Yes, but that's the case for any company under any state. Do you believe that Apple is not under the US government's control just because they're allowed to criticize them?
Now ask Jack Ma about the time he even criticized regulations, much less defied them...
They didn't win, the phone was broken into with the help of a third party (so ultimately Apple actually did give the government a backdoor, unofficially) so the court case was mooted. Apple never actually defied the US legal system.
> Now ask Jack Ma
Ask ABC about their FCC license when they publish speech critical of the regime[1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_Jimmy_Kimmel_Liv...!
Not sure how finding an exploit in software means the company is compliant. Microsoft would be criminally liable for untold damage if that was the case.
Kimmels bosses were kissing the ring. But it's unlikely there was real threat. The courts have been shooting Trumps authoritarian dreams down left and right.
China has no (legitimate) courts.
Jack Ma was criticizing China's strategy for minimizing risk in its financial system, essentially arguing for more risk that could harm ordinary people to benefit his company, Ant Group. Unlike the US, much of the financial sector in China is state-owned, so it makes sense that they would follow the state's line. The worst that happened to him is that he had to step away from roles in his companies and stay out of public image, which is very different to the image of being disappeared.
Both of their companies are under their respective state's control. The only difference seems to be what you're willing to recognize as control, since I'm much more interested in what happens when push comes to shove.
If Xi tells Xiaomi to put his face one every xiaomi phone, tomorrow everyone with a xiaomi phone wakes up to Xi.
China is an authoritarian regime, through and through.
America is an authoritarian regime if you just read reddit comments all day.
You must really have a distorted view on society to believe that companies can be free from their respective governments on the basis of freedom of speech, which is largely a western concept.
It's only in chronically online communities that you run into these "American is on par with China" types.
I can agree with your whole comment except for the fact that we are comparing an if / future statement when push comes to shove for america since although one can predict about national security or espionage act or anything, Nobody can be 100% certain if apple would have to have follow it
Now compare this with China where states own the financial sector and have a share in every company so there is a 100% certainty there that when push comes to shove that china is a more likelier culprit than america
I feel like everything breaks down when push comes to shove though because I feel like Europe which has its flaws is still more stable (most parts of it) in terms of blatant corruption and authoritarianism than the trends displayed by america right now but if push comes to shove, I feel like Europe could have harsher rules than maybe even America considering America's "freedom" sentiment
The question however which I wish to ask is that what are some countries which you think are good if push comes to shove. I suppose switzerland but its gotten too good of a reputation that its become infamous for bad stuff but I am interested what other countries would you list.
This is part of why I really don't think authoritarianism is relevant to whether or not China will lead in AI. There are much better metrics for this, like the amount of resources poured into research vs. applications, or the kind of research being done (open source, more than just LLMs etc.).
But this is because they are an extremely large company but on the other hand, there can be smaller companies in america who can actually be independent yet the same just isn't possible in china.
Also even with things like apple, they don't really unlock computers for the govt.
https://www.apple.com/customer-letter/answers/
So in a way, yeah. Not sure about the current oligarchy / kiss-the-ring type of deal they might have but that seems a problem of america's authoritarianism and not the fault of the democratic model itself