they pass a law saying we can’t tell the US government anything about it?
"have to tell the US federal government about all encryption I use"
Can you elaborate on that?
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This would also seem to be a vulnerability of Canonical's centralised snap store. Would they take down submissions containing content that the CCP objects to?
Snap provides commands to pull from other snap stores. There's nothing preventing people from setting up their own snap stores.
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The "Apple will preinstall apps for the Russian government" bit is untrue, and has spread around due to shoddy tech journalism. iMore, which repeats the falsehood in the article title[0], includes a translation of a Russian news article:
> The agreements stipulate that the first time Apple is purchased in Russia, the user will see a dialog window when setting up, in which he will be asked to install applications from the government-approved list by default, Vedomosti said. It will be possible to refuse installation, removing ticks in front of certain applications, explains the source of the publication.
So really it is an opt-out list of apps presented at setup, which are downloaded and installed after user confirmation. The apps are, presumably, still subject to iOS security policy.
It's clearly not ideal, and reminds me of the dark years of trying to avoid accidentally installing the Yahoo Toolbar. But it's not as evil as it sounds from the headline, and it would be stupid of Apple to pull out of the Russian market over this (as iMore says they once threatened).
Save your rage for when iMessage encryption is nerfed, and government-approved apps are no longer opt-out.
0: https://www.imore.com/apple-agrees-pre-install-apps-russian-...
This doesn't sound particularly evil to me and seems perfectly in line with the Russian government's intention of reducing its reliance on American tech companies (by nudging consumers in the direction of their domestic alternatives).
IMO, doing this would be a good idea for Europe, too. To some degree laws like the browser choice thing already go in this direction, but they still mostly present American alternatives.
Most of this "X does Y with authoritarian government" is basically individuals picking up government signals (propagated through the media) for the new enemy of the day.
That's why it gets increasingly more frequent at a particular time (whereas China has been authoritative for decades when the same now "indignant" people didn't write about it), uses the same talking points (often of some bad but useful source that's repeated as gospel, "orange revolution" style opposition, ex-pats with axes to grind, etc.), and is focused on the singled-out "enemy du jour" even if there are tons of allies doing the same or worse.
Selective government talk points, "leaks" to the press, propaganda pieces, "exclusive access", etc, fuels this further.
Until there's another enemy to focus on, when it all deflates.
Even though I agree with your view in general, it's worth pointing out that the article author is not a random "individual picking up government signals".
Jesse Squires is quite prominent contributor to the Apple's macOS/iOS development ecosystem and he definitely cares about Apple's reputation and the future. Apple is his bread and butter and if he's concerned with what's going on on this front there is something to think about...
Yes. In the past year I have heard endless breathless "news reports" about how China supposedly manufactured Covid in a lab, to how they are committing genocide with Uighur muslims, to how they are not respecting the UK's continuing dominion over Hong Kong, to how they never innovate and only steal technology from the US, to how they are being aggressive in the east China sea, how they're threatening Taiwan, and on and on and on.
Of course I have been hearing the same thing at various times about Cubans, Venezuelans, Russians, Palestinians, Iraqis, Syrians, Iranians, Libyans - Blinken just denounced the arrests of those involved in the post-coup massacre in Bolivia. And on and on. This piece is an example of the drive for ever expanding imperial policy under an authoritarian government.
I am sorry some people downvoted you, this supposedly-rational forum is not immune from extreme anti-China prejudices either.
Indeed these constantly-negative news reports are ridiculous and serve further to indoctrinate everyone that "China is evil". People should visit China for themselves and understand just how screwed the media portrayals are. Today's "free speech" media seem to think that their shit doesn't stink and everything they do is holy. They can't even write positively about China's successful lockdowns and somehow manage to blow up a single case of local authorities overstretching (then getting both politically and publicly reprimanded for it) into "China covered up covid". Absolutely ridiculous.
