[HN Gopher] Fired App Reviewer Sues Apple
___________________________________________________________________
Fired App Reviewer Sues Apple
Author : ksec
Score : 230 points
Date : 2021-01-01 08:57 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (reason.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (reason.com)
| crististm wrote:
| Chinese gov to Apple: so, we've heard you are building (edit: and
| selling) your products here huh?
| xuki wrote:
| Manufacturing is one thing, the purchasing power of Chinese is
| another thing. China is about 15-20% of Apple's business and
| they can't afford to lose it. China will happily ban iPhone
| while letting Apple keep manufacturing.
| crististm wrote:
| It's an interesting twist. It doesn't change the fact that
| Apple takes shit from Chinese gov to be able to make money.
|
| I understand, rule of the land and all that, but I won't pull
| any punches: Apple knows exactly what they are doing and they
| are no fluffy angels.
| TheChaplain wrote:
| Reading the PDF I really can't understand how the court says
| there was no harassment..
|
| And 80 app reviews per day? Do they even have time to eat or take
| a dump?
| schappim wrote:
| Yikes! That is less than 6 min per app.
| simonh wrote:
| Many, possibly the vast majority are probably reviews of
| minor updates to existing apps.
| gregoriol wrote:
| Shouldn't the reviewer check every update? What if the
| "minor" update contains some rule breaking changes? They
| can't know/assume from the developer's update description
| that it is a minor update, and don't have much other
| information about what has changed.
|
| Otherwise it would be very easy to first publish a "normal"
| app, and then just publish an update with bad stuff added.
| simonh wrote:
| They do review every update, but they have a lot of
| automated tools that help a lot when reviewing minor
| changes. So for example, if only a few bytes have changed
| and the binary is only a few bytes different in size they
| can mostly rely on the tools. That's probably most bug
| fix updates right there.
| gregoriol wrote:
| Automated tools will probably check private api usage and
| maybe some basic technical stuff, but they won't be able
| to catch a feature change.
|
| And even if you were right, changing some text or url
| would pass your test as only a few characters change, but
| that could make a big difference regarding the feature.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| > So for example, if only a few bytes have changed and
| the binary is only a few bytes different in size they can
| mostly rely on the tools.
|
| That's not how compiled optimized binaries work,
| especially not with Apple platforms, ever-changing Xcode
| and Swift compiler versions, etc. Have you tried
| comparing the binaries of minor app updates? (I just
| tried comparing the binaries of my own app updates, where
| I have the source code and know what changed, but it's
| not pretty, and not "a few bytes".) Moreover, App Store
| reviewers are not the least bit qualified to even make
| this determination with regard to "bytes changed".
|
| Two binaries aren't even going to have the same load
| address for the __TEXT __text segment, and thus a lot of
| stuff will be different. You think App Store reviewers
| have any conception of the structure of a Mach-O? Now,
| one might try to hand-wave and say the "automated tools"
| will take care of everything, but that's extremely
| unlikely. Diffing binaries is a skill that requires a
| human with extensive experience in reverse engineering.
| If it were totally automated, then all of the securities
| researchers out there would have those tools too, but
| they don't. There are of course tools that help a lot,
| but the human researcher is still essential to the
| process.
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| I assume Apple has access to the source code of the app,
| so they probably are not comparing binary blobs for
| changes.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| > I assume Apple has access to the source code of the app
|
| No, Apple doesn't get our source code. Why would you
| assume that?
| gregoriol wrote:
| They don't: you submit a compiled binary for review
| dagmx wrote:
| Sort of. You submit either a binary blob or LLVM IR. The
| latter is great because Apple can do the final platform
| specific compile for you, and build out for new systems
| as needed.
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| I don't get the downvotes.
|
| They are making the compiler.
|
| How hard can it be to do a proper decompiler?
|
| They have the binary; they have the source (in some way)
| [deleted]
| echelon wrote:
| Apple fans act like this process is designed to protect them
| from malware, but it's so superficial that it couldn't be
| much better than automated detection methods.
|
| In reality, Apple is looking for
|
| 1. Loopholes around its walled garden
|
| 2. Payments not being taxed
|
| 3. Apps not using the latest demanded framework, such as
| Apple sign in (they're not _your_ users, they 're Apple users
| on loan to you)
|
| 4. Political content its Chinese minders will be unhappy
| about
| threeseed wrote:
| Most reviews are just for updates.
|
| In which case they are simply checking copy, opening the app
| and clicking around a bit etc i.e. no more than a few minutes.
|
| The longer reviews are reserved for new apps and edge cases.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| > The longer reviews are reserved for new apps and edge
| cases.
|
| As an App Store developer myself, I'm not sure it's true. For
| example, one of my 1.0 releases was "In Review" for all of 14
| minutes, which is shorter than many of my minor update
| releases.
|
| On the outside, we don't know how review works. It's mostly
| speculation. People talk about how they _think_ it _should_
| work, but how it actually works is a different matter.
| matwood wrote:
| How many apps do you have? Have you had issues with other
| ones? Was this app under the same account? I'm sure
| heuristics are used to speed up the process where possible.
|
| It's been awhile since I've written native iOS apps, but
| early on in the App Store days a developer could request an
| expedited review. We managed to get on this list and stay
| there for the entire life of the app. Even the dark days of
| long review times, our app never took more than 24 hours.
| simonh wrote:
| China is a major problem for 'western' companies. From sports and
| media companies that are walking on egg shells in case actors or
| sports stars, or even fans, say things critical of the Chinese
| government. De-funding or sidelining of movies potentially
| critical of the Chinese government. Imagine a film like The
| Manchurian Candidate being made now? It's not gong to happen, not
| from a major film studio anyway. The problems Apple is having
| here, and also with Chinese supplier companies possibly using
| transported Uighur labourers working under some form of coercion,
| can affect pretty much any foreign company operating in China.
|
| In this case the App in question was pulled from the App Store in
| China. On the one hand I can understand it's the Chinese market
| so Chinese Government rules apply. Clearly this would not be
| acceptable if the App was pulled internationally. On the other
| hand, if the US government tried to get an App pulled when it's
| not clear the App violated any US law or App Store rules, Apple
| would fight it to the courts. That's a tricky course to take with
| China, but it's obviously the right thing to do.
|
| If Chinese law says the App has to be pulled and a Chinese court
| says so then fine, I've no problem with Apple complying with
| that, the alternative would be to expect them to criminalise
| Apple employees in China. That's clearly not a reasonable
| expectation on any company. But at least it would force the
| Chinese authorities to account for their actions and make it
| clear what they are doing and why.
|
| The problem is it's not really possible for individual companies
| to fight the Chinese government. Even for a company like Apple,
| the asymmetry in the power of the CCP relative to Apple is
| overwhelming. The CCP could crush Apple, and they know it. They
| hold enough economic power now that they could quite feasibly
| drive a major film studio to the wall, or slice off the whole
| profit margin of many US media or sports organisations.
|
| It's time for western governments to work together on this.
| Congressional hearings in the US, debates at the G7 and G20. The
| WTO is pretty crippled at the moment and that needs to change.
| Whatever side of the US political fence you are and think about
| US imports, surely you all want to support US exports and the
| rights of US companies abroad right? I'm a Brit and ok we're out
| of the EU now, but on things like this we're all in the same boat
| and need to work together. We need to all support Australia in
| their current spat with the CCP.
|
| We are desperately in need of a broad and international political
| debate about these issues. It affects all of us.
| antihero wrote:
| In a certain way it is quite funny that a "communist" society
| is actually using western capitalist's money to undermine
| everything about their society.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Because they're not communists. Just like the Nazis weren't
| socialists. For a better example, the DPRK (North Korea) has
| "democratic" in its name, but they are very clearly _not_
| democratic.
| felipelemos wrote:
| I don't know why you are being downvoted. It's a very
| reasonable way to think.
|
| We should have a policy of reciprocity with China. This must be
| discussed urgently.
| echelon wrote:
| Anti-China rhetoric gets downvoted with fervor on HN.
