[HN Gopher] Huawei phones automatically deleting videos of the p...
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Huawei phones automatically deleting videos of the protests?
Author : qwertyuiop_
Score : 657 points
Date : 2022-11-30 17:05 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| Magi604 wrote:
| While it wouldn't surprise me if such a thing was actually the
| case, I want more evidence other than a Tik-Tok tier Tweet,
| otherwise this is just another inflammatory political Tweet
| rumor.
| zac23or wrote:
| Huawei is not different from Apple, Google, etc. No company
| really standing up for democracy. Companies defend their business
| and profits. And the idea "If you are not a customer, you are a
| product". it is totally innocent. EVERYTHING for any company is a
| product. Customers are products, employees are products, freedom,
| democracy. Anything is for sale if it makes a profit.
| [deleted]
| tguvot wrote:
| Wanted to post this to HN last night but there were absolutely no
| alternative sources confirming this. Are there any now ?
| prewett wrote:
| Wow, this sounds like a very concrete reason to not buy any
| Chinese electronics as long as the CCP is in power. I assumed
| Chinese electronics was likely to spy on you, but there was some
| uncertainty in whether it actually happened. If this is true,
| then for pure self-protection individuals, companies, and
| governments pretty much need avoid any Chinese electronics with a
| network connection.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Good luck finding electronics that don't touch the Chinese
| supply chain
| fsflover wrote:
| Here it is: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa
| fumar wrote:
| It is never too late to start. Regardless of the CCP, we've
| witnessed the over reliance on a singular country for
| hardware and its supply chain impacts. It is time to
| diversify.
| maxbond wrote:
| Reminder that as a technologist, everything you do is political.
| You are building the context inside of which society exists. You
| are building the canals along which power flows.
|
| What you're doing might seem innocuous. It might be innocuous at
| the time. But as the pieces fall into place, as it responds to
| pressures from the market and the state, it might transform into
| something else entirely.
|
| Assuming this story is true, the tooling that was used here
| probably started it's life much like Dropbox. What more innocuous
| app is there then that?
|
| I don't really have answers for how to respond to this
| information; it's something I'm still working on myself. But as a
| community and industry, we can't blink it.
| poisonborz wrote:
| Absolutely this. Society, and the industry itself views
| software engineers still as highly paid blue collar workers
| doing menial plumbing tasks. In reality they are writing the
| words on the pages of social engineering. It can be a washing
| machine firmware programmed to ignore circumstances that could
| save shelf live of the device, networking firmware giving
| access to manufacturer that could be backdoored, game
| development where other parts of the software siphon data to
| advertisers, all realms of software has the potential to be a
| tool of adversaries.
|
| While this potential is there for every paid job ever, software
| works invisibly, it's untraceable and ununderstandeable for the
| general population.
|
| The profession would gain a lot from something like a code of
| conduct that everyone could make an oath to.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > The profession would gain a lot from something like a code
| of conduct that everyone could make an oath to.
|
| They have a word for this in non-American countries -
| "regulation".
| maxbond wrote:
| There are regulations we should adopt, but what GP proposed
| is a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach like
| regulation. For instance, we could, as software
| professionals, take an oath not to write malware or spyware
| ("malware with a budget"), and at the same time, take an
| oath to invest time in the security of a piece of software.
|
| If a civil engineer is approached to design a bridge in an
| unsafe manner, it is the expectation of society that they
| will refuse. If that bridge collapses, they're expected to
| take responsibility and to participate in an investigation
| to ensure this never happens again.
|
| We should be thinking along these lines. I used to think I
| was just a hacker and that software engineer was just a job
| title. After reading this series of blog posts [1], my eyes
| were opened. Once I accepted I was some kind of engineer, I
| asked myself what that meant. What I realized was, an
| engineer has a responsibility to society, because they
| build the context society inhabits.
|
| That's what separates them from a hacker or tinkerer,
| exploring in their garage for the joy of it. In your garage
| you can be an artist, accountable to no one. When you build
| the systems people rely on every day - you aren't a hacker
| anymore.
|
| [1] https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/are-we-really-
| engineers/
| draw_down wrote:
| This doesn't actually tell us anything though. In this view
| buying grapes at the market is a political act.
| maxbond wrote:
| How so? I'm suggesting that when you build infrastructure
| that profoundly effects society, it cannot be said to be
| apolitical or value neutral.
|
| In what way is this comparable to buying grapes?
| psychomugs wrote:
| "Whether or not it draws on new scientific research, technology
| is a branch of moral philosophy, not of science." - Paul
| Goodman
|
| Having spent a decade in engineering academia with a fair bit
| of time in companies, it's deeply troubling how little
| attention is paid to this sentiment.
| khana wrote:
| valeg wrote:
| Pathetic. How did they organize the Tiananmen square protests
| without those shiny Huawei phones? This demonstrates an
| insecurity of the regime.
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| And people wonder why the US has blocked Huawei infrastructure in
| the US. They have no qualms silencing their own population and
| invest heavily in surveillance technology. Why would anyone want
| their equipment?
|
| What worries me is that the US itself will go in the same
| direction. The surveillance is already there, but it is not acted
| on for the most part in everyday life. But there may be a clock
| on how long that will last.
| FooBarWidget wrote:
| I have a Huawei phone. I live in the Netherlands and the phone
| was bought here. The videos are not deleted from my device.
|
| If they do delete, then at least they only do that in China,
| and they treat other jurisdictions differently.
| ashwagary wrote:
| >The videos are not deleted from my device.
|
| Correct, that twitter thread is only about Chinese people
| living in China.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _If they do delete, then at least they only do that in China,
| and they treat other jurisdictions differently._
|
| "If they do have slave labor, then at least they only do that
| in China, and they treat other jurisdictions differently."
|
| Good to know if that if something is bad, but doesn't affect
| you personally, it is suddenly no longer bad.
| FooBarWidget wrote:
| There's a huge difference between "I condemn this practice
| because I consider it bad anywhere" vs "they are a threat
| to our country".
| chinabot wrote:
| The fact they can should be the worry.
| em500 wrote:
| I think technically all the cloud sync picture/file
| platforms (Onedrive, iCloud, gDrive, Dropbox, etc) can do
| that, can't they? How I understand it, if I (or the
| platform owner) delete something from one of the synced
| devices, it should be deleted from all the synced devices.
| throwaway23597 wrote:
| The thing I'm starting to get increasingly scared about is what
| these US companies will do with the data that's _already
| there_. A significant proportion of our society has become
| totally OK with censorship, cancellation, and ostracizing of
| those who they politically disagree with. One could easily
| imagine a situation where this intensifies and suddenly
| political ideologues are analyzing all the voice recordings
| Alexa ever made in order to out political enemies. Keeping all
| this data around, in my view, means it will inevitably get
| misused over a long time scale.
| fortuna86 wrote:
| What does any of that have to do with this story about Huawei
| and China?
| throwaway23597 wrote:
| I was responding to the parent comment?
|
| > What worries me is that the US itself will go in the same
| direction. The surveillance is already there, but it is not
| acted on for the most part in everyday life. But there may
| be a clock on how long that will last.
| TylerE wrote:
| Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences of
| said speech when the majority of the public thinks you're a
| raging asshole.
| janalsncm wrote:
| Doesn't this beg the question of what exactly
| "consequences" means?
|
| Most people would agree free speech doesn't mean a local
| restaurant has to serve you. But what about other
| businesses?
|
| Can dentists refuse to treat you?
|
| Can hospitals refuse to give you life saving treatments
| based on your political views? Many hospitals in the US are
| private businesses.
|
| Most people agree that social networks can kick you out.
| But what about ISPs? Can they refuse your business?
|
| And if ISPs can refuse your business, what about water or
| electricity companies?
|
| Certainly freedom of speech means freedom from certain
| consequences. As codified in the First Amendment it means
| freedom from certain legal consequences. Of course freedom
| of speech is broader than 1A though.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Can dentists refuse to treat you?
|
| Yes.
|
| > Can hospitals refuse to give you life saving treatments
| based on your political views?
|
| Ask a Catholic hospital to do an abortion.
