A Xiaomi phone might’ve shipped with a censorship list in Europe
bigtechnology.substack.com
bigtechnology.substack.com
Recently I had a problem that the phone nagged me about "activating" the 2nd SIM card at boot if the "Find my device" Xiaomi functionality was enabled. It seems to be a part of the tracking functionality if my phone gets lost. The "activation" of the SIM card failed every time, but it sent a SMS to a UK number and billed me about 0,17€ for it. I only figured it out when I saw my phone bill.
I had an earlier Xiaomi phone and I recorded all my phone calls on it. The creepy thing is that I didn't know that Xiaomi was sycing all my files with Xiaomi Cloud.
Exactly the same scenario as with the Huawei 5G products. It is a major risk building your entire "smart" infrastructure with a line of products that could at some unspecified future date start clamping down on you via remote software updates, just because you insulted the dear leader or did something else to anger the regime.
Did we not see this already with H&M stores in China? I can't believe there are still (smart) people here on HN who pretend like there's no danger involved.
I don't trust chinese gear. But I also don't trust the gear built in a nation where the patriot act is active.
The answer is to use a propper vendor mix and to think carefully what is used where.
We can't trust any vendors. Be it soft- or hardware. Be it cloud. At least not when thinking about state level actors.
Nations need to think, as you said, about propper vendor mix and risk assessment.
> Did we not see this already with H&M stores in China? I can't believe there are still (smart) people here on HN who pretend like there's no danger involved.
That comparison doesn't really hit the mark: A consumer-led boycott within China, dubious as the reasons may be, is in no way an attack on our sovereignty. Apart from pretty wack but minor diplomatic incidents, there hasn't really been much actual damage done by China towards the EU. I agree with you that 5G infrastructure should probably fall in large parts under any strategic autonomy policy, but buying Xiaomi phones seems pretty inconsequential.
[1] https://ecfr.eu/special/independence_play_europes_pursuit_of...
[2] https://sur.conectas.org/en/digital-sovereignty-or-digital-c...
The US vs China argument is detrimental in any case. The discussion should evolve into achieving digital sovereignity as a whole, not argue about whether player x or y in the current rotten system is better.
This will most certainly not be solved on an EU level. The only outcome that they could produce would be replacing US & China with EU-controlled narrative and again, it's just repeating the same problem, albeit in lesser severity.
It's just that we (mostly) don't know it any different (anymore).
And probably lost the ability to do it different. At least for now. May change. Slowly.
But any time I'm reading something about Industry 4.0, Smart City, Internet of things, I have to supress a hysterical laughing fit :-)
A lot of it for different subjects. Sometimes 3-4 people chain comments creating a narative that supports whatever crazy stuff of the day is.
your testing is not thorough, there are many other things the "censorship list" could be used for, including not censoring at all, rather "forward this user's internet searches to china", and the things it does could be turned on and off based on other parameters
It would be illegal if I gave the recordings to a 3rd person.
Currently I am using a Nokia 3.4 and it has been great value IMHO.
I feel like at this point we're just scraping the bottom of the barrel for the daily dose of anti-Chinese content
So if you were the Chinese government wanting to stop those phrases being used at some time in the future, it would make more sense to send the list at the time you activate the list, rather than in advance to be found before it's ever been activated.
It seems more provocative than anything else.
It seems like you misunderstood, that statement from the Abukevicius clearly states it was Xiaomi who changed the list (and then removed it).
Doesn't that make _you_ the anti-chinese one here?
This has absolutely _nothing_ to do with what I wrote.
I have no idea why you'd even make this comment?
In fact people there are fully aware of the censorship and either ignore it, find easy ways around it or even mock it and make fun of it: from creating the globally famous "Winnie the Pooh" synonym to memes that are shared.
Food first, then morality.
-- Berthold BrechtI am a capitalist-as-it-gets atheist. How dare you equate me to a communist! Belief in gods has nothing to do with belief in politicians' ability to manage the economy.