|
| I also agree with OP. It's one of the most pressing issues
| for our country and for democratic nations throughout the
| world.
|
| I'd be happy if it were Japan, Korea, or India (or a
| democratic China) rising to #1, but the CCP being in that
| slot is scary. The thought of having an oppressive regime
| become the world's most powerful economic force is
| unsettling.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| As most nations today, China has its own troll farms to
| foster positive sentiment. Sadly, I am sure that affects HN
| as well.
|
| Come to think of it, US government does not appear to
| officially use them. Thus far I only saw allegations of
| various companies using them ( and I am sure they are ). I
| did hear various LEOs troll forums ( but that is for
| reasons other than saying government is awesome ).
|
| https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/leaked-docs-reveal-how-
| ch...
| goblin89 wrote:
| You say "most nations", but I find it hard to believe
| that any democratic country would teach its citizens,
| say, simplified Chinese, and order them to infiltrate
| Chinese forums and advocate against CCP. Only a regime
| that doesn't have to worry about taxpayer's opinion could
| afford something like that.
|
| Speaking of COVID censorship, any English-speaking report
| on COVID on YouTube (especially from BBC, where comments
| tend to somewhat lack energy compared to reports by
| American media) tends to heavily feature commenters that
| ignore basic logic and argue that there should be an
| international investigation of the US for starting the
| pandemic.
|
| I would consider it hilarious but it's actually scary, a
| sporadic uncoordinated voluntary expression of approval
| characteristic to a democratic country can hardly compete
| with methodical systematic social media and forum
| warfare.
| simonh wrote:
| There have definitely been cases of astroturfing and vote
| bombing in the west, but it seems to be much less common
| these days because it almost always seems to get found
| out. If you think about it, the employees doing it aren't
| zombies, as soon as they leave the company they've got no
| reason stay loyal. News organisations are all over
| stories like that. The resulting bad press can be
| catastrophic for a company, far worse than any
| conceivable benefit from the behaviour itself.
|
| For governments in democracies it's even worse, this is
| why most government conspiracy theories don't make sense.
| Why would government employees or even soldiers
| criminalise themselves to benefit a political party or
| president they might not even personally support? Once
| particular president is out of office, there's no reason
| to stay personally loyal to them so leaders can only rely
| on people's loyalty to the nation as a whole.
|
| Conversely the CCP simply suppresses all discussion about
| the suppression, and disappears anyone who becomes too
| problematic. There are no divided political loyalties and
| no other political faction or press to go to. What's
| anyone going to do?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > There have definitely been cases of astroturfing and
| vote bombing in the west, but it seems to be much less
| common these days because it almost always seems to get
| found out.
|
| Or, it seems less common because those doing it have
| improved over time so that it almost never gets found out
| when done by the real pros, only when done by relative
| incompetents whose visible failures shield the competent
| astroturfers from suspicion. The only thing that would
| make it seem _common_ is getting found out frequently,
| after all.
| simonh wrote:
| Oh sure, it's a matter of balancing probabilities. We can
| never be certain, since it's not possible to prove a
| negative. Still, if we know there are balancing factors
| such as risks from press investigation, whistle blowers,
| accidental leaks, etc and still we see extremely low or
| no cases hitting the press, then it seems the balance of
| probability is that it's relatively rare.
|
| Compared to the extremely obvious, blatant, continuous
| Astro turfing, comment suppression, vote bombing and
| harassment we see by the authorities in China. Let's not
| make any false equivalences.
| zepto wrote:
| For once I find myself in complete agreement with you.
|
| The only reason I have sympathy for Apple in this situation
| is that at the time they began their investment in China,
| the US and the West in general believed that China was on a
| path to liberalization and genuinely wanted to support them
| as a global ally.
|
| It's not going to be easy to disentangle from that.
| mantas wrote:
| At the same time, EU is about to sign an investment agreement
| with China. And some top level EU politicians claim that
| China and USA are equal evil.
|
| As a citizen of EU member, all I can say is SAD :(
| echelon wrote:
| I'm curious about this. Could you provide a link where I
| can read more?
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I keep thinking about what you said, because I think I have
| accepted that out of the two, I would rather live under US
| regime the CCP's. More importantly, it is now clear that China
| follows US steps in ensuring a level of cultural hegemony
| enjoyed by US for some time. Although, they seem to apply it
| more deliberately. I am not convinced that is good for a world
| in general. That path they chose is the path Russian communists
| would have loved to have taken if they had the tools China now
| has ( and yes, we provided those tools ).
|
| US, despite certain misgivings, seems to have been a net good
| for the world ( not completely unlike Roman empire ). I am not
| certain China is, but have yet to see how it all plays out.
| Now, there are circles in US, that absolutely love China and
| the power the government wields there ( something along the
| lines of 'if only we could have US and China-like control, we
| would be all set' mindset ).
|
| In short, I agree with you, we, as a species, should have a
| really hard discussion over what comes next. In a lot of ways,
| this is a turning point. I am not sure, we are ready to have
| that discussion.
| franklampard wrote:
| > have been a net good for the world ?
| lph wrote:
| Seems like a stretch to claim that approving an app on behalf of
| an employer is protected political activity, but is this really
| so different from the pharmacist who refuses to fill a birth
| control prescription on religious grounds?
| oefrha wrote:
| The app in question seems to be the outlet of Guo Wengui, a
| fugitive businessman wanted for corruption charges in China.
| (Whether the charges are valid or not I have zero idea.
| Incidentally I learned about this guy from the news of Steve
| Bannon's arrest on this guy's yacht.) So stating that this app is
| merely critical of Chinese government is lacking quite a bit of
| context.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guo_Wengui
| andi999 wrote:
| The full text PDF linked at the top is interesting. I am
| wondering what bone apple had to pick with him.
| zepto wrote:
| Take a look at some of the comments which explore the nature of
| the App.
|
| Also, frankly it's not actually his decision to make.
|
| If someone doesn't want to carry out company policy, they can
| choose to resign or expect to be fired.
|
| This looks like someone with a political agenda who is using
| this situation to advance it.
| andi999 wrote:
| The app was just the final issue, in the document it starts
| with a manager ordering him to work slower and then another
| complaining about his slowness.
| zepto wrote:
| Maybe.
|
| But this is someone who is choosing to fight for a far
| right app created by a financer of Steve Bannon to remain
| in the store on the grounds of free speech.
|
| How certain are you that everything in the complaint is
| true?
| jedberg wrote:
| I think I just realized while Apple doesn't allow side loading
| apps. Because if you could side load apps, then Chinese citizens
| could side load apps, and Apple would no longer be favored in
| China.
|
| This complaint makes me feel like it's as simple as that. Apple
| just fears China.
| Lammy wrote:
| > Apple doesn't allow side loading apps
|
| HN readers might be surprised at the extent of modded-iOS-app
| communities (just like APK communities for Androids) that
| manage to exist within the meager 7-day signing window Apple
| allows a free-tier developer account. Tools like AltStore and
| ReProvision are the standard for sideloading and renewing
| (respectively) legitimate jailbreak-entrypoint apps:
|
| https://github.com/rileytestut/AltStore
|
| https://github.com/Matchstic/ReProvision
|
| Even for un-jailbroken devices there are entire alternative
| ecosystems based around sideloading modded/pirated apps. They
| are obviously full of pirated stuff, usually work by abusing an
| enterprise cert from an endless list of Chinese companies (not
| insinuating anything bad, just firsthand experience), and they
| probably have some nasty malware mixed in here and there as
| well. Zero endorsement for any of these examples from the first
| page of a DDG search, but you get the idea:
|
| https://www.tutuapp.com/pc/
|
| https://iphonecake.com/
|
| https://sideload.tweakboxapp.com/
|
| https://ipaspot.app/
|
| https://www.valuewalk.com/2019/04/spotify-up-tweakbox-users-...
| pvg wrote:
| _I think I just realized while Apple doesn 't allow side
| loading apps. Because if you could side load apps, then Chinese
| citizens_
|
| You think that's the reason, since 2007 (and every year after)
| when Apple also didn't allow sideloading apps? It seems a
| little fanciful, at best.
