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Comment by anon400232 | Hacker News Reader

Bowing to censorship? Bowing isn't necessarily done happily.

Or maybe more ideas are also in play? Perhaps recognizing the existing power dynamics? Perhaps playing the game over a longer time frame?

Not all ethicists recommend "dying on your sword" so to speak. Sometimes it is useful to maintain influence and fight another day. These things are far from simple.

If you want Apple to push back on censorship in China, let's talk about the details. What would China likely do in return?

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Remember how Tim Cook’s Apple handled HKmap.live¹, Telegram², and the Navalny app³. Maybe you shouldn’t fight every battle, but he fights none. The richest company in the world has at the helm a person who quotes Martin Luther King Jr on the importance of doing something for others⁴ yet he always kowtows to authoritarian regimes. He’s in a stronger position than most people in the world to make a stand but he never does. At a certain point he’s out of excuses. He fights for money, nothing more.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HKmap.live

² https://www.iphoneincanada.ca/news/apple-telegram-belarus/

³ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/google-apple-remove-nav...

⁴ Check the bio: https://twitter.com/tim_cook

> Maybe you shouldn’t fight every battle, but he fights none.

All we know is what has been reported.

It would seem improbable what a multi trillion dollar company with it's manufacturing base in China wouldn't be dealing and negotiating with the Chinese authorities as part of day to day operations.

To say Tim Cook fights no battles seems unlikely. We cannot make that statement because the reality is that we just don't know what goes on behind closed doors!

Perhaps he dresses up as Batman and fights crime at night, I mean, who can say?

So basically your counterargument is a variation of the Conspiracy Fallacy. "The good actors are hiding the evidence for their goodness!"

(Or perhaps, that was your point!)

I think it's more that Tim Cook, and Apple, are innocent until proven guilty.

They are not 'hiding' anything, which implies they have more to hide.

Apple are a secretive company that does not tend to discuss their internal politics and supplier arrangements.

The internet could argue about this all day long, but my point stands that we just don't know!

But I get your point as well. Maybe I'm feeling generous towards Apple!

I'm not normally a fan of Mr Tim Cook! :-)

If you can point to a positive change that Apple have made, in this regard, under Cook's watch, then your argument has some merit.

If you can't then you'll have to rely on the "it would've been worse but for his efforts" but I doubt you're going to provide evidence for that.

What we do know is that Apple have repeatedly sided with censorship, I can certainly provide evidence of that.

Apple very publicly refused to unlock the phones of the San Berbardino shooters, and consistently refuses to back door their phones for law enforcement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93Apple_encryption_d...

In a country with strong rule of law, where it's quite clear where the legality of this rests, and where they had almost nothing to lose by refusing to unlock the phone.

Yet icloud is dencrypted in China as soon as that's what the authorities want.

Standing up for things doesn't really mean much when you have nothing to lose. It's like the world cup players talking about LGBT rights and then stopping it as soon as they are threatened with yellow cards. That's boring cowardly virtue signalling, it's not standing up for something regardless of consequences.

You know what? You've made a good point, and I'm now a little less positive on Apple and a little more critical of Spineless Tim Cook.

Considering that China has the ultimate power over apple with Foxconn manufacturing their device in China. Apple makes a lot of money because of China, China can have a lot of influence over Apple. I'm not pro-China, pro-America, pro-anything, just stating this fact.

Foxconn does assembly and that is not a big cost of an iphone [0]. Like literally just a fraction compared to American IP, Taiwan CPUs, or Japanese cameras and the latter are all much harder to move compared to assembly.

[0]: https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/apple-iphone-7-and-...

Whatever the case is, Apple took their sweet time making changes. Microsoft, Google and even Facebook pulled out of China years ago, and Apple is acting like a storied history of human rights abuses is news to them.

> [...], Google and even [...] pulled out of China years ago

Wasn't the Pixel 6 assembled by Foxconn? And the upcoming Pixel 7 / foldables apparently also going to be assembled by Foxconn? That's not pulling out...

[edit to clarify we're only talking about Google]

Foxconn isn’t even a Chinese company (unless you’re a “one China” person). They’ve been doing the assembly on the mainland and they have had to relocate a few times to keep labor costs low. The writing is on the wall for iPhone assembly in China and has been for some time.

Hopefully, they (the CCP) will collapse.

Hmm, I see this sentiment often, but I am not entirely certain people go through it beyond the initial 'feels good' analysis. If there is one thing that US population probably should be aware of, it is that succeeding regime will not automatically be to one's advantage ( devil known kinda deal ). Say what you want about old age, but it does force you to recognize certain level of stability as desirable.

Taiwan made the transition to democracy. No reason why the mainlanders can't.

They could make that transition, of course. But look at all the countries that somehow got rid of dictators in this century. How many of those turned into stable, free, and democratic societies? Afghanistan? Iraq? Egypt? Lybia?

If you add ten more years, did it work out for Russia? Belarus? Ukraine? It did work out for Poland, Latvia and some others. But getting rid of an oppressive regime is the easy part of transforming an autocracy into democracy.

Take a look at Eastern Europe. Many countries were either directly or indirectly under the Soviet thumb, and dare I say, they are much better off now that they can rule themselves independently. At least any mess they make is of their own making, rather than centrally imposed.

I guess what parent is saying that for every Poland, we seem to have an Afghanistan ( the odds of favorable outcome are hit or miss ). One would hope people in charge in US are actually studying the whys behind the failures and successes, because even without access to privileged information one could infer some reasons for both. I would especially like to hope that we learn from our mistakes ( as those tend to result in much greater level of misery for all ; in the event of success everyone is just patting themselves on the back ).

If they do, it won’t be because of Apple.

> Perhaps recognizing the existing power dynamics?

by "power dynamics", do you mean lies propagated by the CCP?

> Perhaps playing the game over a longer time frame?

Apple isn't a government. What do you mean here exactly? Money? That propagating lies for money is a legitimate way of doing business?

Hm.

Parent is likely referring to Apple's position in the market[1], where their profit - not revenue - alone ( 141b in 2021 ) dwarfs many nations' GDP[2] in the world.

I would not call it a lie.

[1]https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/gross-p... [2]https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?most_rec...

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