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Comment by 31337Logic | Hacker News Reader

> It’s not unethical to comply with the law in foreign countries and,

It is, when that very law itself is unethical.

> while I obviously don’t agree with China’s censorship

Oh? And why is that an "obvious disagreement" for you? Are you trying to say something like everyone has a right to freedom of expression? If so, then you should stand with companies that try to promote those rights, rather than those who help remove those rights at the expense of turning a profit.

Last I checked, Apple has plenty of money already. They could have done better, in this case, and set the moral example.

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> It is, when that very law itself is unethical.

Great, so Apple should pull out of the US due to the TikTok ban.

> If so, then you should stand with companies that try to promote those rights, rather than those who help remove those rights at the expense of turning a profit.

Which mobile phone manufacturer am I going to do that by using. Samsung might not sell phones in China, but they've got the exploding batteries, photoshopped camera images, throttling of third party apps. Huawei and Xiaomi _are_ chinese, Motorola have consistently been in support of oppressive regimes, Google are in the midst of bad press for their handling of the protest this week.

My bank and workplace all but require a modern iOS or Android device to participate, and this is not a hill I'm going to die on against multiple bilino dollar companies.

Don’t worry, the big corporations are supposed to fall on their sword, not you.

That's not the point.

There are no good options other than eschewing participation, and the consequences of that are incredibly broad.

Right. The people who think Apple should take a stand against the Chinese government simply aren't thinking deeply about the topic. It's just emotions. Freedom of speech good, big corporation bad. If you think any deeper than that at all, it falls apart.

There's no good option for you, there's no good option for Apple. You're supposed to what, not participate in the modern economy because Chinese citizens haven't had freedom of speech for 70 years? Apple's supposed to what, disrupt the manufacturing of the world's most profitable product because China added 2 apps to the list of a zillion they've banned?

This is a problem for governement, not corporations. The US and our democratic allies could exert slow, steady pressure on China, and in fact, that's exactly what we've been doing. It's building. We're re-shoring/near shoring at an increasing rate. Politicians in both parties in the US are now pro-tarriffs, which prior to 2016 both were against them.

We have plenty of unethical laws too. We lock up far more people than they do, for instance. We’re getting ready to ban Tik Tok despite no allegations of any wrong doing, just because it’s Chinese. Should Chinese corporations refuse to do business here? Should Apple not comply with our government when it bans Tik Tok too?

“Plenty of money already” doesn’t mean much when your entire business is selling hardware made in China. Are they supposed to bankrupt the company just because China doesn’t want Threads on people’s phones?

How can a country's legal system be unethical? Unethical in relation to what? Each society creates its own political and ethical system, period.

I suggest you read up on the very basic and fundamental differences between law and ethics. Sometimes they overlap, but it's not a necessary requirement. Indeed, there are many many examples of laws around the world that you will find unethical.

Obviously, any country can have an unethical legal system relative to another country's ethics. That is just another flimsy foundation for colonialism. On the other hand, give me a single example of a country whose legal system is unethical according to its own standards. And thanks for telling me to educate myself - valuable advice, that.

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