|
| > And if ISPs can refuse your business, what about water
| or electricity companies?
|
| We have specific law for these sorts of scenarios.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier and
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_utility
| janalsncm wrote:
| I wouldn't consider Catholic hospitals abortions to be
| the same situation. They don't give abortions to anyone.
| That's not the same as refusing a particular patient
| because they don't like things that patient has said in
| the past.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| But there have been CVS/Walgreens pharmacists who refuse
| to offer birth control or the morning after pill.
| janalsncm wrote:
| Still, that's not refusing service to a particular
| customer based on that customer's speech. I believe that
| pharmacist would refuse any customer. My question is
| about a pharmacy which would refuse e.g. Alex Jones
| because of things he's said in the past.
| not2b wrote:
| But they treat pregnant women, and somethings things go
| wrong. Very wrong.
|
| The procedures to deal with incomplete miscarriages are
| the same as for abortion. Delaying such procedures can
| have horrible consequences. Some Catholic hospitals have
| played this game, delaying and delaying until sepsis or
| some other condition becomes life threatening. If they
| wait too long, the pregnant woman may die.
| janalsncm wrote:
| I agree that abortion is sometimes necessary but that's
| not really what I'm asking. Since we are talking about
| cancel culture I am asking what the spectrum of
| consequences should be for unpopular speech. One
| potential consequence could be that a hospital refuses to
| treat someone who has said something unpopular. For
| example Alex Jones has a heart attack, should a hospital
| deny him because of who he is? Note that my question is
| also not about what the law says, but what it should be.
|
| My question is, should a hospital be able to deny
| treatment to a person based on that person's previous
| speech? Is potentially being denied at the emergency room
| just another "consequence" of saying unpopular things?
| What if the hospital is privately owned, and the
| potential patient has slandered the owner or doctor in
| the past?
| P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
| I agree with your point, but want to point out that in
| the US utility companies are regulated by local
| government and they cannot refuse service. Not only can
| they not refuse service, they MUST service all areas,
| even if it's at a loss (not profitable).
|
| And when utility companies try to stop servicing areas
| because of the profit loss, these local governments
| absolutely will fine the shit out of them for it.
|
| That doesn't change your point, but that particular
| example isn't a good one.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/los-angeles-shut-off-water-
| powe...
|
| Water and power shut off to houses having parties during
| lockdown. Certainly a form of protest, and assembly, and
| yet here we are.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| A declared state of emergency has legal effects like
| this.
|
| We've long accepted limits on assembly; pretty much any
| building you enter other than a private home will have a
| "maximum capacity x people, by order of the fire marshal"
| placard somewhere.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| It was clear overreach. I believe anyone reasonable saw
| it as overreach at the time.
|
| Using Covid as an excuse for emergency executive powers
| was a failing of state and local governments across the
| US.
|
| While las Angeles was cutting power to houses, my kids
| were in private school in person building life skills. So
| many of their peers are socially stunted. It's sad.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Again, "police shut down rager" was a thing long before
| COVID. Especially if you live in a college town.
|
| The article even indicates this action took place under
| "the city's party house ordinance, which became law in
| 2018".
| janalsncm wrote:
| Sorry, I should have been more clear. My questions aren't
| about what the law _is_ , they're about what the law
| _should be_. Some people may believe that ISPs shouldn't
| be required to service everyone.
| [deleted]
| ABeeSea wrote:
| Hospitals are covered under EMTALA so if it's truly
| emergency and they accept Medicare, they are legally
| forced to.
|
| A hospital that doesn't take Medicare has no obligation
| to give you any treatments.
| janalsncm wrote:
| Fair enough, I'll take your word on what the law says.
|
| What if I live in an area where there's only one hospital
| and it doesn't take Medicare, do I just need to watch
| what I say so I don't piss them off and they deny me life
| saving treatment? Even if that may happen to be legal, is
| that what the law should be?
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| > Can dentists refuse to treat you?
|
| If you're a raging asshole, yes.
| janalsncm wrote:
| I guess so. But what if the dentist simply doesn't like
| your politics? (Interpret this however you like:
| Democrat/Republican, pro/anti union, pro/anti Ukrainian
| sovereignty, etc. Suffice it to say, he doesn't like
| something you wrote on Facebook.)
|
| And what if that dentist is the only one within 50 miles?
| Even if it happens to be legal for the dentist to deny
| you, should it be?
|
| Aside from the narrow question here, my broader point is
| that "consequences for your actions" is the whole
| question we should be discussing and I don't think the
| term "cancel culture" is that helpful in actually
| exploring that issue.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Freedom of speech in private should mean free from
| consequences.
| Volundr wrote:
| Should it? If I say something to someone in private that
| causes them to think I'm a raging asshole, should they
| not be free to share it with others, and should that not
| have consequences for me?
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Do you mean "free from _public_ consequences "?
|
| For example, if I say something controversial to my SO at
| home it shouldn't cause me to get fired because Alexa
| overheard and its recording leaked?
|
| I suspect there is a lot of nuance to both sides here.
| Like if the president of the US tells racist jokes to
| their lover in private, then public consequences after a
| tell-all book may be in order. (By public I mean people
| may chose to vote them out.)
| P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
| Can we stop with this stupidity please?
|
| What if yer dog gets mad at you yelling at the television
| and bites you, that was a consequence, right? so ha! I've
| totally proven how silly you are for thinking that you
| should be able to make a statement to yourself about
| muhammed without actors in the middle east calling for
| your death!
|
| ----
|
| When people talk about consequences for saying stupid
| things, this is exactly what they're talking about.
| Embarrassment for saying completely assinine things, not
| losing your ability to support yourself because you made
| a stupid joke when you were 14.
|
| If you can't understand the difference between the two,
| that's a you problem.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| You can apologize for making a stupid joke when you were
| 14, and you won't lose the ability to support yourself.
| People like Brendan Eich doubled down on being assholes,
| saying essentially that they would donate to campaigns to
| retroactively make gay marriage illegal again. Now he's a
| crypto grifter.
| P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
| I've seen a story of a man losing his business because
| his daughter made a stupid joke.
|
| You can bury your head in the sand and pretend this sort
| of damage isn't happening regularly, but the rest of us
| choose not to.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| If you've seen it, you can point us to it instead of
| claiming the rest of us are burying our heads in the
| sand.
|
| I raised my head up high and actively looked for the
| story by Googling "lost business daughter joke" and came
| up empty.
| P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
| I said YOU are burying your head in the sand, I made no
| comment about others.
|
| Stand on your own two feet.
| TylerE wrote:
| A public street or a tv interview isn't in privste.
| matai_kolila wrote:
| Depends on how private. Speech is communication, which
| almost always necessitates more than one person, and the
| other people are perfectly within their own rights to
| provide some consequences to the speech they hear in
| private.
| mynameisbob wrote:
| Umm no. Unless you're in a looked soundproof room talking
| to yourself speech is a social activity and no one gets
| to dictate how others interpret and react to your speech.
| astrange wrote:
| Freedom of speech has to mean freedom from consequences;
| consequences are the only thing you can be free from.
|
| There might be some difference between "consequences to the
| message" and "consequences to the speaker" but I've never
| seen anyone try to tell those apart.
| TylerE wrote:
| Then right to free speech only protects you from
| _government_ consequences.
| astrange wrote:
| Yes, I think that's the right way to put it. The xkcd
| comic people link doesn't say that though...
| throwaway23597 wrote:
| See, you scare me. Should private speech in the home have
| consequences? Speech that not only did you not _mean_ to
| make public, but you didn 't even realize could possibly
| _become_ public? That 's the road to hell for our society.
| matai_kolila wrote:
| What even is a "private speech"? Are you worried Alexa is
| listening to you as you rant to yourself?
| olyjohn wrote:
| It's not _a_ private speech, smartass. It 's private
| speech. As in speech that is private. As in, when you're
| in the privacy of your own home, and you're expressing
| yourself to yourself or others, that would be private
| speech. Speech that is not directed to a public audience.
| Even when you talk to yourself in your mind, that is your
| own private speech.
| matai_kolila wrote:
| Nope, once you involve others, you involve consequences,
| as it is now _their_ free speech (and free association)
| that often generates those consequences.