Thanks for bringing that up. It was very obvious last year and is now that the election period is over. While the issues are real, the correlation between geopolitical consideration du jour and the media putting the spotlight on democracy issues is important to keep in mind, so that we remember to not be blind to other regions (e.g. Yemen) or don't let it deflates like you said when the focus move.
Thnak you for outlining this. I’d even say the “enemy” is more often than not one that disturbs the established neo-colonial structure. The moment a “new player enters the chat” - countries start with the “enemy speak” that you talk about.
This should be in the mind of anybody using an Apple device for its privacy / security feature and not living in a democratic country and even in democratic country, but there is usually more safe-guard against police overreach in democratic country.
Apple will "take a stand for their users" when they can do it with no consequence (for example when they refused to decrypt an iPhone for the FBI). But if the country can ban you from doing business for not "fully cooperating" with their law enforcement, they will abide (unless the country is irrelevant for their business).
I won't say that it is any better than using a non-encrypted device, or less secured device, since, in a lot of cases, even Apple cannot "break-in" their own device. But don't think that Apple won't send everything they know about you to your local police.
I don't think it should surprise most people (and in a way, don't you want company to comply with your laws ?). But when Apple talk about privacy, remember that it's privacy toward other company, not the government.
Which governments are "bad"? Who gets to make that decision?
The UK government is defying international law in the Chagos Islands and has broken its treaty with the EU over checks to/from N. Ireland. Does that make it a "bad" government that private companies should not do business with? If the UK demands that an app is withdrawn from the app store, or that private communications should be turned over to government agents with no justification, should a private business refuse to do that? The same arguments can be made for the USA (as the article does).
People generally get the government they deserve. If a country is authoritarian, then it's up to the people of that country to deal with that problem, not private companies. China's government is representative of the wishes of its people, and if it's not then China's people will deal with that.
Contrast that with Myanmar: the democratically elected government has been overthrown by the military, who are in the process of killing anyone who protests about it. This is clearly different. There can clearly be no international co-operation with this regime, because it's obviously been taken over by bad people. There should be international outrage over this, and action from the international diplomatic community - part of which should be guidance to private companies about whether to co-operate with the military regime.
Well the U.K. government is a democratically elected one for a start. On the Northern Ireland border, wasn’t it the EU that that unilaterally broke the protocol by invoking article 16 without even checking with Ireland? My point is that governments do things that anger other countries all the time. That doesn’t make them a bad government, that’s just politics. There is however a clear and significant difference between a democratically elected government and an authoritarian regime.
OK, so what's the defence for the blatant defiance of international law in the Chagos Islands?
The UK is a literal kingdom with a first past the post voting system and a media dominated by Tories (including the BBC). Recently they’re trying to ban all protest while the police is beating up those of us that resist.
China’s elected national congress that includes easy recall and competence-based civil servant positions doesn’t seem any less democratic.
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Also, "authoritarian" is defined as:
> favouring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom
This currently describes a lot of European countries. The proponents will make the argument that this is only "temporary authoritarianism" in the pursuit of "safety", but we've seen how that works out before.
Your attitude to Myanmar is directly at odds with your criticism that people deserve the government they get. There's no difference between what the junta in Myanmar is doing now and what the CCP did to reformist protesters in Tiananmen Square. You can't say the Chinese people deserve that, but the people of Myanmar don't. That's completely inconsistent. Belarus is still under the control of an autocratic dictator despite many months of protests, which will almost certainly fail. Do the people of Belarus deserve to lose?
This is a good point. I would say there is a difference of degree, but it's very debatable.
My stance has been heavily influenced by my experience living in Cambodia. They have an authoritarian government. But they have also an authoritarian culture. Attempts to create a democratic government there haven't failed because the regime are a bunch of bastards (they are, but that's not the point), but because the people generally haven't supported it. Part of this, I'm sure, is their traumatic experience with the Khmer Rouge. I see so many parallels with what's going on with Myanmar. I don't see so many parallels with what's going on in China.
