Comment by mindwok
4 years ago
It's my understanding that Apple simply can't operate in China without playing by those rules. So really, the onus is on the CCP.
In this case, is Apple being compelled to do this by the US government? Or is it a choice Apple has made purely internally? I think that makes a difference.
I agree the question of whether Apple was compelled by whatever government (or if they did this voluntarily) has implications on the ethics of these decisions. They may genuinely have no choice.
But I don’t see how it affects the question of whether Apple’s privacy assertions are trustworthy.
>> They may genuinely have no choice.
There is a choice. Don't comply and have the CCP make you stop selling there.
Apple has no principles that can't be tossed aside in exchange for a large market - in other words a lot of money. This should not be unexpected.
The CCP would make Apple stop manufacturing in China, which would effectively mean that they couldn't sell anything anywhere. Apple does have very deep pockets, but that would be an existential threat.
Well put. Perhaps it’s cynical, I think that’s true of any corporation of Apple’s size: their only true principle is to maximize shareholder value.
The best we can do as privacy-concerned mere-mortals is to take our business where those profit incentives align with our values. Apple’s put a lot of work into advertising that their profits are aligned with values of privacy, but some signs say otherwise.
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Maybe similar pressure was placed on them here and we just aren't privy to it.
ding ding we have a correct answer
This is a claim which should require extraordinary evidence, since Apple has very publicly resisted pressure to build technology at the government’s behest in the past.
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> is Apple being compelled to do this by the US government? Or is it a choice Apple has made purely internally? I think that makes a difference.
You're being downvoted but it's a critical issue.
If Apple is currently being compelled to do this, it likely means the US Government has a massive new privacy obliterating program underway and Apple probably isn't the only tech giant joining the human rights violation parade. It's important to find out if that's going on. We can be certain they didn't stop with PRISM.
If it turns out to be the case, that Apple has joined up to another vast human rights violating program (they already did it at least once before, remember), the US needs to move forward toward Nuremberg-style trials for all involved Apple management and all involved Apple employees (and not only them). That's the only way it stops.
Such human rights violations should not be allowed to continue. How many tech employees at these companies got away with extraordinary human rights violations related to PRISM? Employees at these companies were responsible in part and critical to helping to make it happen. Who are these enablers? Why aren't they in prison? Why is this so rarely discussed on HN? (yeah we all know why)
HN is pretty amusing about this topic. Privacy is a human right? Yeah? Also universally HN: but let's not talk about the people actually responsible for the human rights violations; let's not talk about all the techies being paid princely sums to commit human rights atrocities. Let's not talk about prison sentences for what they've done to their fellow humans. Let's not hold tech employees responsible.
The Jan 6 commission is using the riots as a pretext to collect and inspect private speech/communications from a huge list of people who had absolutely nothing to do with January 6 [0] but were politically active for Trump or his campaign or just posted memes on Twitter etc.
The massive list of people they're demanding records for is shocking. Privacy doesn't mean anything to the current establishment, if people could just take off their partisan blinders for two seconds they would realize this and we could probably form a plea to congress as unified voice.
Give this CSAM system another few years and they won't even have to subpoena for most of the private communication they're already going after today.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2021/08/25/jan-6...