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Comment by avianlyric | Hacker News Reader

In their defence (I say this with some trepidation), if they want to see their products in another country, then they need to play by that countries rules. Regardless of how we in the west feel about those rules.

If a Chinese company came to the US or EU and ignored US or EU rules and lawful directives from government, we would quite rightly be up in arms about that.

With regards to CSAM, I think the same applies. After all the CSAM issue only exists because the US government has decided that invasive monitoring is the only way to counter CSAM.

I note that no other western country takes such an authoritarian approach to CSAM, an approach that seems to be primarily driving by evangelist Christian keen on outlawing sex in general. As oppose to actually helping victims of CSAM.

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> In their defence (I say this with some trepidation), if they want to see their products in another country, then they need to play by that countries rules.

I understand your trepidation in saying it. That is simply a fact of reality as it stands and how businesses operate under the current incentives, not a value judgement.

However, it makes me think that liberal democracies should play hardball. The USA already has the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act [0] and the UK the Bribery Act 2010 [1], which hold their own businesses and citizens criminally liable for business-related corruption in a foreign country. Also, many countries apply universal jurisdiction for crimes such as child abuse [2].

Maybe liberal democracies should start applying a similar set of rules to businesses who are licenced to operate within their country, forbidding them from performing certain types of tasks (e.g. ideological censorship) for any government.

I am well aware of how incredibly complex a law of this kind would need to be, but let businesses choose – if they want to operate in the EU, USA, UK, etc. then they need to play by the no political repression rules worldwide. Would losing the markets of repressive regimes not be worth it? Well, they're free to move their headquarters to those countries and lose the liberal democratic market.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bribery_Act_2010

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_jurisdiction

I don't think liberal democracies care about these freedoms, other than as a rhetorical stick to hit countries that "illiberal" with. E.g. imprisonment of Julian Assange, removal of Trump from twitter, Atlantic Council as official part of FB content moderation team (w/ the probably-not-coincidental) subsequent removal of pro-Venezuela and far left groups.

(Plus also IMO being banned from FB and Twitter are materially much more harmful to a political movement than being banned from an app store. EDIT: Maybe not, since per other comment it was being used to organize election results.)

Democratic leaders will care about it if it earns them votes at the polls.

But I agree that the government's themselves don't give a rats arse about this stuff, as long as they can keep winning elections.

Yes, I agree there is much hypocrisy amongst those in power regarding this issue, and liberal democracies as such do not "care" about freedoms.

But then, why do they have laws punishing corruption in a foreign country? And why do they care if one of their citizens travels to a foreign country and performs a sexual act which, while not technically a crime at the current location, would be a crime back home?

Whether the motivation of these rules is purely utilitarian ("We don't want our businesses to get good at corruption, in case they start bringing it back" or "It's easier to catch active paedophiles having this option"), honestly moral ("Corruption/sex tourism is a scourge for developing countries, we must do anything to stop it") or even cynically electoral ("Let's look tough on crime to win votes"), any of these three options could be applied to a law against collaboration with repressive regimes.

In particular, given the dependence of our economies on the likes of Alphabet, Apple, Facebook, etc. and the increased power of China, I think that the utilitarian motivation should be enough. We don't want businesses that are so entrenched in our day-to-day to be so cozy with repressive authoritarian regimes which may sooner than later start to apply their own requirements on how businesses should operate in other countries if they want to have access to their own lucrative market.

Interesting points.

If I were to hazard cynical guesses, I'd say anti-corruption drives are genuine, in that corruption hurts American business interests, and anti-sex-crimes stuff is convenient to intelligence services who use sexual transgressions as black mail (e.g. Alexander Acosta explaining why he cut a sweet-heart deal for Epstein: "I was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to leave it alone").

Following laws in countries that one is operating is expected.

However, following laws that contradict one’s marketing materials will lead to some understandable questions about those “values”.

I think avianlyric is suggesting Apple didn't have a choice, and that US gov is compelling them to add the CSAM features. Which seems likely to me.