Can we measure the legitimacy of a government by the number of protesters it has killed? Seems like a better measure that "compatibility with Western economic interests" which seems to be the current measure.
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You can't really compare CCP with the likes of Tatmadaw or Lukashenko's clique. While all of them are authoritarian, the quality of their governance is quite different.
The difference with CCP and Tatmadaw (Myanmar army) generals, is that the CCP actually understands how to govern.
Tatmadaw is making things objectively worse for everyone economically, while CCP has succeeded in improving the lives of Chinese people. (Yes, and it is authoritarian and suppresses ethnic minorities but these qualities do not signify it as inept).
Or in DD terms, Tatmadaw is borderline chaotic evil while CCP is lawful evil.
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If a dictatorship still has control of the military clearly its not as unpopular as Western media likes to portray.
The soldiers in Myanmar shooting protestors are also Myanmar citizens after all- an inconvenient truth nobody ever brings up in their news reports.
Apple complies with all governments in markets that are sizeable to their business.
Authoritarian governments that are into surveillance love looking into your icloud and itunes accounts. They use FISA and National Security Letters to pry into your and everyone elses life.
https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-fbi-government-national-secu...
> July 2017, Apple removes VPN apps from China App Store
This is the only thing keeping me from buying an iPhone. Their control on what apps you can run on your phone is absolute. This may not be a problem in liberal countries where pretty much every website is available. But in some places VPNs have become a necessity.
So even US and EU can't deal with Authoritarian Governments and they are closing their eyes, you are expecting Apple to do that?
I wondering when we are going to start critize our governments before critizing the companies. You know, they are the ones that make law.
And you are the one voting for them. A government isn’t an isolated entity, people vote for them in democratic countries.
However, it’s much easier for people to vote with their wallets in their everyday life (for ex. by buying from companies with certain environmental policies or labour policies) than to expect governments to change.
You can choose to buy a phone or computer that is less involved in this type of behaviours.
What would you vote for? A complete, immediate cessation of economic activity involving mainland China?
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> it’s much easier for people to vote with their wallets in their everyday life
Except if you deal with a mono-/duopoly.
What kind of phone would that be?
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US and EU are making up for lost time with sanctions imposed on Chinese companies and individuals.
Pretty much all they can do short of starting a war.
The USA (possinly EU as well, I havent followed the news on this) are also actively supporting other extremely repressive regimes - most notably and uncontroversially, Saudi Arabia. They have even all but endorsed Saudi Arabia's murder of an American journalist on foreign soil (they have officially condemned it, but have taken 0 measures beyond a declaration).
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I have an issue with hypocrisy, like maybe you are a gay CEO or promote yourself as LGBT friend , respecting of women equality and at the same time kiss the ass to some governments that would stone you to death if they could get their hand on you.
When an individual is promoting itself as a green tree lover person on social media to score points and then you find he is a fake because money is more important, then IMO is fair to call on the hypocrisy/facade.
from the scandal where the whole world found that Apple tracks you each time you open an app I personally concluded that privacy is an after-thought at Apple. The entire thing would have been designed different if the developers at Apple were competent and at the same time care for privacy (so either they don't care about privacy or they are incompetent but care a lot)
When the company we are talking about has the wealth and power of a nation, well, we have the right to criticize it. Also, we are able to criticize both governments and companies at the same time, with the same effort.
What makes you think that wealth gives you power of a nation? Unless Apple starts making its own laws, hire or train its own army, it is just another cow for the government.
Apple has the power of a government? Like with sovereign territory, and army, and a seat in the UN?
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Could be summed up as "Company's cooperation with local government" period.
Once you do business in a country, you follow the country's rules.
Simple as that.
You don't get to pick and chose or impose your own (and usually, your own culture's and governments and national interest's) ideas and laws.
Unless of course the country is a banana republic, which China isn't.