| throwaway23597 wrote:
| > Are you worried Alexa is listening to you as you rant
| to yourself?
|
| Well, I mean, quite literally, it is. It's always
| listening to you, and that's how it knows when you say
| "Alexa". And IIUC all these audio recordings are sent
| right to AWS and stored indefinitely.
| greesil wrote:
| "Alexa, would you like to hear my racist tirade?
| throwaway23597 wrote:
| Haha, I can't imagine that this happens often. But that
| being said, there are documented instances of Alexa
| picking up sensitive conversations on accident, for
| example in this WaPo article where it was observed
| picking up sensitive information:
|
| "There were even sensitive conversations that somehow
| triggered Alexa's "wake word" to start recording,
| including my family discussing medication and a friend
| conducting a business deal."
|
| https://archive.ph/c7G1c
| djleni wrote:
| That's not a free speech or "cancelling" problem. That's
| a privacy problem.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > Should private speech in the home have consequences?
| Speech that not only did you not mean to make public, but
| you didn't even realize could possibly become public?
|
| What do you think about the (former) NFL team owner whose
| voicemail containing racial slurs was leaked. It was
| _not_ supposed to become public: should he not have faced
| any consequences for it on that basis? IIRC, he was
| forced to sell his franchise by the other teams.
| throwaway23597 wrote:
| It's an interesting case, for sure. I'm not familiar with
| the specifics, but I think a key variable is how exactly
| the conversation was leaked.
|
| If the receiver of the voicemail leaked it, that's a
| consequence that the owner should have been prepared for
| - that sort of thing happens all the time, like with Alec
| Baldwin.
|
| If it was the phone company that leaked it, then I think
| that is a different story. Abusing data from a platform
| advertised as private, perpetrated by someone who does
| not even know the people in question, is wrong. Nobody is
| prepared for the consequences of petabytes of
| conversation data to be analyzed by random people they
| don't even know. This is the situation I'm more concerned
| about.
| jaywalk wrote:
| You're talking about the former owner of the NBA's Los
| Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling. Not an NFL owner.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Thank you, I was recalling off the top of my head and
| mixed up the leagues.
| Tommah wrote:
| Something similar happened with the Carolina Panthers in
| the NFL. The owner sold the team because of allegations
| that he was saying racist and sexist things, although
| there was no recording of him AFAIK.
| https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/18/facing-misconduct-
| investigat...
| rhino369 wrote:
| Depends on what you mean by consequences. If the
| consequence is people thinking you are a raging asshole
| sure. If it's people strongly disagreeing with you, sure.
|
| But if consequences means there is a coordinated effort
| among major corporations to punish and prevent you from
| speaking by de-platforming you or anyone who gives you a
| platform--that isn't freedom of speech (regardless of
| whether its allowed under the 1st amendment or not).
|
| US social media banned covid misinformation as defined by
| US health officials. Why is banning covid misinformation as
| defined by Chinese health officials any different? Shit,
| the Chinese policy isn't even that different than the US's
| view 18 months ago--US lockdown protestors were vilified.
| canadiantim wrote:
| I always found the people who say "Freedom of speech does
| not mean freedom from consequences" are the authoritarian
| assholes, but that may just be me.
| TylerE wrote:
| I'm just tired of bullies claiming to be victims. It's
| such bullshit.
| chasil wrote:
| A current standard for free speech within the United
| States is the legal standard of "imminent lawless
| action."
|
| This replaced the previous standard of "clear and present
| danger."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action
| HideousKojima wrote:
| And just try saying it about all sorts of other freedoms
| and see how chilling it sounds: "freedom of the press is
| not freedom from consequences."
| BaseballPhysics wrote:
| > And just try saying it about all sorts of other
| freedoms and see how chilling it sounds: "freedom of the
| press is not freedom from consequences."
|
| That is literally true.
|
| News organizations are sued all the time for libel or
| slander, sometimes for good reason.
|
| Hell, Fox had to backtrack on some of their voting
| machine coverage, recently, for precisely this reason.
|
| In fact, this is generally true for _all_ freedoms.
|
| Honestly, I challenge you to name just one other human
| right where you believe there is no legal or social
| restriction on how you can exercise that right.
| mmcgaha wrote:
| Damn I think you just changed my opinion.
| rnk wrote:
| Explain what about that is chilling. If I make false and
| defamatory statements in a newspaper (person xyz is a
| criminal who stole money, committed crimes against
| children, whatever), if it is not true you can be sued.
| Is that wrong, you have hurt their public character? But
| it's nontrivial to get a conviction, there seems to be a
| reasonable balance. If you say "Elon Musk person is a
| horrible leader, scares me, makes bad choices, kills baby
| bunny rabbits for fun" he likely won't win a suit - but
| it would be costly to defend yourself.
| BaseballPhysics wrote:
| > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation;
| don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't
| sneer, including at the rest of the community. Edit out
| swipes.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| whateveracct wrote:
| Why exactly? You _are_ free from consequences .. from the
| government. But how would you expect to be free from
| consequences when you offend millions of people using the
| Internet? Why should I not be able to ban people from my
| forum if I and most of my users don't like them and they
| are dragging down the quality of the forum?
|
| Those are consequences, and I don't see how you can have
| some utopia where that isn't viable. Then you just live
| in a world where you are forced to listen to the
| broadcasted thoughts of idiots.
| shakezula wrote:
| I don't understand the inclusion of cancellation in this
| argument. How is cancellation different from boycotting, a
| right long upheld by the Supreme Court with direct legal ties
| to freedom of speech?
| jvalencia wrote:
| Cancellation is different in that it attempts to "boycott"
| an individual for holding non-majority views. If you can no
| longer get a job because you are vocally pro-choice for
| example, that's a problem. The state should protect
| someone's right to express their beliefs. This means that
| you will have pro-life / pro-choice people at the same
| company, and that needs to be ok. If it's not, it has a
| chilling effect on freedom of speech.
| shakezula wrote:
| "Boycotting", "cancelling", both seem to be democracy in
| action. And non-majority views is too ambiguous a
| definition. This would put vegans on the same side of the
| scale as extreme race purists.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I am specifically worried about the extensiveness of the
| surveillance and control estate globally should western
| liberal values lose influence and autocratic control is
| grandfathered access to these tools of mass oppression. I
| think the discussion of the present can digress into relevant
| but distracting political debate, but it's impossible to
| assert regardless of your political bent that these tools
| could be extraordinarily harmful in the hands of some future
| society.
|
| I don't see a way out honestly. The tools are too useful and
| too compelling. Any work done now on differential privacy,
| E2E, FHE, and other technologies can be easily reverted in a
| way that's entirely transparent given the UX people expect. I
| feel that the rigorous maintenance of rights and freedoms as
| seen from a western liberal perspective is a very high energy
| state, and nature and human societies settle into lower
| energy states intrinsically.
| slg wrote:
| >A significant proportion of our society has become totally
| OK with censorship, cancellation
|
| This specific phrasing jumped out to me because being against
| both censorship and cancellation should be a contradiction.
| Cancellation is an example of the exercising of free speech.
|
| Should I not have the freedom to organize a protest of my
| local theater for hosting a controversial figure that I think
| is worthy of cancellation? Isn't that a very basic and
| fundamental example of free speech?
|
| Comments like yours seems to reveal a lack of a consistent
| principle underlying your argument. Instead, you seem to be
| defining free speech as some narrow window of speech that you
| agree with and speech outside that isn't worth protecting.
| Ironically it ends up making your comment a good example of
| the exact thing you were decrying.
| spfzero wrote:
| Cancellation is using speech and other means to limit
| someone else's ability to speak. When you demand that your
| local theatre forbid someone from speaking, rather then
| just choosing to not attend and listen to it, that's yes,
| technically, using your right of free speech. It's what
| you're using it for that is the difference. In one case, to
| get your message heard, in the other, to prevent someone
| from doing that. In essence using free speech to stop free
| speech.