Let me rephrase that: All commies are atheists but all atheists are not commies.
Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Unlike the religious people who believe, that they can sin as much as they want to, just as long as they repent, and then still go to heaven?
What Christians believe, doesn't necessarily have anything to with what the Bible says.
Even when it does, then it's often cherry picked.
Chinese shills will claim that poverty has been eliminated, but that’s only true if you lower the poverty line. You could set the poverty line to 10 USD/year if you wanted to and by doing so “solve poverty”.
There is much room for misinformation and lies when it comes to these issues. One has to stay vigilant.
Those things have _nothing_ to do with each other.
The US southern states got very rich on cotton, tobacco, etc., and had a high GDP, during slavery.
Were the slaves not oppressed?
Again, GDP has nothing to do with being oppressed or not.
Taiwan is debatable, but I see it as a regional dispute over an artifact of the civil war. Honk Kong I am suspicious of as the protests seem to be supported by the CIA and are pro-capitalist. The B&R initiative, building economic infrastructure to support the region, is a good thing, I don't see how that's an issue.
No, MY country's government isn't doing anything like that.
I guess you're talking about the actions of the US government, which I have not condoned.
So this is "whataboutism".
I find it funny, that nobody here's able to defend the CCP, without resorting to that.
Thing is no websites or banks trust ME if I don't have a kinda recent mobile phone with Googeld Android or OSX.
Every government decided these things by themselves.
Why does USA care if Iran assaults its citizens for whatever reason?
States exist to protect human rights and states that don’t have no right to exist.
You should be more open minded that different people and cultures have different values.
Do you think women shouldn't have rights too, if a country's government doesn't think they are worthy?
That we shouldn't care about the treatment of migrant workers in the Middle East?
Apartheid was fine? Slavery?
I mean, as long as the country's government thinks so, and the "cultural values are different".
It's honestly disheartening to read a comment such as yours here.
So I can start owning slaves, if I claim it fits my values? Or I need to gather some minimal number of fellow slave owners, so I can declare it 'culture'?
>So I can start owning slaves, if I claim it fits my values?
Keep in mind that owning a slave is illegal in many places. Laws are also shaped by culture. So if you moved somewhere were slaves were legal then yes you could.
This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever read on HN.
It isn't like the Hubble Deep Field has a pattern that spells out "all human beings are born free and equal" or something.
A disadvantage is that you put in commas and -- for pause, not for correct grammar.
From my POV America is the one country we need to be most afraid of. Mostly because their irrational, war driven, and human rights ignoring behaviour all around the world. Not just in their country
Not like there's only threat in the world.
America starting lots of wars save the world from lots more wars because China (which has started 0 wars) will start many more wars?
That’s some serious mental gymnastics.
Well if the US hadn’t have got involved at all. There probably wouldn’t be a communist China, and Taiwan would be threatening to invade mainland Japan.
But everything you say is just massive speculation…
Guess who will suffer the most, yes the Chinese people
And you westerners celebrate “freedom of speech” without paying any cost.
Really, stay away from our internal business. USA has a tracked record of screwing things up by imposing democracy prematurely
As long as the CCP threatens other nations, it isn't "internal business".
>Really, stay away from our internal business
Staying away from your business is literally what a boycott is.
> On analysis of the file, I found that the vast majority of the records are actually related to sex, porn, and other smartphone brands. There are mentions of Tibet, Hong Kong, and other religious groups, however, mentions of the CCP and “China” are also included, too
> I think it’s pretty clear that the filter is specifically used for filtering advertisements
I feel compelled to point out that you would know this had you read the article.
That fell flat, so now there's a new rumor that the See See Pee got caught red-handed and disguised their Totally Real Evil Scary Censoring Algorithm Which Doesn't Work with unassuming keywords.
Mental gymnastics.