| Veen wrote:
| That's a possible reason, but do you have any evidence that
| it's the real reason beyond it being vaguely plausible while
| making Apple look as bad as possible. Preventing side-loading
| improves iOS device security, which is just as plausible as
| your theory.
| jedberg wrote:
| > do you have any evidence that it's the real reason
|
| This lawsuit.
|
| > Preventing side-loading improves iOS device security
|
| Yes, this is true. Welding the doors to your house shut also
| improve security. But it does so at the expense of usability.
| There is a reasonable trade off between usability and
| security and Apple makes an unreasonable choice.
| altitudinous wrote:
| In this thread - People complaining about Apple generally and
| their own app review issues and not this specific case.
| tobr wrote:
| Also people complaining about the thread and not this specific
| case.
| altitudinous wrote:
| I have nothing to say about the specific case - I think the
| app reviewer has an extremely valid case if he was following
| the app review process that Apple built.
| zepto wrote:
| He wasn't fired for following the review process.
|
| He was fired for _ignoring his supervisors_ to promote a
| far right app developed by a financer of Steve Bannon.
| dirtyid wrote:
| Someone else already covered that this is Guo Wengui's app, same
| man funding Bannon's rule of law society report on covid lab leak
| recently.
|
| > Guo Media App does not contain violent content or incite
| violence;
|
| ...
|
| Hilarious recent drama among antiCCP Chinese diaspora in west:
|
| Surrey assault victim: "They attack the real anti-CCP, actual
| pro-democratic activists"
|
| >The protesters are part of the New Federal State of China
| campaign created by Steve Bannon and Guo Wengui, who are also
| involved in the media startups GNews and GTV. Associates have
| staged protests against critics in other cities around North
| America. Gao has been critical of Guo, who is wanted for
| corruption in China.
|
| https://thebreaker.news/news/surrey-protest-victim-talks/
|
| ...
|
| Granted CCP hates Guo. Like a lot. But I think this is mostly
| western politics due to Bannon association. If Apple was really
| sucking Chinese dick, Epoch Times would not be #2 app in
| magazines and newspapers.
|
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/epoch-times-live-breaking/id67...
|
| E: is this about pulling from Chinese app stores? That's even
| less of a non story. Peak American exceptionalism thinking Apple
| should decide whether Chinese dissidents get media platforms in
| China or not. Not.
| antihero wrote:
| I mean the guy sounds like total shitheel, but how is it
| "American exceptionalism" to be against helping enacting state
| censorship? As a libcom and an internationalist I think no
| government has the right to determine what information people
| do or do not see. If your state relies on information control
| to exist then it is a fucked state.
|
| Get out of here with this pro-authoritian crazy talk.
| smolder wrote:
| We have shady information control practices in the western
| world too, but it's about spreading lies or spinning things
| to distract from the suppressed truth rather than censoring
| directly. The effects can be similarly sinister or even worse
| in some ways. It feels like the US public is losing their
| collective mind due to conflicting narratives on everything.
| There's no big majority consensus on even some basic facts as
| of late.
| will4274 wrote:
| > The effects can be similarly sinister or even worse in
| some ways
|
| You really think letting liars speak is worse than
| forbidding anybody except the ministry of truth from
| speaking?
| smolder wrote:
| I didn't say "it is worse", and, no. The comments and
| downvotes here are getting as bad as Reddit. It's
| supposed to be a place for intelligent discussion.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| In an odd way, we also had a glimpse of real information
| control vis-a-vis Hunter story. If that did not open
| people's eyes, I am not sure what would. The system of
| control is different and distributed, but the principle
| remains largely the same.
| dirtyid wrote:
| Every state requires information control to exist, secrecy is
| basis of national security. Multinational companies
| conforming to local laws and customs is status quo. Most
| companies sell products and services not ideology even if
| ideology gets imbued via marketing. Sometimes pre-existing
| ideology comes preloaded in because regionalization and
| cultural competence cost extra. The entire trade will export
| western values narrative - an economic bug that westerners
| have conflated as a soft power feature because non-western
| markets have been too small to advocate for themselves. Now
| they're not.
|
| Global market =/= global values and global trade is not trade
| between peoples but governments. CCP wants to import phones,
| NBA games, blockbuster films not western values and certainly
| not western propaganda. No one expects US soybean farmers to
| bundle exports with bibles, but somehow expect Google or
| Facebook to operate in China without complying to censorship
| laws that domestic companies must adhere to. And the have the
| audacity to suggest these western platforms are "banned" in
| China when they chose not to operate there legally. That's
| peak exceptionalism mindset. It's time to separate trade with
| imperialism and stop expecting companies to execute foreign
| policy. US companies are already foreign policy instruments
| subject to National Security Letters, that's enough.
| jessaustin wrote:
| _Every state requires information control to exist..._
|
| If that were true, rational people would be anarchists.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| "No one expects US soybean farmers to bundle exports with
| bibles, but somehow expect Google or Facebook to operate in
| China without complying to censorship laws that domestic
| companies must adhere to. And the have the audacity to
| suggest these western platforms are "banned" in China when
| they chose not to operate there legally. That's peak
| exceptionalism mindset. It's time to separate trade with
| imperialism and stop expecting companies to execute foreign
| policy. US companies are already foreign policy instruments
| subject to National Security Letters, that's enough. "
|
| The argument is interesting. You may be right about non-
| western markets. I am not an expert so I won't address it.
|
| "Global market =/= global values and global trade is not
| trade between peoples but governments"
|
| And not both? It is possible that I am misunderstanding the
| statements. Could you elaborate?
|
| "CCP wants to import phones, NBA games, blockbuster films
| not western values and certainly not western propaganda."
|
| We all want things. But NBA, films, and values ARE all part
| of western propaganda. CCP may think it is cutting all the
| dangerous thoughts from the movie, but all it does is
| creating a streisand effects resulting in bans on number 8
| and winnie the pooh. On the flip side, why does US have to
| comply with Chinese propaganda efforts?
|
| "No one expects US soybean farmers to bundle exports with
| bibles, but somehow expect Google or Facebook to operate in
| China without complying to censorship laws that domestic
| companies must adhere to."
|
| I genuinely do not understand the comparison. Could you
| provide a different example?
|
| "And the have the audacity to suggest these western
| platforms are "banned" in China when they chose not to
| operate there legally."
|
| Well, both statements are true are they not? They are
| banned, because they do not adhere to local laws. Stuff in
| Turkey is banned too and they are called out on it. It is
| not audacity to say water is wet.
|
| "That's peak exceptionalism mindset. It's time to separate
| trade with imperialism and stop expecting companies to
| execute foreign policy. US companies are already foreign
| policy instruments subject to National Security Letters,
| that's enough. "
|
| I am stealing "peak exceptionalism' phrase. I agree with
| the sentiment, but it is not realistic based just one the
| comments you made at the very beginning ( "Multinational
| companies conforming to local laws and customs is status
| quo.").
| dirtyid wrote:
| > And not both?
|
| International trade across border is fundamentally state
| to state agreement. Chinese citizen #1 does not directly
| engage with US company #2 when they make a commercial
| exchange. Geographic border is quite literally a physical
| barrier where transaction friction is reduced with
| instruments like trade deals. It's always mediated by
| laws from both parties (import/export controls) and
| sometimes a superbody (multilateral organizations).
| Smuggling wouldn't be a concept if relationship is
| between people to people.
|
| > ARE western propaganda
|
| Everything is political, but some politics are more
| acceptable than others. Censorship in media has gotten
| pretty overwhelming in PRC last few years, but "cutting
| all the dangerous thoughts" is gross hyperbole. Marvel
| blockbusters do fine in both China and US with minimal
| editing. Ditto with NBA before HK drama. Most western
| brands for that matter. There's overlap of shared taste
| in commercial goods and popular media, same can't be said
| on actual political news / propaganda like this instance.