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| >you seem to be defining free speech
|
| GP didn't mention free speach anywhere. Yet you still take
| the liberty of defining words they didn't use for them.
|
| >Comments like yours seems to reveal a lack of a consistent
| principle underlying your argument
|
| cancellation is a societal issue, free speech is a legal
| issue. GP didn't say "we should make cancellation illegal"
| they said cancellation, which "a significant proportion of
| our society has become totally OK with" combined with
| surveilance, will cause even more cancelation. That is bad.
| (And I agree, btw.)
|
| You can have fair laws and still have an unfair population
| obsessed with censorship and cancellation. That's bad, but
| doesn't mean we should make it illegal. Complaining about
| societal failaings does not have to mean advocating for
| those people's views to be made illegal. That seems to be
| something that censorship and cancellation advocates can't
| seem to understand.
|
| >Should I not have the freedom to organize a protest of my
| local theater for hosting a controversial figure that I
| think is worthy of cancellation?
|
| You have complete freedom to do that, but it doesn't mean
| you should or shouldn't. That's what GP is saying. And
| cancellation can be over extremely petty or unfounded
| things. Obviously there is a line but people have taken a
| "cancel first, ask questions later" approach, and over
| increasingly petty reasons. One can advocate against that
| without being against free speech, which means that the
| government cannot make speech illegal.
| slg wrote:
| You are only focusing on half of the passage I quoted.
| They also voiced opposition to censorship. I wasn't
| calling out their opposition to cancellation. I was
| saying those two views shouldn't coexist because being
| against cancellation is a form of censorship.
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| >They also voiced opposition to censorship.
|
| And? Censorship does not imply government censorship.[0]
| censorship here is simply the result of a successful
| cancellation.
|
| >being against cancellation is a form of censorship
|
| No. That would only be if GP advocated for it being
| illegal. GP is saying "don't do that" not "this should be
| illegal" or even "you should be fired and excluded for
| thinking that." The fact that you think being against
| cancellation is a form of censorship is deeply worrying.
|
| [0]https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censorship
|
| >the institution, system, or practice of censoring
|
| See also: https://www.aclu.org/other/what-censorship
|
| >Censorship, the suppression of words, images, or ideas
| that are "offensive," happens whenever some people
| succeed in imposing their personal political or moral
| values on others. Censorship can be carried out by the
| government as well as private pressure groups.
| slg wrote:
| >Censorship does not imply government censorship.
|
| ...
|
| >>being against cancellation is a form of censorship
|
| >No. That would only be if GP advocated for it being
| illegal. GP is saying "don't do that" not "this should be
| illegal"
|
| How are those two comments not in direct conflict with
| each other? If censorship is not a legal matter, GP
| arguing that people shouldn't cancel people is a form of
| censorship even if they don't argue for legal
| repercussions.
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| >GP arguing that people shouldn't cancel people is a form
| of censorship even if they don't argue for legal
| repercussions.
|
| When I wrote "GP is saying 'don't do that'" I meant
| entreaty, as in a request to stop canceling people, or as
| you put it "calling out cancelation as a growing flaw of
| society."
|
| >Don't
|
| >a command or entreaty not to do something
|
| What that is is a discussion of ethics. GP is offering
| their values, along with their reasoning:
|
| >One could easily imagine a situation where this
| intensifies and suddenly political ideologues are
| analyzing all the voice recordings Alexa ever made in
| order to out political enemies. Keeping all this data
| around, in my view, means it will inevitably get misused
| over a long time scale.
|
| None of this has stopped anyone from doing anything. It
| isn't censorship. The goal of a discussion is for both
| sides to hear each other and hopefully come to a more
| accurate conclusion. The fact that you keep conflating
| having and discussing different opinions with censorship
| is incredible.
|
| >cancel culture
|
| >the practice or tendency of engaging in mass canceling
| (see cancel entry 1 sense 1e) as a way of expressing
| disapproval and exerting social pressure[0]
|
| >censor
|
| >to examine in order to suppress (see suppress sense 2)
| or delete anything considered objectionable[1]
|
| GP being against cancel culture and saying cancel culture
| is worrysome does not amount to censorship
|
| [0]https://www.merriam-
| webster.com/dictionary/cancel%20culture
| [1]https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censoring
| slg wrote:
| The definition you cite specifically calls cancelling "a
| way of expressing disapproval".
|
| Cancellation is a group of people saying "don't do that"
| regarding something they find objectionable.
|
| GP is saying "don't do that" in regard to cancelling.
|
| GP wants those people to stop voicing their disapproval.
| That is effectively censorship of those people's speech.
| zuminator wrote:
| Censorship isn't cancellation, at least as far as the two
| terms are popularly used. Censorship involves being
| prevented from publicly speaking or promulgating one's
| views. Cancellation is shaming, social ostracization, or
| mass repudiation. There's some overlap in that a party
| with the power to censor you can use that power when
| cancelling you. But you can censor someone without
| cancelling them and cancel someone without censoring
| them.
|
| I do agree with you that being against cancellation isn't
| necessarily pro censorship either.
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| Being against cancellation and specifically, cancel
| culture, is not a form a censorship. At no point did that
| person suggest that people participating in cancel
| culture be prevented from doing so or that their ideas be
| shouted down. Funny enough, that same courtesy is usually
| not applied by the proponents of cancel culture.
| [deleted]
| jove_ wrote:
| So, if people go out and protest outside a theater that's
| cancellation and it's good? But someone makes a post
| online saying they don't like it that's censorship and
| it's bad?
| xedrac wrote:
| Except that cancellation is often accomplished via
| censorship. I do not consider voicing opposition as
| "cancellation".
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I can support the concept of free speech without cheering
| on everything someone might utter with their speech. I
| support free speech but I'm against dishonesty and calling
| someone's employer to fire them because you disagree with
| them.
|
| I just don't necessarily think those cases should let the
| state prosecute you.
|
| You might want to be sure you're interpreting someone's
| position in a way they would agree with before leveling
| something as grave as to assert their principals are
| inconsistent.
|
| Free speech is generally a legal thing while one may expect
| social mores to correct for the things they find
| distasteful and be disappointed when they don't. That is
| not a contradiction.
| slg wrote:
| > I support free speech but I'm against dishonesty and
| calling someone's employer to fire them because you
| disagree with them.
|
| Do you not see any contradiction in this sentence?
|
| Dishonest speech is still speech. If you support free
| speech, you support the ability for people to lie because
| often whether a person is lying or not is not black and
| white.
|
| If a company employs someone who makes objectionable
| statements, how is it not free speech to call up that
| company and threaten a boycott unless they are fired?
| Boycotts are one of the more fundamental examples of free
| speech. How can you be against them but for free speech
| unless you have a very narrow definition of what speech
| qualifies as being worthy of protection?
| bostonsre wrote:
| Don't your statements also have contradictions? I am not
| condoning one viewpoint or another, but this is not black
| and white.
|
| The definition of freedom of speech: the right to express
| any opinions without censorship or restraint.
|
| Is it right that your free speech supersedes the free
| speech of others to the point where you actively fight
| against their free speech and which means the speech of
| others isn't really free then, is it?
| slg wrote:
| >Don't your statements also have contradictions?
|
| I don't know, do they? I can't really address a comment
| like this without you being more specific.
|
| >Is it right that your free speech supersedes the free
| speech of others to the point where you actively fight
| against their free speech and which means the speech of
| others isn't really free then, is it?
|
| Sure, this is a fine principled stance to take. However,
| if this is a principled stand rather than one based off
| situational politics, doesn't that apply to other forms
| of speech which are used to stifle speech of others?
|
| Hate speech is one example. The people who advocate
| against cancel culture generally aren't in favor of more
| restrictions on hate speech.
|
| Money in politics is another. If political advertising is
| protected speech, doesn't a billionaire having the
| ability to outbid me for all ad inventory in the lead up
| to an election stifle my ability to freely voice my
| beliefs? Either the billionaire's ads aren't free speech
| or they are free speech and are being used to drown out
| the free speech of others.
| ABeeSea wrote:
| Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences
| from that speech. You can say whatever you want, but that
| doesn't mean I have to let you sit at my bar.