> Would censor approximately 450 words and phrases, it said. The blocklist wasn’t active, but could be activated remotely. It was filled with political terms, including “Democratic Movement” and “Long live Taiwan’s independence.”
> After the government published its findings, things got weird. The list swelled to more than 1,000 terms, including hundreds of non-political terms like “pornography,” seemingly to turn the political blocklist into something more generic. Then, it disappeared. “They reacted,” Margiris Abukevicius, Lithuania’s vice minister for defense, told me. “It wasn’t publicized from their side.”
So it seems you're the one pulling some mental gymnastics.
There is no statistical good/bad measurement if you, as a company, decide to block terminology of political nature.
They blocked pro-Taiwan ads just as they blocked outdated Xiaomi ads. But this doesn't even out the odds anyhow. As long as pro Taiwan ads are blocked, it's effectively being used as a censorship mechanism, and it's nothing else.
Doesn't matter if you sell it as an adblocker. Doesn't matter if you sell it as a filtering system for "security" reasons.
Either block all ads and do the right thing, or block no ads at all. But not this.
The point is that they realized that advertisements are used to organize democratic or revolutionary movements and they blocked it. And that is the censorship others are complaining about.
Buy a different phone? Consumers in the European marketplaces have options.
A different phone like Samsung has problems like warranty being void if flashes, bad hardware, riddled with advertisements as you can't use your own firmware because of previous reasons. In fact, many people in my country choose Xiaomi phones over any brand. Also, Xiaomi provides a better ecosystem like distributions of ROM, flashing software officially.
Other phones like one plus, iPhone has a high price compared to Xiaomi.
The unfortunate fact is the competitor of Xiaomi phone is another Chinese branded phone and
You always have a choice. You can even buy a dumbphone.
If you still buy Xiaomi knowing they spy on you, you just don't care. And that is also a choice.
People should vote with their wallet. This also means you can't always get what you want.
Besides, you'll get the American spying anyway whether you avoid Chinese phones or not.
Consumer boycott is the only solution.
A country needs to be self-governing, autonomous, and recognised by the majority of UN members. Taiwan isn't recognised by any country of note, including the US, so they fail the country test.
Are you trying to be funny? Because that's hilarious.
Also, nobody (including the residents) considers the reservations in north america to be "nations". I'm guessing you've never actually been here.
A native American tribe is a nation, by definition [1]. Heck, the Canadians call theirs "First Nations".
A country requires sovereignty over some land, people, and international recognition. Without the last part, Sealand was a country. Funnily enough, depending on how strict you're with the criteria, some native American tribes are countries, and the US isn't always one due to reservations and states sovereignties.
1 - `a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory` Oxford English dictionary
Only on a few servers in the world where I can see users speaking mandarin, english, farsi, turkish, etc where their wealth goes up as their leaders in their respective countries increase their malfeasance…
It seems just as easy to cut Xiaomi out from consumer phones.
In other words, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, and there is a lot of people who do not want to pay that price. They just need stuff done, no matter what.
Apart from China, Twitter/FB follow Indian laws in India, blocking users critical of Indian govt. which they wouldn't remove from Global site.
There's a reason consumer protection laws exist. The fact that governments haven't caught up to Big Tech doesn't mean companies are free from blame. Particularly ones with direct ties to one of the most oppressive regimes on the planet.
Xiaomi doesn't censor because of a business decision. It censors because it's mandated by the CCP and their relentless efforts of silencing speech that makes China look bad. It's the government equivalent of a sensitive bully that everyone tip toes around because of political and financial reasons. Leaky analogy, but this entire situation is indescribably dumb.
No, it isn't. It's genuine humor; an ironic absurdity derived from a kernel of truth. Best comment of the thread actually; a welcome exception to all of the whataboutery, hair splitting and reading comprehension mishaps.
Though I'd argue this is not the place for such comments. It only further perpetuates the lowbrow "discussion" on a very sensitive topic that, if nowhere else, this forum should be above of.
