Apple censors song about Tiananmen Square protests
theverge.com
theverge.com
- iMessage, one of the only end-to-end encrypted messaging systems widely available in China.
- iCloud Keychain, which they've designed to work securely on "adversarial clouds"[1]
(Of course this may only be because not many people actually use these features versus WeChat...)
And those encryption keys are stored in China because the Chinese government demanded it be so [1].
I believe it's also more subtle than that too. For example, if you (a non-Chinese iMessage user) send a message to a Chinese iMessage user the key to that exchange is now stored in China.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-icloud-insigh...
iMessage and FaceTime are end-to-end encrypted. And after Messages in iCloud, you get the benefit of E2E while everything stays in sync across all your devices [1].
It won't be long until this dumb narrative that ignores Apple's leverage in China goes away. Once there's a trade deal they'll be allowed to own data centers without JVs again [2].
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/29/17405420/messages-icloud-...
[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-sweetens-its-cloud-offer-...
What the article you cited refers to is more general iCloud data, including backups, which is vulnerable to subpoena/govts. They do have those keys. But it is significant that China permits iMessage to operate even though it is E2EE.
More details here on what is E2EE and what is not: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303
The primary intuition driving the response that companies should boycott illiberal regimes has three flaws.
First, in a free market of money and information, a sufficiently strong boycott can have severe repercussions for the offender: consumers switch to a known competing service because. There is a problem extending this notion to an (empowering and less surveilling) company boycotting an illiberal regime; from the hypothesis I outline above, a competing service offers less empowerment or more surveillance and regulation, which in effect helps the entity being boycotted, the state; and also because of the hegemonic control of information, the entity being boycotted, the state, is unlikely to see criticism from something so minor as a company not doing business in it.
Second, one argument in favor of boycott is by analogy of economic sanctions. It puts pressure on the sanctioned company. I have to say that this is true to an extent. Companies supplying goods important to national security like oil and arms can exert influence on countries. But one does not think that Apple is critical to the national security of China: everything except for the more empowering and less surveilling services provided by Apple is provided by competing services in China. Perhaps one argues that the more empowering and less surveilling practices makes life more tolerable in the illiberal regime. In that case, I do not see the problem either: many think that Twitter and Facebook do democracy and liberalism a service because they offer empowerment and a less surveilled platform in illiberal regimes.
Finally, there is the question of where the line has to be drawn to be moral. Just as one argues that companies are immoral to participate in the economy of an illiberal regime, one also gets the argument that companies are immoral to participate in the economy of a liberal regime with illiberal elements, countries like the US where monied interests have outsized influence in its politics. It is on the onus of those arguing for boycott to provide a distinction for why doing business in the US in industries heavily shaped by lobbied interests is not immoral but doing business in China is, but thus far the current reasons I have heard being expressed for boycotting illiberal regimes do not work; one, of putting pressure on countries is also an argument for boycotting the US, and likewise for the other, for "refusing to stain one's hands" in participating in illiberal processes. By that dime, it would be immoral to receive federal subsidies for one's business that one thinks does the nation a disservice. For the two reasons I have put before this point, I argue that line drawn is not one between liberal and illiberal regimes, but whether or not a company is providing a more empowering and less surveilled experience to people living under any regime.
Of course, under a sufficiently liberal regime, and in certain contexts, empowerment and surveillance can be tradeoffs: the presence of police surveillance empowers one to go outdoors with less fear of harm being done to themselves, but this is not relevant to the argument at hand.
Unless these flaws are addressed, one is left with the case of Twitter and Facebook in illiberal regimes: they should be appreciated for their empowering and less surveilled services in illiberal regimes, rather than criticized for doing business in those regions.
Thus, if what you say is true, that Apple provides a less surveilled experience, and if my argument is true, then Apple is doing democratic preconditions and liberalism a net benefit in China. I believe the same for Dragonfly by Google, if it provides a much better search experience for Chinese consumers with not significantly more censorship than other search providers in China. Of course, Apple and Google would not be wise to make this argument publicly, for doing so would paint a bright red target on their backs.