† Really "CSAM", since there's no way to verify nor ensure it's only scanning for CSAM. What they are building is a prohibited content scanner, and what it will scan for is whatever governments would like it to scan for.

Well do you have a copy of Apple's marketing material from Russia saying that won't censor the app store if compelled to do so by the Russian government?

It not reasonable to hold Apple to pledges they've made to western customers, when talking about a service provided to non-western customers.

As much as we wish it wasn't true, the scope for providing privacy is substantially greater in the west than it is elsewhere.

> It not reasonable to hold Apple to pledges they've made to western customers, when talking about a service provided to non-western customers.

I think it's reasonable: We hold people account across borders for serious violations (extraditions), so it's completely reasonable to hold a company accountable for its serious violations outside of the country that you're buying from.

No-one is forcing Apple to support those countries with oppressing citizens either.

> Well do you have a copy of Apple's marketing material from Russia saying that won't censor the app store if compelled to do so by the Russian government?

Создавая продукты Apple, мы прежде всего заботимся о том, чтобы защитить вашу личную информацию и предоставить вам контроль над ней. [0]

Which translates to:

When we create Apple products, our primary concern is to protect your data and give you control over it.

[0] https://www.apple.com/ru/privacy/

> With regards to CSAM, I think the same applies. After all the CSAM issue only exists because the US government has decided that invasive monitoring is the only way to counter CSAM.

No it hasn't. There is no legislation that the government passed or enforces that says Apple must scan people's private data on their devices for CSAM. Apple decided to do that all on their own.

The specific approach isn't in law. But the requirement to scan photos stored in the cloud is.

On this specific point I think reasonable to believe that Apple want to E2E iCloud photos, and their stated approach to CSAM is how they'll achieve E2E iCloud photos, while remaining compliant with the requirement to scan for CSAM they might be hosting.

Now there's a very strong argument to be made that Apple have made an appalling trade-off here, prioritising E2E over not doing on device scanning. But it's a trade-off that's only happened due to the requirement for CSAM scanning.

An interesting approach Apple could take, is apply E2E iCloud photos in Europe, and continue with on server scanning (and no E2E) for the US.

> On this specific point I think reasonable to believe that Apple want to E2E iCloud photos

Here's the thing: if they wanted this they should have said so, because until then I'm not going to make this assumption. I can only make decisions on information I have, not on wishful thinking.

> But the requirement to scan photos stored in the cloud is.

This is categorically false. The law is very clear. Known CSAM must be reported. There is no obligation to search for it. The law explicitly exempts service providers from having to search for anything in a paragraph aptly named “protection of privacy”.

The text of the law: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2258A

But I read from that guy mike Hearn , the early Bitcoin dev that it's like a reverse search. They check the csam database and compare to what is in your files, sounds good at first, but, big concern is...what if governments start to add other, unrelated data to get rid of people who cause political friction and other undesired elements as per their government policies?

> what if governments start to add other, unrelated data to get rid of people who cause political friction and other undesired elements as per their government policies?

This is exactly what's going to happen, especially in countries like Russia and China. Children are just the perfect political weapon to make people accept the system.

> what if governments start to add other, unrelated data to get rid of people who cause political friction and other undesired elements as per their government policies?

That's possibly the most inefficient way anyone can imagine. If they can control Apple, they can just tell them to search Mail.app and Photos.app. What you are proposing is a Rube Goldberg machine.

And I'm 99% certain various agencies are already reading all your emails, with or without Apple's help. They are not hiding that they are spying on Swedish citizens, with the help of our intelligence services. Pretty sure they spy on you as well.

Of course Apple is going to play by the rules of the jurisdictions they want to sell their products in. That's why their reassurances that they would never bend to government pressure on their CSAM plans were so worthless.

everybody can use "i was only following orders" as defense in court

Try "I was only following the law". I seriously doubt any court would punish you for sincerely trying to follow the law to the best of your ability.

Russia is a sovereign nation, with the right to rule as they wish. If you're not happy with there way of life, then I would encourage you to contact your democratic representatives and tell them to either apply greater pressure to the Russian government to live up to our ideals, and follow our laws; and if that fails, declare war.

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