Only because the laws are too permissive in this particular regard.
If Xiaomi only sold in China, they can do what they like.
Article 11
Freedom of expression and information
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
I think you are wrongly informed.
This is not true.
When no one has an answer to a complex problem, quietly get out of the room and work on something simple. That produces the best outcome. Cuz you know 2 things are true - there are problems the chimp troupe cant solve And there are people in the room who will never admit it.
[0] https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/582244-ene...
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"It's ok when we do it" - and when you point it out, ofcourse "that's whatabboutism" (plus, "our targets deserve it").
I find it an equally problematic off-sourcing of state functions to corporations, to have as an excuse "but it's not state censorship".
-- and this is something that has been commented on, and spread increasingly more, for half a century...
"Trump conspiracy theories": Bad.
"WMDs, video with prostitutes in Russia, and the Steele Dossieur": Good.
(plus, we'll self-critique ourselves, several years down the line, when it doesn't matter anymore, e.g. after the war was declared, the elections over, etc., so that makes us legit).
Nobody was saying anything like that.
But go ahead. Have fun with your strawman arguments.
That people don't care about being lied to is their problem. Russia is a political adversary, but don't try to convince people you think critically. That would be absolutely ridiculous for anyone part of that discussion. If people dislike impolite statements more than war too, well, just don't argue about morality please or the same ridiculousness continues.
I don't think Trump is a good candidate to be president. But his opposition was a laughing stock.
Twitter decided they want to join the conspiracies about Russian interference. They are free to do that. But don't complain about other conspiracies either.
In times where there's more fear about dissidents, you get McCarthyism, blacklists, and people fired from their jobs, Hoover's FBI blackmailing politicians and journalists, and so on. And even in more benign times, from MLK to SDS members, and from human rights activists to Kent State students, had taps on them, police records in the tens of thousands of pages, intimidation, and attempts to frame them with drugs, snitches and other BS. Heck, even John Lennon, a harmless famous pop culture figure if I ever saw one, had FBI records the size of a small library.
And this goes all the way to modern OWS members, environmental and political activists, black rights activists, character-assasinated journalists (from Garry Webb to Greenwald), and so on.
And if we extend it to the "but they deserve it, no?", war on terror, I don't see much of a difference between a state with black sites, extra-judicial drone killings, and off-shore off-due-process camps, with people exposing state crimes like Manning in prison and Snowden in exile...
Western phones are no different, the only difference is in which government actually manages the data...
> Western phones are no different, the only difference is in which government actually manages the data...
In some ways first world oppression is comparable to third world oppression, but they are different in scale and magnitude.
I'd rather have the oppressive government, which ostensibly creates rules to benefit the country as a whole, than be ruled by the whims of a network of billionaires.
Oh, you sweet summer child.
One can hope. But counter-examples abound.
To note: I think this is abhorrent, and really my point is I wish Twitter didn't censor or editorialize either.
To make it easy. I believe you don't allow anyone to come into your home and give you lectures about politics, but you would be pretty outraged if your homebuilder would have placed a microphone camera into your home and if you say the wrong words, e.g. the toilet stops working.
No. Of course not.
How can you honestly believe, that a smartphone producer controlling what you can access _on the internet_, is the same thing, as an online platform having a say in what happens on _their_ platform?
That's completely absurd.
If you don't like it don't buy my phones. Again, I'm largely playing devil's advocate here. I'd much rather live in a world where we stop saying "but it's a private company" as a catch-all.
If you sell me a phone, and then deny me the right to use it as phone, then you are breaking the law. At least where I live. I would be able to demand a refund, and the Company could be penalized for lying about what they sell.
You are being absurd.
Also, private businesses should always be able to enforce their rules on their platform/property, as long as they don't discriminate against protected classes like ethnicities, genders, sexualities, etc.
Otherwise you could just shit on the floor of a restaurant, and they could do nothing about it.
