Censorship, Surveillance and Profits: A Hard Bargain for Apple in China | Hacker News Reader

Censorship, Surveillance and Profits: A Hard Bargain for Apple in China

nytimes.com

56 pointsjbegley11 comments

It’s kind of strange to think about Apple is kind of known to “fight the US government at every step to protect privacy” and then reconcile all the public goodwill they have with this article.

One of the core reasons people seem to love them so much seems to be based on what is basically a lie and maybe worse.

What would you have them do? Leave the Chinese market? Try to operate illegally? In both the Chinese and US markets, seems like Apple did everything they legally could.

I’m simply pointing out that their reputation is significantly better than it should be. This is the same company that had to install suicide nets at their factories in the same country.

They are also the same company who have engaged in some of the most aggressive tax avoidance ever seen.

These things combined are painting an extremely dark picture of how the biggest company in the world maybe got to the size they are.

It feels like a good time to start asking the question of how we should react to this?

Why not? Google correctly made that decision a decade ago. Is it really worth compromising yourself? Apple should not be beholden to an authoritarian regime by putting too many of their eggs in that basket.

Google left China because it discovered it was the victim of a cyberattack from the Chinese government, not really out of any kind of hate of authoritarianism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora

And they returned to the Chinese market several years later.

1) No, that is not the reason they left. Google can serve searches from anywhere, including putting servers in HK or Taiwan, or a datacenter in Japan. Leaving the Chinese market doesn't inhibit Chinese cyberattacks. In recent years, Google revealed the Chinese government had been targeting overseas Chinese civil rights activist accounts with spearfishing attacks.

More likely, they did not want to be on the hook for constantly censoring search results. If you run any forum or search engine in China, you have to be on the hook for constantly responding to requests to either censor search/forums or turn over user data, and who wants to be involved in that?

2) "And they returned to the Chinese market several years later." No, they did not. You cannot reliably access gmail, youtube, search, et al, from Mainland China without a VPN, and even with a VPN it's iffy since VPNs constantly stop working.

Maybe you're confusing the recent project Dragonfly that was being worked on. It never shipped. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)

Google's decision to leave China was most likely heavily influenced by Brin, who having grown up under the Iron Curtain, despises totalitarianism and probably didn't want to deal with the CCP.

Apple made a decision that they love money more than privacy or civil rights, and haven't seemed to invest any of their hundreds of billions in decoupling themselves from Chinese manufacturing and assembly, so as a result, they are now beholden to the whims of the CCP. A real Faustian bargain on their part that they may one day regret.

It depends on morals and principles. At what point is the money not worth it, which has nothing to do with legality.

The Chinese government was starting to pass laws that gave the country greater leverage over Apple, and Mr. Guthrie said he believed Mr. Xi would soon start seeking concessions. Apple, he realized, had no Plan B.

The same story for nearly every multinational doing business in China.

I'm Chinese and I have a lot to say about articles like this.

"We hate China. X loves / helps / do business with China. So we should hate X too. Unless X become one of us to hate China together."

This is the common logic used in articles like this, where X is Apple in this case.

I don't see other use of these articles than spreading and deteriorating Chinese hate. Yes, just one or two articles may not be a problem, but we have seen these like forever now.

This is the psychological warfare the US government doing to its own citizen, and to all the world, spreading Chinese hate. This FUD movement has even turned in to business for US military, and political campaigns.

As a Chinese, I really want it to stop. I don't want the younger generation around the world grow up hating Chinese people. I don't want everyone treat me like an enemy.

But I'm so helpless. China, is so helpless.

Even without the Xinjiang issue. Even if China has a fully westernized democratic system, the US would still make up something for you to hate us. It's what this country does everytime some other country threatens its global hegemony, no matter what ideology or political system they have.

Yes, I know I sounds like a wumao now. I'm also surprised I would say something like a wumao someday.

So let me make it clear, I don't want to defend the allegation to the Chinese goverment. If there's unjust crime being made to Uyghurs in Xinjiang, I want it to stop, I would condemn those who responsible and want them to be punished by law. I want the government to implement supervision protocol to prevent anything like that to happen again.