> Once you do business in a country, you follow the country's rules. > Unless of course the country is a banana republic,
Smelly-smelly. Don't pretend you're holding to a value of "rule of the law". You're holding to the rule of the strongest.
While I agree, I think in most cases there is a “morally right thing to do”. If the laws in certain countries go against the right thing, then maybe it’s time to go against those laws. Of course that’s easy to say as an individual. For a company it essentially means giving up your market in that country.
On the other hand, who's to say? Your own country and ideas about the "morally right thing to do", or the locals?
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I find the word "problematic" in the first paragraph. That's usually a sign, but it is a word that people use, so whatever, let's ignore it and continue.
Sure enough, the article enters a tirade about the "human rights violator in chief." Draws motive from an advertisement with the then president of the US in it, and advertisement of an american company, the first trillion dollar company who reached that valuation under that president, and attributes it to the CEO. The CEO of apple will stoop to any level to garner favor, lower than cooperating with authoritarian dictators even, so says the article.
The friends you keep says a lot about you.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/english.alarabiya.net/amp/News/...
Friends don't let friends share amp links. Do you have a direct link to the article?
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Anyone has examples of companies (big or small) who actively go against this and refuse to cooperate and thereby willingly give up the money?
Adidas, H&M, Nike etc were all signatories to the Better Cotton Initiative which were heavily critical of widespread human right abuses in Xinjiang.
They have been subjected to pretty harsh treatment from China including their online stores being disabled, frozen out of third party stores, supply chain disruptions and lots of critical media stories from government mouthpieces.
Thanks, interesting reads.
Google refused to censor search in China, and got the GFE blocked by the GFW.
Later they bent over backwards to get back in with a special censored search (Project Dragonfly) which got "cancelled" due to western and employee backlash (but wasn't really), continued a bit in secret, then really cancelled (so it was reported).
Also, Qwest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio
Google also allows app sideloading which is something that becomes critical during civil unrest in the countries mentioned in the article.
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How about H&M and China?
H&M is a total failure in the Chinese market.
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It happens, but not often - I’m struggling to think of an example. I am sure they exist.
It isn’t that surprising that an authoritarian power structure whose sole purpose is to create wealth for the owners of the structure would ally themselves with... an authoritarian power structure whose sole purpose is to create wealth for the owners of the structure.
> (Note: you may be wondering why I have included the US in a list of authoritarian governments. Let me remind you of the outrageous police brutality that we saw last summer. And let’s not forget the orange elephant in the room.)
Okay then. OP seems to suggest that a private company should take the responsibility to defy government requirements and orders because the government is labeled bad?
I don't think it's very practical.
Besides, an OS or device vendor can arbitrarily dictate what kind of app a user can get, in my opinion, is the true elephant here.
The alternative is even less practical in the long term.
what kind of alternative?
IMHO free distribution of apps is the only viable alternative.
Yes there will be scams and malwares but hey that's the price to pay to enter the Bazaar rather than the Church.
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The problem is not what Apple removes from the App Store. It is that they do not allow a third-party store to exist on their platform.
The issue is not that this is happening with Apple products, the issue is that it is happening everywhere. What do I purchase?
I want a device which puts my privacy first and one which my family members can operate too. Without me being on the line to teach them how.
We simply have too little competition in the phone OS market from my point of view. Also web-first phone are pretty rare.
> I want a device which puts my privacy first.
https://puri.sm/products
> and one which my family members can operate too. Without me being on the line to teach them how
I am afraid that it is always necessary, even with Apple devices. My relatives use Linux just fine after I explained a couple of things.
Even my family uses Linux on laptops, have been using for a decade now. But that is exactly why I mentioned phone. The options are too few here.
I use librem labtop, but have been waiting a few years for a preordered phone from them.
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BTW I do not mean there are no issues in the laptop/desktop OS market. But majority of people use the phone to store personal information now.
> I want a device which puts my privacy first.