| jonnybgood wrote:
| It seems you're suggesting that by exercising
| disagreement we would be limiting the free speech of
| those we disagree with. Freedom of speech is not freedom
| of consequences. Others have the freedom of speech to
| speak against your freedom of speech. Only the government
| is disallowed in interfering.
| bostonsre wrote:
| I wouldn't call disagreement the same as trying to get
| someone fired because you disagree with them.
|
| > Freedom of speech is not freedom of consequences.
|
| Again, the definition of freedom of speech is "the right
| to express any opinions without censorship or restraint".
| It's not really free speech if you have to worry about
| being censored or consequences. It may be reprehensible
| speech that you are against but using freedom of speech
| as a weapon to punish others does not foster an
| environment where freedom of speech exists.
|
| I personally think we should be able to have academic
| discussions with people that we disagree with and not try
| to further worsen this divisive and polarized world that
| we are trending towards by attacking them instead of
| their opinions. Shouting the opposing side down so that
| they cannot speak does nothing but make the situation
| worse. You might feel like you win a short term win by
| deplatforming someone but it causes further
| radicalization. It doesn't matter what side of the
| spectrum you are on you will not convince the other side
| without actually engaging in good faith discussions.
| cycomanic wrote:
| > I wouldn't call disagreement the same as trying to get
| someone fired because you disagree with them.
|
| > > Freedom of speech is not freedom of consequences.
|
| > Again, the definition of freedom of speech is "the
| right to express any opinions without censorship or
| restraint". It's not really free speech if you have to
| worry about being censored or consequences.
|
| That's a very absolutist way of seeing free speech. I
| also don't believe anyone practices this view of free
| speech in practice. If you have children, are they
| allowed to say anything without consequences? What would
| you do with a guest at your house who repeatedly insulted
| you? I also would like to know what you think about spam
| filters, or moderation here on HN is that not
| cancellation?
|
| As a side note there was an interesting post from a
| twitter discussion a number of weeks ago. The main gist
| of the discussion was that moderation is hardly ever
| about "cancelling" some sort of free speech, but about
| increasing SNR. Harassment, racism etc. decrease SNR and
| make people leave your platform.
| jonnybgood wrote:
| In the US, that definition has only ever applied to the
| government. And it should only ever apply to the
| government.
|
| > Shouting the opposing side down so that they cannot
| speak does nothing but make the situation worse. You
| might feel like you win a short term win by deplatforming
| someone but it causes further radicalization. It doesn't
| matter what side of the spectrum you are on you will not
| convince the other side without actually engaging in good
| faith discussions.
|
| Are you suggesting we moderate and apply a little
| restraint to someone's speech because of the consequences
| of radicalizing someone?
| bostonsre wrote:
| > Are you suggesting we moderate and apply a little
| restraint to someone's speech because of the consequences
| of radicalizing someone?
|
| Yes. Why not try to engage them in a discussion to try to
| convince them? If you truly believe in your viewpoint and
| want it to prevail, don't you think engaging with them
| and convincing them of your viewpoint would be better for
| whatever you believe in in the long run than simply
| muting the opposing viewpoint?
| Lanolderen wrote:
| At that point it gets kinda weird IMHO. Especially on HN
| many believe that work and personal life are two
| different things. Cancellation in that form makes a
| bridge between the two I personally dislike and I see no
| reason to pressure an employer to dismiss a potentially
| good/productive employee because of his personal
| life/beliefs.
|
| I doubt many that got cancelled in that way suddenly saw
| the errors in their ways. It seems much more likely to
| make them even more extreme in their beliefs and even
| more against others so it seems petty and
| counterproductive.
| brobdingnagians wrote:
| I agree with free speech and oppose censorship, but I also
| promote tolerance of those we disagree with and a certain
| degree of latitude in putting up with things others say
| without jumping on them immediately for things I disagree
| with or endless protests for what many believe to be
| innocuous or good faith beliefs. Cancellation is usually
| not just protest, it is warfare by any means to smear and
| destroy someones life and silence dissent from your
| position. It is dirty tricks instead of intellectual
| dialogue.
| slg wrote:
| >I agree with free speech and oppose censorship, but I
| also promote tolerance of those we disagree with
|
| Does this mean you would support legislation to outlaw
| hate speech? After all that works against tolerance of
| others and is often used "to smear and destroy someones
| life and silence dissent from your position" "for what
| many believe to be innocuous or good faith beliefs."
| dirheist wrote:
| How do you get him supporting legislating to outlaw hate
| speech from him saying he wants to promote tolerance?
|
| Tolerance is something every human possesses and should
| exercise, it's not something that can be legislated. An
| intolerant person will use their free speech to attack,
| malign and try to get you fired (which is fair). A
| tolerant person will let you speak your mind even if they
| disagree. In no point is there the need for hate speech
| legislation if you have true free speech.
| slg wrote:
| Because both hate speech and cancellation are forms of
| speech that can be used to suppress the speech of others.
| I assumed their opposition to cancellation was more than
| just a distaste for it, hence the jump to legislation.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Is hate speech not essentially the ultimate form of
| calling to cancel someone?
|
| We are in a situation where we are seeing a strong
| increase in right extremist terrorism (just look at the
| last month) and it is by far the most prevelant terrorism
| in the US and many western countries, but somehow the
| discussion revolves around how the "poor" people who
| incite and support the violence are "being cancelled".
| That's intellectually dishonest.
|
| The talk about "cancellation" is almost exclusively a
| deflection tactic used from one political direction, who
| have absolutely no problem to use cancellation
| themselves. Nobody complained about protestor being
| removed from Trump rallies, often violently, or let's
| look at the more recent blocking of left-wing twitter
| accounts by self proclaimed free-speech absolutist Elon
| Musk (https://theintercept.com/2022/11/29/elon-musk-
| twitter-andy-n...)
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| > This specific phrasing jumped out to me because being
| against both censorship and cancellation should be a
| contradiction. Cancellation is an example of the exercising
| of free speech
|
| It stops being speech when action is levied against
| someone.
|
| The problem with cancellation isn't the debate, but losing
| your livelihood or worse.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| It's not a contradiction, there is political cancellation
| which has happened to celebrities in China. Look up Zhao
| Wei. This is the type of thing GP refers to.
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/who-zhao-wei-mystery-surrounds-
| chin...
|
| In China any friendliness towards Japan can lead to being
| "cancelled" but the way it happens isn't through a local
| protest.
| threatofrain wrote:
| Cancellation is freedom of association, not free speech. As
| for which is more fundamental under tension...
| derefr wrote:
| > being against both censorship and cancellation should be
| a contradiction
|
| Not at all.
|
| By analogy, someone who is for the free market, must stand
| against both nationalization and monopolization.
|
| Nationalization happens through regulation; monopolization
| happens through a lack of regulation.
|
| So you can't say that someone who is "for the free market"
| is for _or_ against "regulation" as a concept. Some
| regulation (anti-trust) is needed in order to make the
| market free. Other regulations (the kinds lobbyists push
| for) must be avoided in order to make the market free.
|
| As nationalization is to censorship, monopolization is to
| cancellation. You get one from allowing some participants
| in the market to capture the market's regulators
| (moderators) and through them, direct top-down use-of-force
| to suppress those they don't like. You get the other by not
| regulating at all, and thereby not inhibiting private
| actors from either direct suppression of their peers -- or,
| more insidiously, manipulating public opinion to cause
| aggregate bottom-up use-of-force ("mob justice") to be used
| to suppress their peers.
|
| Governments have a monopoly on the use of force -- i.e. a
| self-named vigilante is just someone committing criminal
| assault in the eyes of the law -- because we as a society
| want the use of force to flow through checks and balances.
|
| Insofar as speech can be used as violence to silence or
| terrorize groups (see: hate-speech laws in much of the
| world explicitly recognizing this), the act of silencing
| others through speech -- cancellation -- should _also_ be
| considered a criminal vigilante act if not performed
| through societally-approved channels with checks and
| balances.
|
| The lack of checks and balances for the "process" of
| cancellation, is how you get cyber-bullying witch-hunts and
| mis-aimed identity defacement (see: the Reddit Boston
| Marathon debacle.) We don't accept witch-hunts in the
| physical world; why should we accept them online?