| Especially this instance, if people knew what Guo is to
| CCP. Cracking down on speech and foreign influence is
| matter of priority and perspective.
|
| > different example
|
| Hard to think of one right now. Point is no one attaches
| values to trade of commodity items. No one insists
| McDonald's must sell pork/beef burgers in Islamic
| countries or India because of values, but when it comes
| to censorship and China/Vietnam, it's unreasonable for US
| social media platforms to follow local requirements.
| We're not even touching on a future where foreign
| companies actively endorse Chinese propaganda to cater to
| Chinese identity politics, instead of current reluctant
| endorsement due to legal compliance.
|
| > why does US have to comply
|
| No one has to comply, just don't expect market access,
| nor whine previous access is lost.
|
| > banned
|
| Dodgy Chinese brands vehicles aren't in US because
| they're banned but because they don't meet safety
| requirements. There are entire sectors of economy where
| foreign companies are actually banned i.e. some financial
| services. Implying western tech are banned is simply
| false, see Bing. But it's the basis of lots of grievance
| politics in tech, i.e. endorsing tiktok ban as reciprocal
| when tiktok follows all US laws. Same is not true vice
| versa.
|
| > not realistic
|
| Apple / Bing continues to operate fine in Chinese market.
| FB / Google were working on Chinese compliant services a
| few years ago. Maybe I'm misinterpreting. If you mean
| multinationals being beholden to multiple jurisdictions
| including home countries which supersedes everyone else,
| then yeah that's a finicky problem especially in tech
| when data can be weaponized. But that's a very broad
| matter of strategic policy decisions.
| user-the-name wrote:
| > I think no government has the right to determine what
| information people do or do not see
|
| The immediate consequence of this stance, if you take it
| literally, is that you think distributing child pornography
| should be legal.
|
| Either you think that, or you actually do think it's OK for
| governments to limit some information.
| malinens wrote:
| We currently have issues with approving our apps with app store
| as they demand using apple login. We have added it but they still
| do not approve changes. that is so annoying as it blocks some
| other things in our company...
| kdo1617 wrote:
| I recently published my first app to App Store and failed in
| the same requirement.
|
| Guess I was lucky since It was approved a few hours after I
| added it.
|
| However the bigger problem with Sign in to Apple is that they
| don't follow the standard implementation of oauth/oidc as
| pretty much everyone else does...
| JimDabell wrote:
| > However the bigger problem with Sign in to Apple is that
| they don't follow the standard implementation of oauth/oidc
| as pretty much everyone else does...
|
| The OpenID Foundation seems to disagree:
|
| > Apple Successfully Implements OpenID Connect with Sign In
| with Apple
|
| -- https://openid.net/2019/09/30/apple-successfully-
| implements-...
|
| > Thank You Too Apple
|
| -- https://openid.net/2019/10/22/thank-you-too-apple/
| erikrothoff wrote:
| What are they saying is wrong now that you've added Apple
| login?
| malinens wrote:
| They say app should be fully usable after apple login. We are
| e-mail provider and we are not startup. After apple is
| connected we ask user to enter existing credentials to add
| apple to his account (90% of cases) or register a new one
| (also You need to provide password there). Without password
| IMAP does not work for example..
| vezycash wrote:
| Does your app have sign in with google, Facebook?
|
| If not, what's their rationale for forcing you to implement
| theirs?
| echelon wrote:
| Sue them!
|
| They are so blatantly a monopoly.
|
| 50% of American consumers do their computing with a company
| that forces all interacting parties to jump through Byzantine
| hoops and pay outrageous taxes.
|
| I'm sorry, Apple fans, but this company isn't fair to the rest
| of the world. It's a dark specter, turning once open computing
| into an arcane serfdom.
| echelon wrote:
| > Apple supervisors stated that the Guo Media App is critical of
| the Chinese government and, therefore, should be removed from the
| App Store. Plaintiff Pham responded stating the Guo Media App
| publishes valid claims of corruption against the Chinese
| government and Chinese Communist Party and, therefore, should not
| be taken down.
|
| > Apple became aware of plaintiff Pham's criticism and defendant
| Apple's managers responded by retaliating against plaintiff Pham
| and ultimately terminating plaintiff Pham.
|
| Apple is a spineless piece of shit.
|
| How anyone can defend these assholes and the horrible things they
| do to US software developers is beyond me. But to defend this -
| their kowtowing to a regime that conducts slavery, rape, and
| organ harvesting - that's appalling.
|
| Anybody jumping to disagree - I strongly encourage you to think
| of all the suffering going on, and how this company would rather
| make gobs of dirty money than take the moral high ground.
|
| We cancel people and companies for far less than this.
|
| Cancel Apple.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I am no Apple defender, but I am not even sure what you
| advocate by saying cancel, which has specific political and
| cultural connotations. Do you want to boycott them? Say so. Do
| you want US to stop using the services? Do you want financial
| sector to divest? Do you want them to withdraw from China? Say
| so. It is difficult for me to guess without projecting my own
| thoughts on the matter. My recommendation is that you stop
| saying 'cancel'.
|
| As for the suffering, while absolutely accurate and true, I
| would like you to consider certain sad truth:
|
| "The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one
| who begins to weep somewhere else another stops"
|
| You think people are suffering now, but they have been for a
| while. The only difference now is that we can't pretend we
| don't know about it.
| AnHonestComment wrote:
| Talking honestly about China or communists gets you
| shadowbanned.
|
| I'm a good example.
|
| People wonder how the Holocaust happened or why IBM did
| business with Nazis.
|
| What we're seeing is the answer.
| barnacled wrote:
| China are a god-awful totalitarian lying genocidal state and
| Apple are ruthless hypocrites but as another comment here also
| points out, there's real uncertainty around Guo Wengui (whose app
| it is) and whether he in fact was corrupt (it's just difficult to
| know given China's absolute lack of rule of law).
|
| Xi JinPing did kick off a huge crackdown on corruption so
| everything's murky unfortunately.
|
| Will be interesting to see the outcome of this!
|
| EDIT: It is clear people are not actually reading what I said
| here or the article. 'At this meeting, defendant Apple
| supervisors stated that the Guo Media App is critical of the
| Chinese government and, therefore, should be removed from the App
| Store.' - this is what is claimed. I am pointing out that this
| claim is not necessarily true (or at least not as clear-cut as
| this) and if so it makes you question the whole thing somewhat.
|
| For the record I DESPISE censorship and DESPISE the CCP and
| DESPISE apple's rank hypocrisy.
|
| But I also care a great deal about accuracy and truth hence my
| pointing this inconsistency out.
| MikeUt wrote:
| Suppose he _was_ corrupt - does that justify censorship?
|
| Does everyone that is corrupt get censored, or is it
| selectively applied?
| barnacled wrote:
| Can you re-read my post and explain which part of it
| advocates for censorship?
|
| You (and the downvoters) have entirely misunderstood what I
| said. I thought opening with 'China are a god-awful
| totalitarian lying genocidal state and Apple are ruthless
| hypocrites' would make it abundantly clear my stance on this.
| Apparently not.
| depressedpanda wrote:
| You are getting downvoted because you leverage criticism
| against
|
| 1) China 2) Apple
|
| Especially the latter is an egregious sin on HN, for some
| reason.
| shaolinspirit wrote:
| I like apple devices, I always hated to develop for them. The
| burden of review on app store is just too much. I would rather
| prefer to do a web app and to be free, to make quick releases
| instead of chatting with apple reviewers for weeks when you need
| to publish some critical release. I don't need apple customers,
| neither they payment system. Web is king.
| zepto wrote:
| How does this have any relevance to the linked piece?
| TeeWEE wrote:
| Releasing apps for the App Store is also a nightmare to me.
| Every reviewer reviews your app differently.
|
| I like that apple only allows apps of a certain quality. But
| some guidelines are multi-interpretable.. Causing issues when
| submitting app updates.
| threeseed wrote:
| Mobile web apps are universally terrible.
|
| So if you want happy customers then a native app is a
| necessity.
| meibo wrote:
| They are terrible because Apple sabotages the ecosystem that
| enables them by crippling the necessary APIs in Safari.