I want a device which puts me first. As opposed to the vendor of the device.
Fairphone + LineageOS might be a good option
Unfortunately there is no money for Apple, or anyone, in putting your family safety and privacy first, since selling you out is far more profitable since most people don't care. By the time it gets bad enough for them to care, it will be too late to turn back.
Disillusionment with the way things are going is the reason I've kinda decided to step away from tech. I will miss the income, but I won't miss the dystopian hellscape. I'm buying a farm. Gonna raise chickens. Will automate as much of it as I can with non-cloud FLOSS and my own code and sweat. I will not try to grow it to billions, I will prioritize my time.
Companies wouldn't try to hide privacy violations if no one cared.
People care about privacy. They don't understand how their data is used and believe they can't do anything about it.[1]
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/11/15/americans-an...
> since most people don't care
This is the biggest trouble we face. If we, as users, do not care enough, companies have no reason to change anything.
I'm really happy to not own any Apple products. They cost too much while simultaneously limiting what I can do.
I am happy they are popular, because I own stock in them. Other than that, they clearly have near zero patriotic morals.
methinks thou hast a ginormous horse to sit upon!
I think people would have far less problems with tech companies selling to anyone if they didn’t push moral crusades themselves. Apple is clearly interested in pushing its own ethical views, but only when they don’t risk serious profits for it. It’s a special kind of self-serving hypocrisy; paint yourself as noble when nothing is on the line, but keep mum when you might lose something.
If they stopped acting like moral crusaders and simply said, “We sell computers to anyone with money,” there would be much less of an issue.
There are zero companies going to war with China. It is simply outside the sphere of their influence. I know you haven’t used the word war but the general and unwarranted disappointment with Apple for doing business with the people of China is deeply rooted in an unrealistic understanding of geopolitics. I think it would be great for Apple to openly denounce the PRC and defy them utterly but I also think it would be great if they would gift each citizen of the world a brand new iphone.
Apple is trying to disentangle itself from China slowly, as are all the smart companies with labour investments in the country. Is Apppe supposed to be the only company willing to take a massive hit to their business by defying China? Almost all of their manufacturing is being held hostage in the country.
I hate the PRC, extremely counter cultural, hate wealth disparity, all that but I can’t fault Apple for playing ball here.
I would rather Apple cease being a moral arbiter entirely. I don’t need a computer company in California telling me what I’m allowed to do, say, think, or read. That is the business of governments and individuals.
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It's specially annoying when your're not american, but I feel it way more with Google and Social Media. It feels like having anglo political frame pushed down the throat, it gets boring pretty quick.
The worst is that it is successful with newer generations, and they divert their attention to anglo issues instead of local ones.
It's pretty annoying when you are an American too.
I don’t see Apple pushing their web moral views. They sell to a particular audience. In the US, they cater to a specific audience and want to be careful with how that segment views Apple on particular social or political issues.
You or I don’t have to agree with Apples policies or public statements on these matters, and we certainly don’t have to buy their products.
Companies or their founders pushing certain policies is nothing new. In my opinion, there’s an unreasonable standard tech companies are held to. At the end of the day, their job is to make money for their stakeholders, for better or worse.
You said it perfectly. It is surprising to see so many people coming to the defense of poor pitifual Apple, the richest company in the world. They have little reservation over doing business with vile regimes to squeeze a few more pennies per unit out of an iPhone. Then they buck dance for every social cause under the sun back home. Hypocrites.
> If they stopped acting like moral crusaders and simply said, “We sell computers to anyone with money,” there would be much less of an issue.
I'm not so sure. There are (a loud minority?) of "woke" software developers now that will try to drum up pressure on your company from within and without if you sell to "anyone with money" (see: GitHub selling to ICE). Google frequently has to deal with this, I'm sure Apple does too.
