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Comment by babesh | Hacker News Reader

They are hypocrites. They loudly proclaim how moral they are but when it is inconvenient/unprofitable their morality disappears.

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They might think that it’s better for people to have access to their technology than not to, even if certain apps are unavailable.

Would it be ethical for them to abandon all of their customers in Pakistan over this?

Yes it would be ethical to abandon their customers over this. Apparently religious freedom isn’t where you draw the line. What other rights are you willing to abandon?

Their customers live in a country without religious freedom.

Do you think Apple has the power to change that?

If they don’t do business there their customers are objectively worse off.

Not only do they not have religious freedom, but they also don’t have access to technology.

That seems wrong to me.

I wonder what people in Pakistan would say?

Would most of them really want these companies to leave?

I am saying that the companies are hypocrites. They don’t have to leave. Just expose their hypocrisy and lies.

Also, let’s take it even further. How about the right to vote? Would it ok to do business in a country where women don’t have the right to vote? How about apartheid? How about slavery? How about genocide? Where is your line and on what basis would you make it? Do you even have a line?

No - I just don’t think Apple has the power to stop religious repression in Pakistan.

Despite being asked, you haven’t actually explained how they can do this.

Also, I ask again: do the people of Pakistan want Apple to abandon their customers in Pakistan?

They can do any of the following: - stop branding their morality (especially Apple) - stop doing business in Pakistan

You go try asking them.

> stop branding their morality

You can’t seriously think this would have any effect on Pakistan’s regime.

> You go try asking them.

Ok, so you don’t know what people in Pakistan want.

How is it ethical for you to argue that they should not be allowed Google or Apple’s products?

I said they were hypocrites. Not that it would have an effect. It would end their hypocrisy.

Seems like you don’t care about religious freedom Pakistan at all.

This is just about you wanting to shame Apple.

And you don’t care about hypocrisy. And you don’t care about religious freedom either.

Thanks for being honest.

I care about hypocrisy. I just don’t think it’s a moral issue, because everyone is a hypocrite from someone else’s point of view.

I care about religious freedom quite deeply, indeed more so than most freedoms. I am interested in constructive steps to improve it. Pakistan is a theocracy, where as many as 90% of the population are Sunni Muslim. The Ahmediyya are a modern sect founded in the late 1800s, who are regarded as non-Muslims by the Pakistani constitution. The vast majority of the Pakistani population supports this view.

I don’t think you know much about how to change this situation, and I think it’s fairly obvious that Apple or Google leaving, as you have already admitted elsewhere, would not have a significant effect.

It’s really not clear what you are trying to achieve, except for some shaming of Apple for a bullshit reason.

Hypocrisy is a moral issue. It plays into the principle of fairness that even animals have. If that isn’t morality, then almost nothing is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocrisy

Also, it is right to call it like it is. Telling the truth as you see it is the right thing to do. Not telling the truth is not right.

I notice you say “It’s right to call it like it is”, and not “It’s right to call it like you see it”.

This is a form of self-delusion. You believe you see an absolute truth, rather than just a perspective.

If you read it the Wikipedia article, you’ll see it mentions hypocrisy as a moral principle in Islam, and other religions.

However it also talks about how it’s a psychological feature of being human.

According to that article, you are a hypocrite, along with everyone else.

That isn’t grounds for a moral foundation.

There is a distinction between hypocrisy and lying.

And, as I have already stated, everyone is a hypocrite from someone else’s point of view.

I see you continue to confirm that you have nothing to offer that can help freedom of religion in Pakistan.

You have never actually claimed that freedom of religion was your goal, and conceded that it wasn’t when I pressed you, but you have criticized me for not caring about it.

That seems like a clear case of hypocrisy to me - criticizing someone else for not caring about something, that you yourself do not care about.

Also those mostly aren’t their customers in Google’s case. Their customers are mostly the advertisers.

Ok then, let’s say users.

This is the same exact argument made roughly 30 years ago with South Africa and apartheid.

Not in the least. South Africa ultimately was pressured by wide ranging sanctions from nation states. That would be a good way to proceed in this case too.

I was referring to the companies that were against the sanctions.

Apple is not against sanctions, so there is no comparison.

If the US government includes technology restrictions as sanctions against Pakistan, I expect Apple would comply.