There are plenty of things that the US government wouldn't let Apple publish. We may all agree that they shouldn't be allowed to publish those things, but it's not like China is the only country with laws.
It's naive and childish to expect a corporation to ignore the laws of a country they operate in and forego a billion-person market over something as petty as this. It's not Apple's job to fight your social justice battles. Quit whining and take China on directly.
They are of course free do that, but that certainly reduces their standing if they try to preach privacy. The most revealing test of a company's principles is when they have to make inconvenient choices.
Bomb making instructions are available in books on the iTunes Store. https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/u-s-army-special-forces-gui...
In general you can legally publish pretty much anything in the USA besides child porn or copyright infringement, everywhere else has stricter laws though.
America is far from perfect, case in point the Red Scare, Japanese interment, civil rights atrocities. But that's not the issue. The issue is the tech companies specifically are forces that span the globe and those decisions and the ethical stances WILL and DO spill over into all societies they are apart of. Just look at oil companies, our desire for cheap oil and their desire for our money has driven wars, exploitation, corruption, etc.
It's easy for first world countries to ignore that because it happened else where, with tech companies though, those decisions leak into every country. Those policies are applied across the world. Apple's and other tech giants' stances on following the law regardless of morals and rights is applied everywhere. If that same law was here, they'd do it here.
That's the issue, not whether or not someone is putting medical information or classified information up for sale.
As far as what the specific question is - what has Apple tried to publish that the US tried to publish, the answer is the same with regards to any of the PRC's giant domestic corporations vis a vis China. None of them tried to publish things blocked by their governments.
It's an odd thing to say amidst Assange's extradition, to bipartisan celebration. Of course they will get him for some technicality, as opposed to the attack on WikiLeaks - China is just less hypocritical about such things.
What if shaming US companies doing business in China is the most efficient approach? Who cares if it is indirect - if it puts any kind of pressure on the censorship system, it's worth it.
Besides, companies like Apple talk a big game about privacy and democracy. It is only fair to point out when they don't walk the walk.
Determining whether an action is is "worth it" requires a cost-benefit analysis. You've merely listed a single benefit.
There's a lot of grumbling in this thread about "holding Apple to its word." Okay, fair enough, consistency is a good thing, and we should hold each other to that standard. But in the face of mass censorship in China, ignoring the bigger picture in order to myopically focus on Apple's consistency seems suspicious.
It reminds me of a thread here a few months back, where world leaders took private jets to a meeting on climate change. And of course people complained about the hypocrisy. But do those complainers really care about the environment? I'd argue no, or at least not as much as they care about virtue signaling, or about putting rich people in their place. Otherwise they'd do the very simple math to determine that the environmental impact of these flights are negligible, and they'd redirect their attention to efforts that actually matter.
This Apple/China stuff feels similar. Great, Apple is somewhat hypocritical. Who cares? This is standard gossip and moral shaming. I can get that anywhere. I'd like to see a deeper level of discussion on Hacker News, especially from those with strong opinions on this issue.
What's the bigger picture? What does the situation look like holistically?
If Apple pulls out of China due to a principled moral stand, what will that accomplish? How will things change if those dollars go elsewhere? What are the second- and third-order effects?
I argue in another comment in alignment with your suspicions that the bigger picture is conditionally in support of Apple in China, and in support of Dragonfly in China. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19656849
It would be smart for them to move a significant fraction of their manufacturing out of China. They have the money to do it, and do it successfully, and it would reduce their geopolitical risks.
Putting all their eggs in one authoritarian basket was a dumb idea.
This is not a reasonable argument when the basis of the issue is the nature of the governments filtering.
What's 'naive and childish' is making morally relative arguments as though US and China regulations are merely different on a few things and that's that.
It gets worse because the censorship law is incredibly vague and China practices rule by law rather than rule of law.