Maybe mitigating/ignoring woke outrage is preferable to the corporate ethical schizophrenia you described (it's certainly simpler), but I don't think the issue would go away.
woke developers are acting as moral crusaders just like Apple is. renaming "master branch" to "main branch" doesn't solve anything. posting the latest Twitter slacktivism hashtag doesn't solve anything. it's just for show, to appear virtuous while still collecting big tech paychecks.
I'd have more sympathy if he didn't include, in his primary examples, one that he himself admits there's no evidence for.
there is little direct evidence to support this exact claim. While I am willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt and consider this an inconvenient coincidence, I would not be surprised if this were a deliberate move.
"I would not be surprised if" is not how honest argument works. On the other hand, at least he admits it. A hit piece would have insisted it's all true.
It is reasonably likely that, in a pinch, the US uses iPhones to target missile strikes. There is no way the iPhone isn't being used in cooperation with the NSA spying program either.
It isn't new for corporations to cooperate with the ugly parts of government. I don't really understand why Apple is being singled out here. They are better than average because at least their abuses are fairly obvious and they don't make plays to control people's data like certain other companies.
Apple made this problem itself. They wanted to retain a full, complete control on what users can do with their product. This made their App Store a single point of failure. Coincidentally, those authoritarian governments want the exact same control on their people so it's perfectly natural to see their relentless attempts to control App Store. The solution is obvious, but I'm 100% sure that Apple won't take that path unless it's forced to do so.
Just to give some perspective on how far things have changed since 1998, have a look at https://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/17/world/apple-removes-the-d... .
I think it is kind of an unreasonable expectation that businesses will flout the law of countries they operate in out of some sense of principle. There are plenty of unsavory actors right here at home Apple answers to, and I’m not sure that a world of sovereign corporations would be improvement anyway.
This seems like it misses the point - American companies doing business with authoritarian regimes that don’t have American interests at heart, are inherently un-American and unworthy of American support.
Either we’re in this together, or the invisible line in the dirt means nothing and I want my money back.
> authoritarian regimes that don’t have American interests at heart, are inherently un-American and unworthy of American support
Foreign democracies don’t have American interests at heart. Should we cut trade ties with Germany as a result?
Our power comes from trade. Backing up into ideological autarky would be self defeating. Similarly, asking individual companies to stop trading with countries their competitors may legally trade with is dumb.
Convince your fellow voters to put on sensible, targeted tariffs and sanctions. Or accept that commerce plows wider fields than ideology.
Did you read the sentence you quoted? It said "authoritarian government" and not "democratic government"
Reminder of Tim Cook’s twitter bio[1]:
> “Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'” - MLK
Maybe he should read it more often.
[1]: https://twitter.com/tim_cook
Well, I'm not surprised - Belarus and China Apple experience was discussed on HN widely.
I think it's pretty damn weird people think Apple should probably be solving the problem of authoritarian governments around the world.
Apple isn't Superman. It's just a company selling phones and some other things. Their leverage over the legal and regulatory systems various countries is limited... a very good thing, BTW. If they had more, do you really think they would use it only for good?
Apple definitely listens to China, since their entire manufacturing is there and it's a huge market for them, but the claim that Apple listens to Myanmar has no basis at all. Why would they care? And there's a ton of other VPN apps.
It's an AppStore glitch and nothing more.
The author indirectly advocates sanctioning these regimes. If that is the case, their best path is through government. Playing whack-a-mole with individual companies is, while decent clickbait and PR fodder, useless with respect to real-world outcomes.
I think what the author is arguing for is allowing iOS users to install software without Apple’s permission.
> In Seattle, Apple has given the feds vital evidence from one of its iCloud users who was arrested for firebombing cop cars during the George Floyd protests in late May.
> The case shows how Apple is willing to help even where the context of the crime is controversial, namely the Black Lives Matter protests.
EXCUSE ME??? Are you saying that firebombing cars is somehow an acceptable act in the context of a protest, and that helping track down the perpetrator of such an act is a bad thing?