The point is that companies argued to continue doing business with South Africa because it would be a net benefit to those countries. It’s the same argument.

No it’s not remotely connected.

There is no international sanctions campaign aimed at forcing Pakistan to support freedom of religion.

There isn’t even any significant international response.

The argument is that in the absence of any international action against Pakistan that might actually cause change, it is better for the people to continue to have smartphones, access to Google search, etc.

If there was any international political movement for change in Pakistan, and Apple or Google were arguing against sanctions, then you would have a point.

You don’t take a moral stand when everyone else takes a moral stand. Someone has to be first.

You also don’t take a moral stand when it would do more harm than good.

Someone has to be sensible, and not hurt people just to please vocal activists in another country.

That is oh so convenient and so wrong. It’s also known as the not my problem argument.

Suppose you lived in England in 1861. Would you choose to do business with the Confederacy? Where is your magic calculator that shows you would do more harm than good by not doing business with them? In reality there isn’t one and you can’t make the calculation based on that. Instead, the magic calculator always swings to do business because it is profitable to do so.

What happened to Google when it left China? Those services just got magically replaced. Search replaced. Streaming replaced. Cloud services replaced.

Ok. So you think that it would actually do no good at all for these companies to leave, because they would be replaced.

It seems like you don’t actually care at all about religious freedom in Pakistan then.

Please cite sources showing Apple "loudly proclaiming how moral" it is.

Tim Cook: As reported by TechCrunch, he said: "I'm speaking to you from Silicon Valley, where some of the most prominent and successful companies have built their businesses by lulling their customers into complacency about their personal information. They're gobbling up everything they can learn about you and trying to monetize it. We think that's wrong. And it's not the kind of company that Apple wants to be."

Apparently for Apple, privacy is moral in the US but not in China. Hahahahahahaha!

Also not really privacy since your device is backed up to Apple’s servers where they can conveniently hand them over to the US government. That’s right. If you are a citizen of say Germany, does the US government have access to your data?

What do they do in China that is different to the US?

They segregate Chinese data in China and have easy access to it. I wonder if they leave the rest of the world data in the US.

Do they store US data in the US and have easy access to it?

They also are intentionally fuzzy with Americans. Your privacy is important they say. They say that they will fight against government to protect your privacy. What is more important is that they don’t tell you. Your data is backed up onto Apple’s servers and Apple has the key. What I read is that Apple got pushback from the FBI. Don’t hear about the FBI suing Apple for access anymore. Wonder why? Maybe they have all the access they want while Apple can continue to brand itself the privacy moralists. Hahahahaha!

https://www.sott.net/article/427853-Backdoored-backup-FBI-ba...

The difference is that in the US, Apple pretends to be for privacy whereas in China there are no such pretensions. Also because of greater reach, US companies have access to far more countries and people who are not at all protected by US laws.

Do they store German data in the US and have easy access to it?

Google stored it everyone’s data everywhere and somehow the US had access to ALL of it unencrypted.

https://www.cnet.com/news/tim-cook-says-privacy-is-an-issue-...

Tim Cook says privacy is an issue of morality

Cook, though, presented the issue in deeply political terms. He said: "We believe that people have a fundamental right to privacy. The American people demand it, the constitution demands it, morality demands it."

https://youtu.be/x3nFe7EpWAY

Your mistake was believing CEOs. The only thing you can count on is the invisible hand of capitalism, and today it requires both:

- operating in (wealthy) oppressive regimes

- denouncing those same oppressive regimes

Then they will have to leave entire subcontinent and middle east.

Yes.

it's more that their morality includes compliance with the laws of the states they operate in. It always has, and they will buck those laws on extremely rare occasions, usually when they believe they are seeing a mis-implementation of the laws, and (when outside the US) usually by ceasing to do business in the territory (see: Google's pullback from China).

None of what we're seeing in Pakistan right now is new for tech company SOP. Google Maps shows different borders depending on the location of the originating query. Twitter masks certain tweets for users in Germany because some speech that's legal in the US is illegal in Germany and the penalties are harsh for propagating it.

It's a big world, and the US doesn't have a monopoly on law or ethics in the international community.

> "their morality includes compliance with the laws of the states they operate in. It always has"

I will believe it when they pay their taxes

They pay all the taxes they are legally required to pay.

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