| [deleted]
| adventured wrote:
| > Cancellation is an example of the exercising of free
| speech.
|
| If the context is a vacuum that might be fine, maybe.
|
| In reality the US is hyper fragile intellectually and it
| has gotten drastically worse over the past 10-15 years. The
| way that fragility is being managed is through silencing
| and cancellation instead of through intellectual
| strengthening. Younger people in the US are entirely
| incapable of discussing difficult ideas emotionally,
| they're weak. Today the US would try to defeat the KKK via
| cancellation, which doesn't actually work; yesterday the
| KKK - which was a huge movement at one time, and has almost
| no power today - was defeated in the public square head-on,
| not by cowering or cancelling. The people that
| intellectually fought the KKK at the height of its power
| would ridicule today's incredible mental weakness; such
| weakness that someone as trivial as Trump has to be
| cancelled in order to deal with him. If people today
| weren't so intellectually weak, they could counter a Trump
| quite easily. Trump is absolutely nothing compared to what
| was dealt with in prior generations.
|
| You defeat bad ideology through rigorous intellectual
| conflict in the public square. It's messy, difficult and it
| can be violent - so what. Anything else and the bad will
| fester under the rugs where it has been swept, and you risk
| it getting far worse. There are far worse things than Trump
| and they're barrelling toward the US right now (DeSantis),
| that wasn't stopped by silencing Trump; it only gets
| stopped through exactly what I said - you have to smash the
| ideas in the public square, your ideas have to win. Or
| else. The far right will eventually produce the next
| version of Nixon, and he'll wield far greater executive
| power compared to what Richard Nixon had. Trump isn't that,
| he's a carnival barker at best; a big part of the left is
| too irrational and obsessed to recognize the difference.
|
| The US is lucky it was Trump. He's a de facto clown show.
| The US is increasingly close to being primed for real
| authoritarianism, the levers are there.
| throwaway23597 wrote:
| Yes, you're absolutely right. Jonathan Haidt touched on
| this quite a bit in "The Coddling of the American Mind".
| Unfortunately I see no possible way to reverse the
| situation. People simply aren't used to hardship anymore,
| you can easily live a life of pure comfort. The advances
| in digital technology only intensify this phenomenon.
| Short of major economic collapse, I'd expect humanity to
| become increasingly soft and squishy, to the point of
| essentially becoming another form of cattle.
| Kon5ole wrote:
| >Should I not have the freedom to organize a protest of my
| local theater for hosting a controversial figure that I
| think is worthy of cancellation? Isn't that a very basic
| and fundamental example of free speech?
|
| I don't think so.
|
| What you should be allowed to do is to freely argue that
| the speaker you disagree with is wrong. That's free speech.
|
| If you try to influence the theatre to not have the person
| speak at all, you are suppressing free speech.
| cthalupa wrote:
| >I don't think so.
|
| Thankfully, this is your opinion, and not actually how
| courts and the legal system view the first amendment. The
| Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that even full on
| boycott campaigns, which would generally be above the
| level of simple protest, to be protected speech when the
| boycott is political in nature and not just for economic
| gain. https://www.mtsu.edu/first-
| amendment/article/987/boycotts
|
| >What you should be allowed to do is to freely argue that
| the speaker you disagree with is wrong. That's free
| speech.
|
| This is true. That is free speech.
|
| >If you try to influence the theatre to not have the
| person speak at all, you are suppressing free speech.
|
| No. This is also free speech. If you are simply
| protesting the action, you are informing the theater that
| as a prospective customer you are unhappy with their
| decision and makes you less likely to be their patron in
| the future. If you are going further and advocating that
| the theater be boycotted if they host this person, then
| you need to show that you are attempting social or
| political change - but from the premise of the discussion
| here, it is obvious that this is the intent.
|
| Boycotts of businesses that were pro-British or selling
| British imported goods were a significant part of the
| early stages of the American Revolution -
| https://www.masshist.org/revolution/non_importation.php -
| so they have a long history of being an important tool in
| shaping America into what her (future and present)
| citizens wanted her to be.
|
| The theater is not a public square. The controversial
| speaker has no first amendment right to say whatever they
| want in a private space. The theater has no right to
| force people to not have and share an opinion about who
| they host. I have every right to share my opinions about
| a person speaking somewhere, and my opinions about what I
| think that means about the location hosting them. The
| speaker (likely) has every right to say what they are
| saying in general, but not necessarily in any given
| private location.
|
| Free speech is about preventing government censorship of
| speech, _not_ private censorship.
| bostonsre wrote:
| Isn't cancellation just censorship by a mob? If i
| understand my terms correctly (I very well might not),
| cancellation causes people to be deplatformed which seems a
| lot like censorship. I guess cancellation can be considered
| free speech, but that doesn't mean it's not censorship.
| kenjackson wrote:
| Cancellation and censorship mean a lot of different
| things in different contexts. For example, OJ Simpson has
| largely been cancelled. But it doesn't feel like
| censorship per se -- for example you can still purchase
| writing by him or find video of him. If he's not on Tic
| Tok or YouTube, I don't think they'd block him. Yet, I
| don't think Disney is going to make a movie starring him.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| Cancellation is the consequences of speech. Period.
|
| It is most certainly not censorship when you consider the
| context - something these debates regularly leave out.
| Some views are widely considered to be abhorrent or
| dangerous. People are free to believe vaccine
| misinformation or glorify extremism. Society does not
| have an obligation to listen.
| janalsncm wrote:
| The question under discussion is what those consequences
| should be. In some countries the consequence for certain
| kinds of speech is capital punishment by the State. Most
| Americans would be horrified if the US government did
| this. To be clear, the fact that this happens to be
| constitutionally protected is irrelevant because the
| question is what should be illegal not what is illegal.
|
| > Some views are widely considered to be abhorrent or
| dangerous.
|
| I also think pointing to "society" isn't that useful
| since it's a moving target. "Society" isn't one thing.
| Things that are acceptable in one place are not in
| another.
|
| In some places advocating for equality for LGBT people is
| considered an affront to society. Dangerous even. The
| question is, what should be the worst consequence of
| having unpopular viewpoints?
| jvalencia wrote:
| But this has no protections under the law. If your public
| support of say pro-life/choice means you can no longer
| get a job, that's a problem.
| throwaway23597 wrote:
| You're reading too much into my comment. I specifically
| tried to stay neutral because this sort of tactical
| escalation could come from either side. In no way am I
| attempting to "define free speech as some narrow window of
| speech that I agree with". I'm specifically talking about
| people using seemingly private data to comb over people's
| private statements, which is a bad thing regardless of the
| content of those private statements.
| slg wrote:
| >You're reading too much into my comment. I specifically
| tried to stay neutral because this sort of tactical
| escalation could come from either side.
|
| Fair enough, but you should know that calling out
| cancelation as a growing flaw of society will often not
| be received as a neutral position. The people who
| complain the loudest about cancelation generally do not
| come from "either side". It ends up making your comment
| appear to have a specific political slant even if that
| wasn't intentional.
| chitowneats wrote:
| "One side often uses a particular tactic against their
| enemies (cancellation). You criticizing it makes you
| sound biased".
|
| No. The only one here who comes off as biased is you.