|
| PWAs can be a great experience, and they already are on
| android and desktop when they're well done.
| throw14082020 wrote:
| can you provide some examples, preferably the best you can
| find. I'm curious what great experiences of PWAs actually
| mean, as I myself have not found any.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Tinder is a good example from a mainstream company. Also
| Facebook: better tha there mobile app.
| valuearb wrote:
| Facebook is only better in the web in that it's harder to
| track you. Uploading images, videos etc anything complex
| sucks.
|
| I say this as someone who deleted the Facebook app and
| only uses web because of tracking.
| matwood wrote:
| I don't know about great, but using Twitter as PWA on the
| iPad was better than the app b/c the iPad app was so bad.
| The app has since gotten better though.
| StavrosK wrote:
| I don't know if it's a PWA by some strict definition, but
| Fastmail has always been the best web app I've seen.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Looking at the replies to your comment, it appears there
| is a certain category of app that is better on the web
| (although it sounds like in many of those cases it is
| because their native app is so poorly implemented).
|
| So, we're not likely to see video editing software on the
| web surpass native any time soon.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Little Alchemy 2 is a PWA and it's been great since I
| installed it on my home screen.
| asutekku wrote:
| PWAs are far from good experience. The user experience just
| in clicking a button in a PWA vs native app is miles away
| from each other and that does not even need any special
| APIs. Sure, it's easy to develop but it's inferior to
| native apps as long as the web rendering tech is not on the
| same level as native
| holoduke wrote:
| I would argue that the render engine of web (CSS) is much
| more sufisticated than Apple's and Android's UI component
| frameworks. A well written single page fully clientside
| rendered web app can be as fast and good-looking as a
| native app. In my opinion it's easier to develop as well.
| [deleted]
| jamil7 wrote:
| I've done a lot of web development and iOS development
| (not so much Android so can't comment too much). I don't
| really agree with most of this statement at all.
|
| The web is a powerful platform for a lot of reasons but I
| don't agree that it's easy to develop for, iOS is a much
| less hostile and predicatble environment to run client
| side code in. I also don't believe that CSS/HTML are
| particularly well suited to rich mobile applications in
| comparison to UIKit or SwiftUI. I still write PWAs and
| native apps and don't see why they can't coexist.
| Proponents of the PWA approach seem to really want PWAs
| to replace native development.
|
| There is a lot of functionality and APIs that native apps
| have access to on both platforms, I'm not sure I see the
| point in browser developers implementing every single one
| of them when a subset can cover 70% of JSON-viewer type
| app needs, the remaining niche can be written as native
| apps.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Is PWA bad or is the _whole web_ built on top of a Text
| Markup Language just bad
| valuearb wrote:
| Yes.
| jiofih wrote:
| It's been at least four years since the artificial 300ms
| for pointer events has been removed.
| hn3333 wrote:
| FWIW: As a dev I've made both contact with Apple and with
| Google reps and it was like day and night. Apple actually
| offers support and tries to resolve my problems while Google
| feels like getting some bureaucracy done at a public office or
| worse. (Speaking of European bureaucracy, YMMV.)
| mekkkkkk wrote:
| Well the difference is that as a general app developer you
| barely ever need to interact with Google. As for Apple, you
| do it a lot. I'd rather take rare and abysmal interactions
| than constant, annoying ones.
|
| I've had numerous app rejections because of reviewers simply
| incapable of reading instructions, and it's immensely
| frustrating. Especially when important hotfixes etc. is put
| on hold for days for no reason whatsoever.
|
| Instruction: Do NOT tap button X to log in, instead use
| method Z.
|
| Rejection: Tapped button X, could not log in. Your app is
| broken.
|
| Welp, time to resubmit and wait for a couple of days to
| possibly get the same rejection again.
|
| EDIT: To clarify, the login procedure is different and
| simplified for test accounts, such as the ones reviewers are
| using. Real users need to identify with real ID for (valid)
| reasons.
| gogopuppygogo wrote:
| Years ago, a family member of mine hired a college student
| to develop an informational application for their small
| business. This app offered reference guide type information
| for a niche. To set expectations, my family member paid sub
| $10k for the entire app to be developed when mobile apps
| were new.
|
| After a few years it had attracted a few thousand users but
| needed updating and the developer was non-responsive. The
| family member of mine was non-technical and had allowed the
| developer to publish the app under their own developer
| account.
|
| A saga begins that I won't bore everyone with the details
| but basically this family member didn't want to lose the
| thousands of users. They tried to get the developer to send
| them the app to maintain but the developer was non
| responsive. They tried to enforce their trademark on the
| app but Google would only delist it.
|
| Now they had no listing at all for their company so they
| tried to start over. They tried to create a new app with
| the same name but Google's review process wouldn't let them
| because another app had already existed with that name.
| Armed with a trademark and people we knew who worked at
| Google we got exactly zero steps further after three months
| of trying to work with Google on the issue.
|
| Eventually, we tracked down the mother of the developer who
| had ghosted on us and paid them to give us their developer
| account. Where we showed the trademark, had the app re-
| activated, and moved it to another Google account we
| controlled.
|
| Basically, Google couldn't help us at all. It was a mess.
| Eventually we got things sorted but we had to go around
| Google.
|
| Was this Google's fault? Heck no. The family member got
| unprofessional help from a student developer who ghosted on
| them but Google didn't make it easy to fix the issue. They
| made it impossible.
| valuearb wrote:
| The fault was thinking you could pay less than $10k and
| get competent professional development devices for your
| app. That's less than a month of a professional
| developers time. I had to pay half that just to get the
| interior of my house painted, and it took two people less
| than a week.
|
| And without a maintenance agreement the developer isn't
| going to help you, they have their own life to live. You
| think they are going to take vacation days from their
| next job to figure out that old code? As usual the
| problem is the client.
|
| Full disclosure: I write this as a contract developer who
| had to take over an active app on the store when the
| client fired the previous developers, and tried to update
| it themselves. I have to update 140,000 lines of code
| with zero comments or documentation, and the previous
| devs aren't accessible. In my case the clients screwed
| themselves, but got lucky cause I'm very very good.
| bartvk wrote:
| So to recap: party Foo tries to take over the developer
| account of party Bar, using trademark law. Google makes
| this not possible.
|
| How is this a problem?
| toast0 wrote:
| Party Foo allows party Bar to release an app using Foo's
| trademark. Party Foo wishes to release their own app
| using their trademark, as they've rescinded the
| permission of party Bar. Google makes this not possible.
|
| How is that not a problem? Yes, parties Foo and Bar
| probably used the wrong procedure when releasing the app,
| but can't fix that.
|
| Google has no exception handling ability, and it's awful.
| You can't merge G suite organizations when there's a
| corporate merger. Clearly, you should have known five
| years ago, that you were going to be purchased by X. Same
| story, no exception handling.
| murkle wrote:
| So it's not possible to steal accounts - sounds like a
| good thing to me
| mekkkkkk wrote:
| That certainly sounds less than ideal. I have also had a
| few interactions of this nature with Google, and unless
| you have contacts in the company or have some sort of
| partnership, it's very hard to get any form of manual
| intervention.
|
| That being said, Apple is also known for being incredibly
| draconian when it comes to account management. I don't
| think you would have been in a better position on iOS.
|
| I think understaffed, off-shored and with a lack of
| permissions is just the baseline when it comes to this
| sort of tech support.
| vinayak2110 wrote:
| hi
| dep_b wrote:
| > Well the difference is that as a general app developer
| you barely ever need to interact with Google.
|
| Those days are over. Want to access text messages because
| you have 2 factor logins? Want to access phone logs because
| your apps measures how much time you spent on the phone
| with each of your clients?:
|
| Be prepared for a lot of bureaucracy.
|
| Of course you can't even access texts or calls on an iOS
| device, but then again when that's the case none of your
| customers can ever force you to build a feature around it.
| wbl wrote:
| Those permissions are rather easily abused so I'm glad
| Google is protecting my privacy by restricting them.