Nice faux outrage. Perhaps he is saying that utilitarianism is a race to the bottom and that our actions shouldn't be based on an evaluation of an actions consequences but rather on the universality of it, such that we act only according to that maxim by which we can also will it to become universal law?
This sounds like “the ends justify the means” dressed up in pseudo-intellectual verbiage.
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It's not only apple. Almost all of the big tech doing that these days, either out of concern about their manufacturing resources, or other motives. Something I won't support, but can understand their motives behind. But I am trying to understand how this part fits in the list.
"November 2019, Trump re-election campaign ad shot in Apple’s Mac Pro plant in Austin
Given the context and the headline, Apple working with authoritarian governments. Unless the author thinks the US is authoritarian.
I don't see any problems with any high tech executive supporting one politician or another, if the author is making the alleged Tim Cook's support for Trump the reason to include that in the list of incidents showing Apple working with authoritarian regimes.
I don’t remember the exact controversy, but I remember some controversy during the Obama years where a prominent US company complied with some censorious Chinese requirements. Obama said something along the lines of “I wish you’d come to us before agreeing to this. We would have helped.”
As these the list starts in 2017, I wonder how much of this is the result of the US’s decreased willingness to export its values abroad during the Trump years.
I for one, am shocked and stunned, that John Gruber is defending Apple.
After all, will you bite the hand that feeds you?
What I like about his blog, is he makes it pretty clear why he's saying what's he's saying, both when defending and criticising Apple. You may disagree with him (I often do), but it would be nice to see you showing disagreement with Gruber's line of argument, rather than just TL;DR part. Makes the argument less tribal.
His _why_ is his beliefs. He doesn't _believe_ that Apple would do what was claimed.
It's hard to rebut him when it's all the language of belief - I have no more facts about the situation than he does. That's the beauty of beliefs, facts are optional.
Am I the only one who thinks this story smells like smear campaign from facebook??
And Parler
Apple fanatics- they are just following orders, Google does it too, it's no big deal
Apple fanatics about any other company- privacy, security, lies. Off with their heads.
I genuinely can't tell if Apple has been astroturfing for decades to create this kind of loyalty because their actions have been poor to customers and employees since the 2000s.
Of course
I keep on telling my friends that there is a very hungry market for a new smartphone co.
One, that doesn't participate in these primal endeavours of domination, manipulation & control.
Its not complicated just allow users to install what they want.
Allow people to distribute what they want.
Apple & Google are at terminal phase of coperate Asperger's towards users at this point. Complaining is useless.
All of Europe at present.
Capitalism is perfectly compatible with Authoritarianism, Fascism, and worse.
We cannot rely on the agents of Mammon to rid the world of authoritarianism. That is a hopelessly naive approach. They’re just not that interested, and they’re a poor fit for the job.
Capitalist companies are good at making things, they’re good at making profits, but by design they are useless for meaningful social change and increasing freedom, because they themselves require the maintenance of a world of peasants and kings.
I am always amazed and surprised when reading comments on HN regarding Apple, even though I know what I will read.
No matter what Apple does, the Apple apologists come out of the woods to defend their overlords.
I always like to play a little game, which I believe could also be a nice browser extension.
Read the comments and articles, but replace the word Apple with Microsoft. Opinions and stances would shift dramatically under a minute.
I cannot fathom that there are adult educated people living in a free democracy defending a company which works with a authoritarian government which is involed in a GENOCIDE.
Can we retire this argument already? Or at least show hard data to back up this tired claim—it’s been made so often, it should be doable by now.
From anecdotal observation, any big company mentioned on HN will have critics, apologists, critics of the apologists, and (perhaps most relevant) fans of the company who criticise their behaviours. Apple isn’t special in that regard, except it seems to draw the most fervorous irrational hate towards its users. It reminds me of meat-eaters who won’t shut up about vegetarians being annoying, while remaining ironically oblivious that they’re far worse offenders of the behaviour they decry.