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| The complaints about "cancellation" are complaints about
| others speaking up.
|
| I am not a fan of cancel culture in the way it's practiced
| today (especially some of the Twitter driven campaigns),
| but it's squarely free speech.
| tomrod wrote:
| Not to jump into US political discussion, but the phrase
| you call out is what was typically called a dog whistle a
| few years ago.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > This specific phrasing jumped out to me because being
| against both censorship and cancellation should be a
| contradiction. Cancellation is an example of the exercising
| of free speech.
|
| It isn't a contradiction. Think of it this way: government
| censorship is just when the government cancels you.
|
| The issue with "cancellation" is that it's often a cudgel
| to suppress and punish expression some minority disagrees
| with, often to enforce some kind of orthodoxy. It might be
| someone expressing their narrow "free speech" rights, but
| in a way that's opposed to "free expression" or a "free
| exchange of ideas."
| hellfish wrote:
| > Should I not have the freedom to organize a protest of my
| local theater for hosting a controversial figure that I
| think is worthy of cancellation? Isn't that a very basic
| and fundamental example of free speech?
|
| Perhaps it isn't about freedom of speech but centralization
| of power. Protest all you want, but if you advocate for the
| centralization of power in government or corporate hands
| then you shouldn't complain when you can't protest anymore
| without getting the same treatment Chinese protestors are
| receiving
| pessimizer wrote:
| > And people wonder why the US has blocked Huawei
| infrastructure in the US.
|
| I agree. I don't know how the US can allow Apple products if
| they're willing to shut down Airdrop to suppress Chinese
| protests.
|
| > They have no qualms silencing their own population and invest
| heavily in surveillance technology. Why would anyone want their
| equipment?
|
| Yes, but enough about the US, we're talking about China.
| giarc wrote:
| I read some of the threads about the Airdrop changes, and
| some people argue it actually increases security (for reasons
| that are above my technical understanding). The fast track to
| release in China was odd, but I don't think it's super cut
| and dry that it was at request of Chinese authorities.
| amelius wrote:
| Huawei just follows the law in China, just like Apple follows
| the same law but perhaps with some more delay.
| unsui wrote:
| maybe the law is wrong?
|
| yeah, rhetorical question, but the issue here isn't
| necessarily adherence to local laws, but rather having some
| principled stance.
|
| yeah, I'm hearing it, "principled stance"... one can dream
| fauntle wrote:
| Apple has shareholders. It is eternally bound by the
| idiotic rules of capitalism, which demand higher returns
| every year. Principles will not matter until we force the
| system itself to change.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| I recently read an interesting book that's picking up
| traction among managerial types, called "The Infinite
| Game" by Sinek
|
| One of the main points is about this view that "companies
| must always make more short-term profit at any cost".
| Sinek says this is just a mind-virus that took hold after
| Milton Friedman started pushing it, and not only is it
| not actually true in any legal sense, it's a toxic
| philosophy that eats away at companies and slowly
| destroys them. He outlines how it's a big part of why
| Microsoft keeps losing out to Apple again and again.
|
| (Another point it goes on about is how much more
| productive your workers are if you treat them like human
| beings)
|
| So _hopefully_ this book will keep getting more and more
| traction, and eventually we might not live in a toxic
| corporate dystopian hellscape
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| Correct, but Apple follows US law first and Chinese law
| second. And Huawei follows Chinese law first and US law
| second. For example the US could block Apple from selling
| iPhones in china. If they didn't listen the US government
| could (theoretically) have the board arrested. Same story
| with China and Huawei. What this means is that China could
| tell Huawei to shut down their infrastructure in the US.
| Wether they would actualy be able to do so is unknown, but
| that that isn't a risk that makes sense to take.
|
| But to your point, China has more control over Apple than the
| US does over Huawei as iPhones are assembled there (with most
| components beinf made in Korea and Taiwan).
| chinabot wrote:
| There is no first or second tier with law the local law
| prevails however bad it may be.
| dirheist wrote:
| I also read that iPhones are quickly growing in market
| share in China as Chinese people see them as more luxurious
| than their domestic brands. Which raises the question, how
| does iMessage, the App Store, data collection and western
| app policy stuff work on Chinese iPhones? There has to be
| some collusion/government pressure on Apple to regulate
| their Chinese App Store the same way Huawei is forced to
| regulate its domestic app store.
| tooltalk wrote:
| It's no longer just about luxury. Apple has won over the
| CCP with their China/Taiwan-first outsourcing practices
| -- not to mention $270+B _invested_ to train young,
| unskilled laborers from rural China and prop up China 's
| domestic chip business -- and now some Chinese even
| consider Apple as their own.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| iCloud has a China region operated by a Chinese company.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208351
| willis936 wrote:
| >there may be a clock on how long that will last
|
| Why is that? Culture, mores, and politics shape how power is
| used. What makes authoritarianism inevitable?
|
| On one hand power begets power, on the other hand people are
| easily scared and readily convince themselves of the worst
| possible explanation.
| pydry wrote:
| If this really were the reason Huawei would never have been
| allowed to operate in the US to begin with and Apple would be
| banned too - for breaking airdrop on behalf of the CCP.
|
| The anti huawei thing only really kicked off when huawei
| started dominating key telecoms markets.
|
| When they started kicking out huawei tech they also didn't
| discriminate between smart (where bugs could easily hide) and
| dumb tech like aerials (where they couldn't), suggesting that
| protectionism is at least as much a motive as national
| security.
| hellfish wrote:
| > What worries me is that the US itself will go in the same
| direction. The surveillance is already there, but it is not
| acted on for the most part in everyday life. But there may be a
| clock on how long that will last.
|
| The stage is already set. Just make sure your suitcase is
| packed. The craziness won't come from the government, it'll
| come from this culture's own inherently fascist tendencies
| always2slow wrote:
| >The surveillance is already there, but it is not acted on for
| the most part in everyday life. But there may be a clock on how
| long that will last.
|
| Yes it is. Think advertising, marketing, and product placement.
| It's so pervasive you can't even see it.
| donatj wrote:
| Advertisers, marketers, and product placers for the most part
| aren't armed with the tools nor legal authority to implement
| capital punishment.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| >> The surveillance is already there, but it is not acted on
| for the most part in everyday life. But there may be a clock
| on how long that will last.
|
| > Yes it is. Think advertising, marketing, and product
| placement. It's so pervasive you can't even see it.
|
| But that's not the state. That'd be much more frightening.
| TreeRingCounter wrote:
| The majority of large institutions are effectively captured
| by the state, and to a large extent the converse is true as
| well. Despotic actions (censorship, surveillance, etc)
| performed on behalf of the state by megacorps cannot be
| meaningfully distinguished by despotic actions performed by
| the state itself under the current legal regime.
| soco wrote:
| A state has at least some illusion of citizen control,
| while a private company much less. Yes the state _could_
| regulate it, but that's already working over chinese
| whispers (no pun intended)
| always2slow wrote:
| Yes it is? I mean, I consider the military part of "the
| state" and the various branches participate in advertising,
| marketing, and product placement.
|
| Just look at this: https://www.businessinsider.com/us-army-
| marketing-esports-co...
|
| "After Congress withheld half of its ad budget due to an
| audit that revealed millions in spending that didn't
| deliver results, the Army dissolved its marketing division,
| relocated to Chicago, and revamped its approaches to data
| and events. Officials told Business Insider they planned to
| emphasize conferences like Comic-Con and esports festival
| Pax, saying gamers and programmers "make good soldiers.""
|
| Whoops, got a little too exposed during the audit time to
| reset the paper trail.
| dirheist wrote:
| Yep, The United States Military has been working with
| Hollywood and video game producers to produce propaganda
| for 3 decades now.
|
| https://mronline.org/2022/08/06/how-the-pentagon-
| dictates-ho...
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| Wow, that link was a fascinating read
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| They have surveillance communism, we have surveillance
| capitalism.
| briffle wrote:
| > What worries me is that the US itself will go in the same
| direction. Like how a year ago, Apple was going to enable
| 'client side' CSAM scanning of your devices photos, etc, until
| enough people got really mad that they put it on a hold?
|
| Wonder what pretext that one is going to slip back in again as.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| I figure that was just cover for complying with some
| government mandate about deleting unacceptable material--I
| suspect China. They knew they couldn't hide it forever so
| they came up with a cover story instead.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| at least the US has woken up to some degree. Humans are funny
| in how imagery impacts response to things. China has done
| trillions in damage to the US economy the past few decades but
| it wasn't tangible so we did nothing. They've killed far more
| people then 9/11 via shipping synthetic opioid precursors to
| Mexico but the response is non-existent. IP theft allowed them
| to undercut US businesses and destroy them but it's so abstract
| people don't get worked up into a frenzy over it compared to if
| they'd literally dropped a bomb on the same business
|
| Russia should have paid attention to how much more effective
| economic and asymmetric warfare is compared to kinetic warfare
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I mean, US businesses willingly shipped their operations to
| China so it's not really correct to lay all the blame on
| them. We could have kept our operations here but US business
| people wanted increased profits so they dismantled our
| industrial base and paid China to build up theirs.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| not sure you can say this when corporate raiders and
| hostile takeovers were the primary cause of all of this.
| Big difference between 'US business' and Wall Street
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| > Big difference between 'US business' and Wall Street
|
| This depends on how you and I are using the terms. If you
| realize that I am using those terms somewhat
| synonymously, then what I said makes sense. You can
| disagree with the way I am using the words, but you can
| at least understand why I would make the claims that I
| did if that's how I am using those words.
|
| I could have said "big business" which is closer to
| meaning "wall street" but this is semantic shorthand, and
| some misunderstandings may happen.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| Many businesses had little choice. Their competition went
| to China and now could out price them while making a
| profit.