| dep_b wrote:
| Sure but the bureaucracy was shocking
| howlgarnish wrote:
| Why do you have button X if you're not supposed to tap it?
| Will all your users read, understand and follow your
| instructions?
| mekkkkkk wrote:
| Sorry for being unclear. I updated my post. The service
| uses swedish digital ID verification. This is not
| feasible for reviewers.
| ehutch79 wrote:
| You can't be the only app doing this. Others must have
| been approved. How did they handle it?
| valuearb wrote:
| You create special ids, and logins for Apple reviewers so
| you don't have this problem. Or you decide that's too
| much hassle and accept the extra days in review as a
| different cost.
| mekkkkkk wrote:
| Don't get me wrong, most of the time they read the
| instructions and everything works great. No issue.
|
| But the uncalled-for rejections happens enough that we
| can never feel confident. As I say, it's a major
| nuisance, but it isn't unworkable.
| toast0 wrote:
| The same way. Resubmit until a reviwer reads the testing
| comments.
| ksec wrote:
| Lots of Apps have special log in system or even Apple
| Review User account just for the reviewers.
|
| They will have the same hurdle. And resubmit again and
| again and possibly; again. That is why many developers
| are so frustrated. It isn't some one -off problems. It
| has been going on for years.
|
| Just like the Butterfly Keyboard, it wasn't until a
| journalist wrote about it and mainstream media pick it up
| causing Apple PR damage before Apple acted on it. Just
| the same with App Store review. This time with DHH.
| StavrosK wrote:
| Forgive my ignorance, but why would you ship an app with a
| broken login system (or whatever) in the first place?
| tasubotadas wrote:
| Why do people deliver software with bugs at all???
| StavrosK wrote:
| Agreed, why deliver an app with an egregious bug you know
| about?
| jessedhillon wrote:
| Is it my imagination, or has people's ability to detect
| and understand sarcasm just fallen off a cliff over the
| past 1-2 years?
| protomyth wrote:
| It's been longer than that. I would expect this is a sore
| point with people because few professions allow their
| practitioners to knowingly ship defective products to
| meet a deadline.
|
| Alternatively, why understand sarcasm when the lack of
| understanding provides some folks with an amazing weapon?
| StavrosK wrote:
| It would appear so.
| vunuxodo wrote:
| Because the Powers that Be insist on making a particular
| release date, consequences be damned.
|
| I am currently in this situation.
| mekkkkkk wrote:
| I updated the post. The normal login flow requires
| swedish digital ID. Reviewers won't have access to that.
| StavrosK wrote:
| I see, thanks. I can imagine how frustrating that must
| be, "I don't have a Swedish ID therefore your app doesn't
| work".
| mekkkkkk wrote:
| It's very frustrating indeed! I don't know how many times
| I've edited and attempted to clarify the instructions,
| but I'm still getting bounces. I really sympathize with
| the reviewers who are probably under a lot of pressure.
| But it doesn't change the fact that a hotfix release of
| our app on iOS is anxiety inducing.
| Isn0gud wrote:
| On a side note; Not having a Swedish ID in Sweden makes a
| lot of things very cumbersome and some even impossible,
| having one makes one of the most straightforward and
| convenient bureaucracy systems I have experienced.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| I hope we'll reach a point where we have a better system
| than a simple Social Insurance Number in Canada, which
| has no cryptographic protection whatsoever and can be
| major pain in the butt if leaked from a data breach like
| with had with the Desjardins Credit Union.
| mekkkkkk wrote:
| Yeah. The increasing reliance on BankID in Sweden is a
| blessing and a curse. For us swedes born into the system
| it's incredibly convenient.
|
| On the flip side I've heard my fair share of horror
| stories from expats that get locked out of necessary
| services only because they don't have a social security
| number and bank account (yet). And that process can take
| a while.
| nicoburns wrote:
| As a practical solution, I wonder if you could provide
| the reviewers with a fake id that you hardcode into the
| backend for test accounts. Whcih could allow them to use
| the same login UI (even if the underlying codepath is
| different)
| mekkkkkk wrote:
| The ID login flow is basically UI-less. The user taps the
| login button, a separate identification app (that
| basically all swedes have) is launched, and as soon as
| the authentication is completed the user is navigated to
| the logged in view. It's a very seamless experience, and
| a lot of swedish apps work this way.
|
| On the other hand it means that it's impossible to
| determine which user is logging in until the proper auth
| is complete. And thus you cannot have "special accounts"
| using this flow.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Ah, the login flow is in a separate app. That does indeed
| make it tricky!
| ehutch79 wrote:
| Your users will absolutely tap X. They will find your app
| is broken.
| gcmrtc wrote:
| Well, that is what most of your users would have done
| anyway. You dealt with a reviewer instead of multiple angry
| users that couldn't log in, looks like the review process
| works.
| mekkkkkk wrote:
| It's a different login procedure for test accounts (such
| as the ones made available for reviewers).
| ratww wrote:
| Curious: any reason it can't be the same button?
| mekkkkkk wrote:
| I updated my post, the user facing login is using Swedish
| digital ID, which naturally the reviewers do not have
| access to.
| [deleted]
| valuearb wrote:
| You need to do a better job documenting test logins and
| instructions for reviewers. Not defending Apple, but don't
| half-ass the things you control when you go to review.
| mekkkkkk wrote:
| I don't know how you got access to our developer console,
| but you need to stop.
| avree wrote:
| Yeah, it's amazing how painful Google makes any sort of
| developer support for a company that's supposed to be
| "developer-centric".
|
| With Apple, you may have to convince them of your opinion,
| but you can very quickly talk to a human who will reply with
| an actual, thoughtful response.
|
| With Google, if you manage to get a human on the other side
| of the line, you're probably weeks or months later, several
| automated forms and replies deep, and completely confused.
| pulse7 wrote:
| <sarcasm>You may be liable for stealing Apple's 30% by not
| participating in the App store. So please think again and
| rather write an app...</sarcasm>
| abhinav22 wrote:
| My experience has been nothing like that. The developer portal
| is definitely a bit buggy but all my apps have been reviewed
| and approved very timely. Critical updates go through very
| quickly.
|
| However I appreciate it's a big process and given the amount of
| complaints online on how bad the process is, I put a lot of
| extra care to make sure everything goes through very smoothly.
| I use TestFlight a lot to test a lot and I look at the App
| Store process as akin to sending my software to a publisher and
| writing to CDs - I go to full efforts to make sure it is as
| perfect as possible by the point I'm submitting.
|
| Also might have to do with number of users you have. Now I have
| quite a few downloads on my main app, so I may be getting a bit
| better treatment on priority fixes.
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| The submitted URL was https://mjtsai.com/blog/2020/12/31/fired-
| app-reviewer-sues-a..., which points to several other articles.
| Of those, Volokh seems to have the most information, so we've
| changed the link above to that. If there's a better URL, we can
| change it again.
| Animats wrote:
| China's attempts to censor the rest of the world have become a
| big deal.[1] Hollywood caved in some time back. The NBA caved.
| Now Apple.
|
| There was an attempt in 2012 to pass the "Global Online Freedom
| Act of 2012", prohibiting US companies from assisting foreign
| censorship operations. Didn't pass.
|
| Apple's history of censorship is strange and amusing. They have,
| at various times, caved in to both China and Russia. Sending the
| word "Taiwan" from an iPhone with a Chinese country code at one
| time crashed iPHones. [2]
|
| [1] https://fair.org/home/chinese-censorship-of-us-media-new-
| spi...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Apple
| boopmaster wrote:
| There's a lot going on in that complaint. This US based employee
| approved the app in the Chinese App Store, and it was not the
| first screw up they had made. I'm sympathic to a lousy job
| experience at any employer. While it sounds more like a DEI issue
| at heart, and possibly a training or hiring failure, I'm doubtful
| that the courts would not side with Apple here.
