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Comment by abtinf | Hacker News Reader

It’s easy to blame private companies, like Apple and Disney.

It’s harder to blame politicians, and harder still to blame the root of their power: the people.

And it’s hardest of all to blame yourself. Show me the article that calls these companies evil for caving into political pressure and refusing to immolate themselves, that also argues to neuter government power so that the companies don’t face existential threats from the whims of whatever gang happens to run the show in the moment.

Nope, instead every time there is an implicit argument that even more political power and guns and force are needed.

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This kind of apologia seems to be doing rounds lately. It is extension of the "this government has received mandate from the people". A line frequently repeated by this administration. People gave mandate, government acted, company buckled. Now why don't we think of these poor private billion dollar companies - how are they at fault if people elected this government?

Lots of articles out there blaming people who enabled this mess. The divide doesn't exist for nothing.

Even more articles blaming this administration for pressuring private companies. For examples lots of ink has been spent on FCC and Kimmel saga.

So, if there are few posts like these blaming private companies I think it should be fine without this kind of apologia.

A lot of people aren't against the government having the power to do this; they're simply against the current government doing it.

I used to think we could argue that, "If we allow our team to do this, then what happens when the other team has power" But at this point I think there's an agreed view that the "other team" is going to abuse and grab for power regardless, so it's only hurting your own agenda / values / team not to when you are in charge. There's no restraint anymore, and most people raging against authoritarianism do so in partisan selective ways. Guess I should just laugh and enjoy the decline. Either way, technology can be used to force decentralization, but tech companies? Not anymore (if ever).

That sounds accurate

Truer words have never gone so hard. Damn this hits.

> that also argues to neuter government power

The article states that the government did not have this power to begin with!

> Apple insists that it is only complying with lawful orders, which is patently untrue. Pam Bondi has no authority to order the censorship of this legal speech tool, which is likely why she didn't seek a court order and instead merely rage-tweeted about it. This was sufficient to get Apple CEO Tim Cook [...] to cave in.

sorry, this is just self-righteous axe-grinding. the linked article in no way advocates for giving more power to the government

No. He does have a point. You can't put all the blame on companies when we implicitly consent to this without holding our politicians accountable.

Either companies must face existential threat from the government or the government must face existential threat from the companies.

Yes. I would say this is true for every corporation. And big corporations must abide by the rules of the system because they have A LOT to lose. They get a lot of free stuff from the government. And then there is pressure to make higher revenue every year.

> And big corporations must abide by the rules of the system

This wasn’t about written rules. Obeying a social media post by a joke of an attorney general is apparently now the standard Apple hold themselves to.

Politics is rarely about written rules.

You’re reading an awful lot into this post but it’s not your fault for being able to read it.

What mechanism do you propose be used to control the behavior of multi-billion dollar corporations? Many of which have more money and power than most counties.

Yes, hidden in this post that complains against violent government thugs, there is actually an argument for more violent government thugs!

It's not just Apple vs the government. It's also Apple vs Apple. As a silicon valley tech company, it's likely that fewer Apple employees identify as Republicans than among the general U.S. population. Nevertheless, it must still be a sizable fraction of the company. Anyone deciding policy at Apple has to take that into account.

It likely aligns with California generally:

  Democrats: 10,396,792 (44.80%)
  Republicans: 5,896,203 (25.41%)
  Third Party/Other: 1,577,083 (6.80%)
  Unaffiliated: 5,336,441 (23.00%)

However, keep in mind that Apple’s rank-and-file employees have virtually no power to effect change, and are no more likely to rock the boat than their counterparts in other Silicon Valley companies. They like their job and their healthcare.

Also a huge % of them are likely on guest worker visas, meaning if they do push back, they can be fired and deported.

The point is if the most powerful institutions outside the direct government executive branch do not collectively fight back then essentially the executive branch gets more and more power... this is a slippery slope where we see the erosion of institutions it's a Playbook that has played out in countless countries and it's sad to see it happening here. The most powerful brands have enormous power and if they were to put up a fight they can get allies from the very people you point out ultimately are responsible for this dangerous turn of events

How does a corporation fight back when previous administrations have neutered its ability to do so? The Patriot Act (Bush), mass spying on Americans via gag orders (Bush/Obama), proactive anti-trust litigation as a government cudgel (Biden/Trump), jawboning (all of them). Trump's second term is certainly the most brazen and nakedly transparent attempt at control, but the groundwork had been laid decades earlier.

The erosion you speak of happened long before anyone paid attention and the solution people and politicians sought was a further weakening of companies grip on their own assets (more taxes, more regulations, more interference in the market). As an earlier commenter pointed out, the popular political solution to thugs in government has been voting for more thugs in government. In such a circumstance, what does a company owe to those didn't have its interests in mind when it mattered? Even if it can, why should Apple risk becoming a political target against the current administration for the sake of a fickle electorate?

Lobbying. They do it left and right focused on their pet issues. Congress can be an ally

> The point is if the most powerful institutions outside the direct government executive branch do not collectively fight back then essentially the executive branch gets more and more power...

Apple is not going to save us. https://sixcolors.com/post/2025/10/apples-iceblock-capitulat...

…even if the company does “the right thing,” it won’t be a decision taken from a moral standpoint. It will be practical. Mercenary. Because that is what is demanded by this technological/capitalist terror we’ve devised for ourselves. That’s the rules of the game. Them’s the breaks. When Apple made the decision to stand firm in the San Bernardino case, it did so not because it was the right thing to do, but because its business reputation relies on its claims of privacy and security.

> The most powerful brands have enormous power and if they were to put up a fight they can get allies

Apple already had a chance to align themselves with the "sideloaders" and Free Software nerds, what did they choose instead?

They went the power-grab route. Tim Cook (and whoever his successor is) depends on informal US protectionism to stop Apple from being litigated into the dirt both by the DOJ and courts abroad. If they try to amend their greedy mistake, America's government has them blackmailed. They're the perfect, profitable lapdog.

From a customer perspective, power is the problem. Apple would have had no incentive to fuck over their users if they didn't desperately desire their App Store revenue to be locked-down and enforced by the state. Now, because America refused to seriously reign-in Apple, they are a fall-guy for the tech industry as a whole. You should not be surprised if Trump tries throwing Cook under the bus as part of the "woke deep state" by the time his admin is up. If you can imagine yourself in Tim's shoes, you're probably just trying to make it a few more years without destroying Silicon Valley in the legal catastrophe that would ensue if you resisted. Emotions like "regret" or "honor" don't even factor into that equation.

You wrote this under an article which literally blames the government and literally opens with the following description of ICE "... masked snatch-squads who illegally terrorize brown people in America's cities, capitulating to a warrantless demand from Trump's DoJ boss Pam Bondi"

I read the article before I posted. It’s essentially 1% blaming the government and 99% blaming the companies for not having backbone and for pursuing profit.

You can't have an article that is 100% one content and at the same time 100% the other content.

It's an article criticizing Apple for caving in to dictatorial demands, and for other failures. It's not an article on government failures.

And it's not an article that claims that government needs more guns as you claim that every article is.

But who is the intended audience? Maybe the author hasn't given up on persuading Tim Cook. I don't think there's much chance, but maybe there's a small chance.

If the article was instead giving a pitch to the government, there'd be 0% chance.

We, the people, cannot regulate NSA activities we never knew about. We couldn't protest Apple and Google's warrantless Push Notification system until Wyden blew the whistle on it: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-...

You cannot ever expect any company to have a backbone, but you also can't expect the government to be perfectly honest. The real culprit is our software habits, and companies are the main driver in neutering your software freedom.

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