> From anecdotal observation, any big company mentioned on HN will have critics, apologists, critics of the apologists.
"fanboyism" isn't a boolean value as you imply. Every company has it but where it sits between 0.0 and 1.0 varies wildly between companies.
Your parent's argument is that when it comes to Apple on HN, their "fanboy rating" sits well beyond the bell curve peak.
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Things are a bit worse, Tim Cook may be a closet communist as suggested him hiring a lobbying firm to shield communists from forced labour bill https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/20/apple-u...
I mean capitalism goes together with authoritarianism pretty good. Just look at the companies that still exist today that helped the Third Reich. Perhaps it's time to want a different underlying system that wouldn't have a bottomline for profit maximization? idk
Please don't take HN threads into generic ideological arguments. It just leads to tedious, lame, and nasty flamewar—always the same—and those are off topic here.
It's quite incredible how bad the internet is at discussing this stuff thoughtfully. It's clearly not the medium for it. It bonds with all its failure modes (e.g. snark, screaming, and paranoia) into one hell of a compound. We're trying for something different on HN, and for that to work we need users to be aware of this and not go there.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Doesn't this thread already pose an ideological argument (e.g. country x and y are authoritarian/bad, while country z isn't)?
I personally find it really hard to refrain from commenting when there is a very once sided view presented on a front-page topic.
The issue I have is that some topics feel like they are either flamewar or a one-sided view where people feel like they can't comment because going against that view might start a flamewar. Neither promote curiosity
edit: My comment isn't necessarily connected to that of parent, but more to your reply
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> Just look at the companies that still exist today that helped the Third Reich.
How dare they!
Here's a fun bit from an attempt to hold to account IG Farben, manufacturers of Zkylon B.
> All defendants who were sentenced to prison received early release. Most were quickly restored to their directorships and other positions in post-war companies, and some were awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.
You think it's funny or something that these companies were allowed to go unchecked?
Not sure why you've been downvoted, the list of complicit orgs is long.
IBM, takes pride of place for their tabulation machines. Ford, and GM, for converting their German subsidiary factories to wartime usages, while declining to do the same in the USA. Nevermind Henry Ford's proclivity for funding anti-semitism. Then of course, all the German manufacturers of note. Krupp, Daimler, IG Farben, Hugo Boss...
Actually, probably just quicker to link to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_involved_in_...
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Lol, so does communism, monarchy, or when religion and politics merge (iran, ottoman empire etc).
I'm keen on your examples from Iran. Was it the time that the British asked the CIA to depose the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, and reinstall the Shah, for the benefit of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now a subsidiary of BP)?
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> when religion and politics merge (iran, ottoman empire etc).
...the GOP, etc.
I didn't imply a solution, but I assume we can come up with one that satisfies your worries and mine
IMO the best example is Chiquita -- they conspired with the CIA to overthrow the democratically elected government of Guatemala to secure their banana fields against the "godless communists." Naturally, they left Guatemala with a right-wing dictatorship. This kicked off a 46 year long civil war and the fallout has directly contributed to the migrant crisis at the border. They called it Operation PBSuccess. [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZtAKHnqkf4
The phrase "Banana Republic" is entirely due to Chiquita/United Fruit Company.
God bless America?
(Also, wtf, Banana Republic is now an American fashion brand? Jesus Christ, way to have zero insight)
Once again, really unsure why you're being downvoted for mentioning facts.
Are you perhaps hurting some "invisible hand" idealists feelings? Who knows.
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I once, naively, bought into the benevolent dictator spiel. The coordinated hit on Parlor dispelled my rose colored glasses respective to that narrative.
It's all BS and past time for Apple (and Google for that matter) to be forced to open up and allow authorized alternatives to the "official" stores. And yes, while there is a generic open sourced version of Android, let's be honest - the one everyone wants is Android integrated with Google's services and for that one you have to go through the Play store.