| berdario wrote:
| I haven't looked into the other screw ups, but I basically
| agree with everything in the snippet of the complaint that
| appears in the article, except one thing:
|
| "it should remain on the App Store as a matter of free speech"
|
| Free speech is a matter for the government, not for private
| business decisions... If you as an employee are pushing back
| against your employer because of "free speech", you're going to
| have a bad time (i.e. risk losing the job, as it happened).
|
| That said, I'm curious about this Guo Media, and the first
| thing I found when looking that up is:
|
| https://huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/steve-bannon-guo-wengui-g...
|
| "Free speech" is often used as a fig leaf for the alt right, so
| this is unfortunately unsurprising :/
|
| I wish good luck to Trieu Pham, even if personally I wouldn't
| have picked Guo Media as the hill to die on
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I don't understand how that article is linked with the alt
| right? Or is it just conservatives = alt right?
|
| American dems are definitely less hostile than conservatives
| towards China so it feels natural than a wanted fugitive in
| China would work with conservatives.
|
| I agree free speech doesn't apply here, given Apple it's a
| private company, but it definitely aligns Apple with
| Facebook, Twitter, Google and whatever other Big Tech company
| that censures whatever they don't like (applying their own
| policies only when they want).
|
| It's also interesting to see who's lining up with China.
| btilly wrote:
| _I don 't understand how that article is linked with the
| alt right? Or is it just conservatives = alt right?_
|
| Steve Bannon is strongly associated with the alt right. See
| https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/steve-bannon-
| fiv... for a list of reasons why, including his own
| statements on the matter.
|
| That said the friendship of the two seems to be a case of
| "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". With their common
| enemy being the Chinese government.
|
| Steve Bannon opposes China because he believes in a
| cyclical view of history, and the next cycle, the "fourth
| turning", is likely to feature a war with the Middle East
| and/or China.
|
| Guo Wengui opposes China because he thinks they will kill
| him for corruption. To be fair, you don't get as successful
| as he did in a corrupt environment without being corrupt
| yourself, so China probably has reason to kill him. But it
| is also a bit of a case of the pot calling the kettle
| black.
| philwelch wrote:
| There are, broadly speaking, two categories of people who
| advocate for free speech: civil libertarians who advocate
| for free speech on principle, and people with unpopular
| opinions that tend to face censorship.
|
| In 20th century America, between approximately _Schenck v.
| United States_ and _Brandenburg v. Ohio_ , those "people
| with unpopular opinions that tend to face censorship"
| tended to be the ones on the far left--socialists,
| communists, draft resisters--who fell victim to sedition
| and anti-syndicalism laws. As of 2021, there is no
| realistic threat of the far left being censored, but there
| are calls to censor the far right, many of which are based
| on the exact same arguments that once justified those
| sedition and anti-syndicalism laws. This has caused the far
| left to abandon the cause of free speech (since it is no
| longer tactically useful for them) and the far right to
| take it up (because it _is_ tactically useful for _them_ ).
| tsimionescu wrote:
| > As of 2021, there is no realistic threat of the far
| left being censored
|
| This is entirely inaccurate, as most discussions about
| labeling AntiFa a 'terrorist organization' will show, and
| the huge investment many large companies make for
| preventing unionization. It is true that some people on
| the far left believe this, but they are entirely wrong.
| geofft wrote:
| > _As of 2021, there is no realistic threat of the far
| left being censored_
|
| The laws from 20th-century America are still on the books
| and are still being enforced. I have literally heard of
| people who, today, cannot advocate for their far-left
| political views because it imperils their immigration
| status. Here is a reminder from the USCIS as of two
| months ago that membership in any Communist party causes
| you to be ineligible to become a permanent resident:
| https://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/uscis-issues-policy-
| guidan...
|
| Meanwhile, in the court of public opinion, here is
| someone self-censoring their left-but-nowhere-near-far-
| left position (a fairly mainstream position) and being
| attacked for their beliefs by a right-wing media outlet
| that, ordinarily, claims to support free speech:
| https://thefederalist.com/2020/12/30/wannabe-jeopardy-
| host-k...
| dahfizz wrote:
| It's bizarre and terrifying that people somehow associate
| freedom with fascism. The idea that wanting rights makes
| someone "alt right" is absolutely insane.
| bjustin wrote:
| "Free speech" is used by some people, more often alt-
| right people than others, to mean freedom from
| consequences. Even criticism is derided as attacks on the
| "right" to "free speech". That's presumably what the
| original post mentioning this meant.
|
| There is no right to not face consequences from other
| private citizens for bad behavior.
| philwelch wrote:
| "There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee
| freedom after speech" --Idi Amin.
| winston_smith wrote:
| (wp: "Popularly known as the "Butcher of Uganda", he is
| considered one of the most brutal despots in world
| history")
| geofft wrote:
| It would be helpful if I saw "free speech" being
| championed by anyone other than the fascists.
|
| I used to believe free speech was a virtue. I no longer
| believe that because universally everyone who cares
| strongly about it is actually using it as cover for
| pushing opinions they don't like out of public discourse.
| If that's the result of free speech advocacy, then I
| don't see how I can conclude that it's good for society.
| xibalba wrote:
| > if I saw "free speech" being championed by anyone other
| than the fascists.
|
| How about the ACLU? Are they fascist?
|
| Perhaps you're only seeing alt-right associated with
| because of the particular filter bubble(s) in which you
| are located.
|
| I strongly encourage you to dig a little deeper, reflect
| a little more, and think a little harder on this topic.
|
| Free speech is the font from which all other rights
| spring and are defended. It is sacrosanct. Thus, folks
| like the ACLU try to defend it everywhere for everyone,
| not just the folks that pass purity tests.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| The ACLU now supports the 1A and the 2A SEPARATELY, but
| is opposed to having both simultaneously at one event.
|
| https://www.vox.com/2017/8/20/16167870/aclu-hate-speech-
| nazi...
| vkou wrote:
| Have you considered that some of the ways in which the
| alt-right demands their rights may be fascistic?
|
| Ponder, for instance, the proud boy chant of "Jews will
| not replace us." Are you going to let that one slide
| because, well, those folks are just making demands for
| their rights?
| dahfizz wrote:
| "Jews will not replace us" is not an appeal to human
| rights, it's just racist. I don't see the connection
| you're trying to make.
|
| I'm genuinely confused on what your position is. Why do
| you have an association with freedom and the alt-right?
| Implicit in that position is that the Democratic left is
| somehow anti-rights. How can you simultaneously believe
| that:
|
| 1) the alt right champions rights / freedoms. 2) this
| makes the alt right fascist / authoritarian. 3) your
| party / alignment / position opposes the alt right, and
| therefore opposes the freedoms they advocate for. 4) by
| opposing freedom and human rights, your party is anti
| fascist.
|
| I'm genuinely confused. And why the connection with free
| speech in particular? The alt right also stages protests
| alot, do you think protesting is bad?
| chalst wrote:
| Steve Bannon said of Breitbart when he was still in charge
| of it that "We're the platform for the alt-right". Miles
| Guo, the CEO of Guo Media, seems to have latched on to
| Bannon's brand of political journalism as well-suited to
| the objectives of at least some of his enterprises, e.g.
| Gnews [1].
|
| [1]: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/gnews/
| will4274 wrote:
| > Free speech is a matter for the government
|
| No, it isn't. Free speech is a moral principle, and a matter
| for philosophers, liberals, and all thinking people
| generally. The first amendment is a specific codification of
| the moral principle. It's the first amendment that is a
| matter for government.
|
| While I agree with you that employees aren't in a good
| position to advocate for free speech, consumers are - and we
| should all be holding Apple to the standard Trieu Pham tried
| to hold Apple to - not because of this or that law, but
| because free speech is the right thing to do.
| rhexs wrote:
| Yes, "free speech" includes speech you don't like. That's the
| point.
| valuearb wrote:
| Yes, and you aren't required to host other people's free
| speech in your home, property or business.
| mafuy wrote:
| But in this case, the (Chinese) government induced a
| company to annoy an employee. That actually is an assault
| on free-speech, because it was not the company itself
| that decided to do so.