I do agree that Apple isn’t necessarily the party to go after here, but their predicament isn’t a simple matter of following the law.
How much hardcore pornography is available on any of these stores? None! How many of you are up in arms about this? Same answer!
I don’t mean to defend Chinese censorship here. But I am always amazed at how completely blind people are to the pervasive censorship in many other countries.
But freedom goes both ways. You can't force another group to view and host porn just because you want to see it.
The wider discussion about corporate censorship involves lots of examples that aren’t compelled by law. And people get upset about some but completely ignore others.
If it's their choice, then so be it. But that's very different than censorship.
If you really can't see the difference, then let me ask: Is it censorship that you personally don't host porn?
You're either engaged in the same "censorship".. or it's not censorship at all, but rather the free choices of another human being.
Censorship doesn’t have to be governmental. When the comics code ruled the comics industry, that was censorship. When movies with excessive amounts of explicit sex get an automatic X rating which excludes them from being shown in mainstream theaters regardless of their artistic merit, that’s censorship.
Is it censorship if I personally don’t host porn? If I make a business out of hosting videos, then yes. And that’s ok. I’m not saying that the pervasive censorship of things like hardcore pornography in western countries is necessarily bad, I just wonder why people act like it doesn’t happen, that censorship is something that only happens in other countries, or in rare circumstances when a big company oversteps their bounds.
Apple can still decide to sell devices that aren't so locked. It'd be a great answer to this criticism.
As far as I know, China has never done that, except for Chinese citizens that they find in ~friendly places. They did mount quite an attack on the Dalai Lama's organization. But that didn't include physical violence, to my knowledge.
Again as I have said before, doesn't mean america hasn't done/isn't doing wrong, but I think you should look more into Chinese policy and history.
Edit: And with Assange and DPR2 in the news, I got triggered. Mea culpa.
* Apple censors a song to comply with Chinese laws, so you can't hear that song
* Apple doesn't censor the song, China blocks Apple Music, so you can't hear that song
Either way, you can't hear that song. Apple has to follow the laws of the countries they do business in, and in China, that unfortunately sometimes means censorship. This way people in China still have access to the rest of Apple Music.
In fact I'd argue that censorship is part of their DNA. They've always removed controversial apps from the app store [1][2], they've always deleted forum threads that they don't like [3], and they're taking a very heavy handed approach to their new TV service [4]. And, of course, they've never really pushed back against China's demands. I admire their stance on privacy but they don't seem to have any issue with censorship.
1 https://www.digitalspy.com/videogames/a655089/games-that-dis...
2 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/30/apple-rem...
3 https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-defensive-over-consumer-repo...
4 https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/10/apple-will-invest-1-b...
China has a different culture and different laws that we do not control.
Companies have two choices: play by the rules or don’t play at all.
That's true, but it's also not that simple. That different culture is not uniform, and those laws may be illegitimate from many perspectives.
> Companies have two choices: play by the rules or don’t play at all.
The two choices company should have is play by moral rules or not play at all.
Edit: and the CCP would be happy to kick out Apple and see their marketshare go to Hauwei or another Chinese company. Apple really has no leverage.
Their stance on censorship is impossible to hide, and should inform your opinion of them more strongly...
You can argue about motive and whether China would even let them compete but isnt this is what Facebook/Google have done for a decade? HN dislikes these companies lately so somehow Google is still the one that gets the most flak for China while Apple and MSFT do whatever is asked of them to operate there.
EDIT: There's a Chinese iTunes page for Hypnotize, and GreatFire's test indicates that the same response is served to users in China as in the US https://en.greatfire.org/https/itunes.apple.com/cn/album/hyp...
EDIT 2: Actually, that GreatFire check would have been unnecessary, since the censorship appears to be applied depending on the display language. Note the conspicuously absent song #14 here, then change "cn" in the URL to "us" to see it https://itunes.apple.com/cn/album/%E4%BA%BA%E9%96%93%E9%81%9...