Again, you are being absurd.
> Otherwise you could just shit on the floor of a restaurant, and they could do nothing about it.
While they both fall under the broad umbrella of 'ownership', I find it deeply misleading to equate Twitter, Inc.'s ownership of the URL twitter.com/XxxBloodNinjaXxx to your fellow citizen John Q. Smalltownrestauranteur's ownership of a floor that he personally cleans with a mop every evening.
They are two form of ownership that have very little in common, and naïvely treating the owners as if they were equals and had the same power leads to poor policy.
But the broad societal effect of companies censoring things is more or less the same whether they did that on their own or were instructed by the government. What prevents this a little right now is that we do not have a truly monopolistic landscape in that matter, at least when it comes to online services. You basically need facebook and google and twitter (and tiktok) to all decide on a certain topic to become non-grata to effectively censor a topic enough to vanish it from most public discussion (small services will populate only by people interested in the topic, but the way to "get the message out" will be gone). The governments are more effective by forcing all the big players into compliance. Regardless, the threat of big companies looks very real to me. and the trend goes to big companies consolidating their power more and more.
It's also good to remember there are companies more powerful than FAANG from the perspective of (specific groups of) regular citizens: banks, credit card companies, ISPs, utility companies, health insurers and other insurers, the company that sells you "copyrighted and patented" seed or DRM-enabled tractors, home owners associations, potentially your own employer, to name a few.
This whole discussion reminds me of the "our blessed homeland" cartoon: https://twitter.com/vrk100/status/1231211141218500608
FB/GOOG absolutely do. You may trust the USG or the companies it pressures into this domain of behavior more than the CCP/Xiaomi (or may not - it is not relevant to this point) but the comparison is there.
There's no day in the US where remembering a day equivalent to violently pancaking protestors beneath tank treads (take your pick of our atrocities) was censored everywhere as was the case recently on the day of the Tiananmen Square massacre in China.
The point shouldn't be "your bad behavior justifies my bad behavior", it should be this: folks in the valley ceded the moral high ground in the pursuit of short term political interests. There is a cost associated with that, which can be paid in many different ways. The right way would be acknowledging the mistake and a rededication to first principles... but obviously that isn't going to happen. Instead, hypocrites will be forced to perform mental gymnastics in order to preserve their working model of the world without admitting fault - it is exhausting, ineffective, and soul crushing... but they'll do it.
not sure if you're intentionally comparing things like child porn to democracy as equally deserving of censorship but that's how i read it.
Yeah, on US tech platforms you can promote Taiwan's independence and criticize China's national interests, I'll give you that!
It's like the old joke, where the American says that he's free-er as he can go to Times Square with a bullhorn megaphone and openly criticize the US Predident.
To which the USSR guy counters that he's equally free, as he is also perfectly allowed to go to the Red Square and openly criticize the US Predident.
>not sure if you're intentionally comparing things like child porn to democracy as equally deserving of censorship but that's how i read it.
I wrote censoring based on "national interests" (not to mention petty political partisan censorship), but you took it that I was complaining about them censoring "child pornography". "Think of the children", much?
I don't think that censoring people from Snowden and wiki-leaks (banned on several instances, which corporations even disabling their way to accept donations), to people writing on the wrong side of the political and being banned for "fake news" (while the "legit" sources touted BS like the Steele Dossier, that now, years after it doesn't matter anymore, do a 180-turn on), amounts to "child porn".
Like, out of the millions of things one could somewhat legitimately censor, it's always CP..
... In the old definition of "proves" as in "tests," because any process that greenlights CP is wanting. So it's the one you go to as a litmus test for whether or not the question of censorship vs. open speech on the table is worth spending energy discoursing on.
kind of hilarious given the present context that where I come from, CP means Communist Party
Facebook does not block anything like “Winnie the Pooh” and you don’t risk disappearing by posting on Facebook.
Could end badly for you.