|
| If this is allowed, then what would prevent the US
| government from telling Apple to fire everyone who they
| do not like? If the gov commits a free speech prohibited
| action itself, or directs a company to do it for them,
| does not and must not make a difference. Else, the
| protection of a citizen would be worthless.
|
| The difference here to my example is that is was the CCP
| instead of the USG that induced the action. But does that
| make it any better?
| valuearb wrote:
| Apple made a business decision. They are free to ignore
| the Chinese governments wishes, at the cost of access to
| the Chinese market place.
|
| The reviewer works for Apple, and has to follow Apples
| rules, not make up their own. I also dislike that Apple
| kowtows to the CCP, but that is their choice and given
| the large revenues involved, I understand it. I won't
| tell Apple Shareholders to leave a legal market and give
| up a quarter of their share value, just in order to meet
| my ethical standards.
|
| You may enjoy walking around your home wearing no pants.
| That's your right. But when you go to a work place, it's
| your employers right to tell you to put your pants back
| on.
| drewwwwww wrote:
| the plaintiff's core allegation is that the other "screw ups"
| were concocted (or at least exaggerated in severity) as a
| retaliation for approving the app and/or discussing the
| situation with peers.
| LeicaLatte wrote:
| Information control is no different from border control. Is it
| wrong for China to enforce it via Apple?
| LeicaLatte wrote:
| Border control should, apparently, exclude information control.
| Why?
| objclxt wrote:
| > Information control is no different from border control.
|
| Well, no, it's quite different.
|
| A border can be controlled, information cannot. East Germany
| could stop people crossing the border to West Germany (at
| least, those who weren't willing to take the risk of being shot
| at). They couldn't stop West German radio stations being
| broadcast back across the border.
|
| Information control isn't anything like border control, because
| information is permeable to your physical border. You can
| shoot-to-kill people crossing your borders, but good luck doing
| that with electromagnetic radiation.
|
| At best you can jam it or attempt to control the flow
| domestically (by, for example, banning radios), but in both
| cases it's easily circumvented.
| andybak wrote:
| Not much info on the app but there's an Android version here:
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.gnews.app&...
| toyg wrote:
| "The only civilian media in the world that regards takedown of
| the Chinese Communist Party as the sole stand in the current
| Expose revolution"
|
| I just don't understand why the PRC would have a problem with
| this. /s
| FpUser wrote:
| Except for a couple of short contracts I am trying to ignore
| mobile app market. I just can't stand that I need anybody's
| permission to install / sell my products. Instant critical
| updates delivery that saved my bacon quite a few times is also
| out of question on mobile. I am aware about sideloading on
| Android but how many regular users are willing to follow through
| on that model.
| sneak wrote:
| It's Apple's fault that they've built a system that is so
| perfectly suited for state-mandated censorship.
|
| They had to have known this would have happened. The lack of
| sideloading on iOS doesn't just protect users from malware: it
| protects repressive governments from criticism and protects
| corrupt organizations with political power from reporting and
| attempts at organization or reform.
|
| Furthermore, it's reprehensible for Apple to tout their
| commitment to human rights, but also appoint themselves the
| decider that you're not permitted to choose to see nudity in the
| apps on a device that you purchased. Only assholes decide for
| other competent adults what they're not allowed to watch, see, or
| read.
|
| Inserting rent-seekers hellbent on surveillance into every single
| little purchase we engage in on a daily basis is the worst thing
| that's happened to our society in a very long time.
| cageface wrote:
| Yes this exactly. If Apple insists that they have absolute
| control over what you can install on hardware that you
| ostensibly own then they also bear the blame for for kowtowing
| to every jurisdiction's whims.
|
| The ability to install the software we want on hardware we own
| should be every user's irrevocable right. Wrap it in three
| layers of warnings and opt-in dialogs if necessary to protect
| people but it needs to be possible.
|
| Maybe you trust Apple enough to decide what software can run
| but are you also comfortable giving this power to whoever is in
| power in your government at any given time? It's an extremely
| dangerous precedent.
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| The firing might be legal and within the selective corporate
| guidelines, however, to me, this is the final straw, will never
| buy or even use any apple product again. The cowardice displayed
| by the managers and the company bending to a hysterical
| authoritarian regime borders a comedy. Too often have people
| "just followed orders" in the name of a payslip. Apple is a
| company of crooks (tax evasion, in bed with the chinese
| government) with a clientele of mostly fanboys/fangirls.
| simonh wrote:
| Ok, so who do you go to that isn't? Even Fairphone is up to
| their eyeballs in Chinese suppliers and they say in their own
| literature they can't account for all their upstreams.
|
| Apple are always the ones that get walloped publicly on issues
| like this, and actually I'm ok with that. It's good these
| issues get air time at all, if Apple didn't exist and it was
| all Microsoft, Samsung and such none of this would ever get out
| and if it did nobody would care. But pretending this is all
| about Apple, slagging them in a comment and then going and
| buying the next Chinese made gear from Amazon or whoever is
| just brushing this under the rug.
| strogonoff wrote:
| Purism's Librem 5 seems to be a worthy alternative. They
| publish[0] schematics and aim to allow users to verify that
| hardware hadn't been altered by a supplier.
|
| [0] https://puri.sm/posts/a-different-kind-of-transparency/
| simonh wrote:
| Both efforts are great and well worth pursuing, but Purism
| don't really talk at all about their hardware supply chain.
| Their focus in on the software and end user privacy, so
| they're exposed to exactly the same hardware supply chain
| risks.
| strogonoff wrote:
| Disclosing suppliers implies existential possibility of a
| supplier that can be trusted. A user with heightened
| security needs understands that the only way to guarantee
| supplier trustworthiness is to personally be present at
| the factory.
|
| Disclosing schematics (open-source hardware) and board
| x-rays removes the supplier trust requirement. A user
| with heightened security needs can diff received hardware
| with the reference (don't trust; verify), or build their
| own phone to the spec.
| joncrane wrote:
| >they say in their own literature they can't account for all
| their upstreams.
|
| Sounds to me like a) at least they're trying and b)they're
| being honest. Still a significant moral upgrade over most of
| their competitors.
| simonh wrote:
| Oh absolutely, I've got a lot of respect for that team. I'm
| just saying even if you're wiling to really go the extra
| mile this can still happen. I think the only way to really
| address it is to put the blame squarely where it actually
| lies, with the people doing it. Holding manufacturers to
| account does play a role in flushing these problems out
| into the open, but we need to be realistic about the limits
| of what we can expect from them.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Isn't Apple doing both a and b? They seem very open about
| struggling with suppliers, commit to goals they can use
| their clout to impact, and report on those goals using
| third party verification.
| dann0 wrote:
| You're welcome to your view. But do keep in mind that one needs
| to follow the laws of each jurisdiction in which they operate,
| regardless of your opinion of that "rightness" of the laws.
|
| Your breathless rhetoric is pointless too. When was the last
| time you actually bought or used an Apple device? You formed
| this view well before now, and now you're just posturing.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Isn't it example of <<people "just followed orders" in the
| name of a payslip>> quote? Apple could withdraw from Chinese
| market losing customers but staying clean of accusations.
| scns wrote:
| What would their shareholders say?
| dnh44 wrote:
| Until they move all of their production out of China
| withdrawing from the Chinese market is impossible.
| saurik wrote:
| Somehow Android phones exist in China, and somehow most
| of them allow you to install arbitrary apps. Apple
| _chooses_ to build a platform amenable to censorship.
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| Less than a month ago, a laptop. It is going back to where it
| came from tomorrow as soon the shops open. The jurisdiction
| claim is ok but this case hit "home" , I understand a US
| based employee lost the job based on this.
|
| Calling the owner of the app a dissident sounds a lot like
| aparatchik rhetoric to me, he was never convicted personally
| yet and that does not make the app reviewer a dissident.
|
| Further, apple is assuming the hypocritical moral high
| grounds (shouting to be privacy pioneers) without backing it
| up when it counts. They bend in whichever direction the CCP
| aks them on demand for a buck/Renminbi
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