But for programs that is helping the Uyghurs family to get employed, improve their working skill and living condition, without compromising their existing living standard, I would also praise the effort and want it to continue. If there's anything I can help to improve living conditions in areas like Xinjiang, either be donation or a chance to become a volunteer or a teacher, I would do it to help those people.

I don't know why I haven't hear a single westerner to say something like this. Shouldn't real justice to be punishing the bad and supporting the good? China like any other goverment, is not all good or all evil. But isn't the right thing always to help the people? Why not donate education resource to poor area like Xinjiang? Why not participate and help on the ground when you can? Because going into China would compromise your passport? your mind? or your pride?

It's the same logic people use to justify their "get out of China" actions. Because being inside China would force you to follow rules and laws you don't support, therefore it compromise your value, therefore you should get out of China.

I found these statement so selfish and condescending, almost like an excuse for their hate. Whether you compromised your value is your own problem. Nobody concern your own being as good or evil, it's your contribution to others lives that matters when we judge.

I like Apple. Most Chinese users like Apple. It makes people's life better, easier, and more enjoyable. That's absolutely a good thing that Apple did. With or without Apple, Chinese goverment already had access to all its people's data. Apple didn't made that worse with its participation.

Even if Apple compromised their value by following the Chinese rules, the benefits its products provided is still a good thing to Chinese people's lives.

You think it's bad not because Apple compromised its own value, but because Apple compromised YOUR value -- YOUR hatred toward China.

Did you see the evil cycle here? The more you hate China, the more evil someone's action would look like when they do business in China, and that makes you hate China even more. And all that facilitating this cycle is the US media outlets influenced by their Chinese FUD campagin.

I know I'm so helpless on this problem, but I want to wake up one or two people reading this as much as I can. Please stop the Chinese hate!

You do realize the Chinese government is not just content with keeping to itself and has repeatedly trying to impose [0] its [1] values [2] on the west too, right? You could argue the west has been doing the same with China, but I'd say the Chinese government has been pretty effective at keeping the "good bits" of westernization and tossing out anything that clashes with its ideology.

Sinophobia should be completely out of the question, I agree, and some people will be blinded by rage and that's truly unfortunate as I, too, want Asian hatred to stop, but people should be rightfully upset with the CCP. The treatment towards Uyghurs has been appalling, and so the rest of the world is taking notice. Any programs that supposedly exist to help them will be seen as whitewashing. It's within our rights to condemn such treatment... for now.

[0] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/australian-publis...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/aug/05/china-hollywood...

[2] https://www.aspi.org.au/opinion/chinas-influence-our-campuse...

> You do realize the Chinese government is not just content with keeping to itself and has repeatedly trying to impose [0] its [1] values [2] on the west too, right?

Except the Hollywood one you linked, which is mostly a money driven result by Hollywood itself, but the rest of your examples are really results of the China-western conflicts.

> the Chinese government has been pretty effective at keeping the "good bits" of westernization and tossing out anything that clashes with its ideology

I don't see what's wrong with that. China has been totalitarian for thousnds of years. I don't see why many westerners believe it has to be overthrone, especially given all the economical achievements in recent decades. Yes the CCP made mistakes, in fact many in the past, and still making some today. But it's a system that in overall worked for most people in this country, if there's a way to fix it without replacing it, why not?

> I, too, want Asian hatred to stop, but people should be rightfully upset with the CCP

If the people can distinguish their hatred and reasonable doubt, sure, be upset with the CCP. But is it what people can do as of today? Obviously not. The way these media outlets producing these anti-CCP articles are in a fashion to exagerrate hatred, not reasonable doubt. Just notice the wording they use, the way they shape their tone, and the image they are trying to plant in readers' mind. It's so obvious that people wrote these articles wants more conflicts through hatred. This is the danger I want to point out.

Is there another way? Of course! Write as many articles as you want, but please use an objective tone and wording, and most importantly, focus on facts! Educate your readers what they can do to verify the facts, how they can contribute TO THE GROUND on helping those in trouble. Just do what honest journalism should do.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com