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If Trump tells Apple to put his face on everyone's lock screen, Apple laughs and says no. Trump can push but the courts will shoot it down.

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.

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The question is whether or not American companies like Apple are controlled by the US government. Do you genuinely believe that, just because you can go to a court, that you're somehow free of control? Whether or not the state is authoritarian doesn't change that.

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.

I don't have to reach for "do you really believe" hypotheticals. I know how it is in the US and I know how it is in China.

It's only in chronically online communities that you run into these "American is on par with China" types.

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