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| The 80s and 90s had businesses gushing at the opportunities
| to
|
| * liquidate unions
|
| * avoid environmental laws
|
| * take advantage of cheap labor
|
| Both parties fell over themselves in paving the way for US
| businesses to move the bulk of their manufacturing outside
| the country.
|
| The Chinese millionaire kids who are buying houses for cash
| are a product of the distillation of thousands of once blue
| collar jobs that burned to move production overseas.
|
| Any derision in the quality of Chinese made goods should be
| directed at the companies themselves. Those factories are
| built what they are told to build. That brand that was once
| a mark of quality that is now making a shoddy product is
| just extracting value. Your Macbook Pro and that power tool
| in name only are made in the same place.
| mola wrote:
| Oh come on. Corporate America was hell-bent on killing unions
| and offshoring everything during the 90s. Mainstream
| politician were very supportive.
|
| This is the end result.
| 543g43g43 wrote:
| >Russia should have paid attention to how much more effective
| economic and asymmetric warfare is compared to kinetic
| warfare
|
| I am 100% sure that Russian state-sponsored trolls are
| largely responsible for the current state of the "culture
| war".
|
| Do you remember when Facebook reported how much Russian state
| actors had spent on disinformation spread on that platform
| during the Trump presidential campaign? It was of the order
| of $100,000. Pocket change, to turn the brains of an entire
| nation into argumentative mush.
| dirheist wrote:
| I don't. If it's virtually impossible to distinguish a
| Russian troll farm page from a traditional
| conservative/radical leftist from a home grown, private
| individual, then there is no problem. The impact Russian
| troll farms have had on the US social fabric is widely
| overestimated, the real harm to the social fabric is
| increased politicization.
| 543g43g43 wrote:
| >Russian troll farms .... increased politicization.
|
| The two are linked. Those who wish to see Western culture
| fail, just want us at each others' throats.
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/3kvvz3/russian-facebook-
| trol...
|
| https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-
| conversatio...
| nodesocket wrote:
| I find it somewhat hypocritical that the same people that were
| calling for universal Covid vaccines and lambasting people for
| not wearing masks only a year ago are now proudly supporting the
| protesters in China. They don't even realize their hypocrisy
| anymore.
| Aachen wrote:
| I will also defend a coal plant operator who is protesting
| against animal cruelty in the meat industry while I'd object to
| and protest their pollution separately.
|
| China having mask requirements, what kind of mental stretch is
| it that I must therefore also support everything their
| government does? Or am I misunderstanding your comment?
| mardifoufs wrote:
| The protests are related to covid restrictions. I think they
| are saying that we suddenly support anti-lockdown protesters
| now, when they used to be absolutely reviled barely a year
| ago when the same protests happened in the west.
| vehemenz wrote:
| Maybe this is too false of an equivalency for me to comprehend,
| but I genuinely do not see any connection between the two
| scenarios you mention.
| Jiro wrote:
| They are connected because the protests are _about Covid
| restrictions_.
| vehemenz wrote:
| Oh, there's a vague connection then. The Chinese protests
| aren't just about Covid restrictions though.
| meibo wrote:
| I don't remember my government welding shut my apartment
| building and starving me off, in fact, I'd wager most of the
| people in tech jobs on this website probably had an alright
| time during covid
| onepointsixC wrote:
| It's not hypocritical at all.
|
| There's a drastic difference to wearing a mask and getting a
| vaccination vs: being forcibly quarantine, having your
| apartment door welded shut, all because of a relative small
| number of infections in your city.
| josephcsible wrote:
| But it's not like they're saying "sure, Western countries
| violated our rights too, but the rights violations in China
| are way worse, so we're only worrying about them for now."
| They're denying that the former was a violation of rights at
| all.
| nodesocket wrote:
| If not for the voices and politicians that resisted group
| think and sheep mentality the US could have very well been
| locked down like China. Let's also not forget that lots of
| people lost their jobs and livelihoods in the US for not
| getting vaccinated or wearing masks.
| trap_goes_hot wrote:
| Heh, everyone is hypocritical some of the time, so it doesn't
| bother me as much. Its just online posturing on
| HN/Twitter/Facebook. The people shouting the loudest about
| vaccines or whatever other hot topic often do not have
| expertise or knowledge on that topic. But I get it, people like
| to complain a lot about everything. Its not really a political
| thing, its universal in all countries.
|
| To me, what is annoying is that US citizens elect monsters who
| drone bomb innocent people for decades[1] - like 300,000 bombs
| since 2001 (that we know of) - but think they have the moral
| high ground to criticize other governments for their actions. I
| mean even now the US is profiteering off the war in Ukraine.
| The US wants constant war everywhere to feed its military
| industrial complex, but but .. Uyghurs!! China's government is
| horrible/oppressive, but I'm drawing a blank on which country
| they most recently bombed.
|
| [1] https://progressive.org/latest/usa-bombs-drop-benjamin-
| davie...
| josephcsible wrote:
| There's a really, really big difference between accidentally
| killing civilians while attacking military targets, and
| intentionally killing civilians.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| 1 million dead civilians caused directly by US imperialism
| is still a lot of accidental deaths. To the point where
| intentions are completely irrelevant
| onepointsixC wrote:
| It is amazing how easily you wipe away agency and blood
| off those who actually actually carried out the
| overwhelming majority of the violence which killed those
| civilians.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| If America didn't decide to invade a country that it had
| absolutely no business invading, exactly like Russia did,
| how many would have died? The US knew exactly what it was
| doing when it took advantage of very old sectarian
| conflicts and reignited them so that it could more easily
| occupy the country.
|
| I'm not wiping away the responsibility of the insurgeants
| who killed civilians (the US directly killed tens of
| thousands too), but I'm also not handwaving away
| America's responsibility like you seem to be doing just
| because you can't seem to accept that the US military
| destroyed an the lives of an entire generation of people,
| and the region they live in.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| >how many would have died?
|
| This is literally unknowable. Iraq in all likely would
| have become another Syria during the Arab Spring under
| Saddam.
|
| > The US knew exactly what it was doing when it took
| advantage of very old sectarian conflicts and reignited
| them so that it could more easily occupy the country.
|
| Have you resorted to just make things up now?
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Are you saying that they did not play the sunni and shia
| divide?
|
| Again your first point is a complete cop out. Ukraine
| could've spiraled into a civil war anyways, so russia
| isn't really responsible for the deaths happening now.
| Right?
| trap_goes_hot wrote:
| Intent matters, yes. But tell me - If your home was bombed,
| and your family was dead, would you care?
| onepointsixC wrote:
| The US doesn't purposeful target innocent people. Russia is
| raping and torturing Children[1]. US citizens have all the
| ability to criticize others - saying that because other bad
| things happened they're unable to ever point out anything bad
| happened is foolish.
|
| Saying that the US is profiteering by providing billions in
| weapons and aid to Ukraine, which it will never get back,
| betrays your lack of objectivity or reasonability. Ukraine
| fights for it's very existence against a genocidal war of
| aggression by it's neighbor. The systematic torture,
| targeting of civilians by Russia along with open calls for
| the destruction of the Ukrainian people by Russian media
| makes it clear what Russia's objective is.
|
| [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russian-troops-raped-
| tort...
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Not to justify anything done by russia, but your comment is
| veering well into American war crime denialism. You can
| criticize russia without whitewashing the horrific actions
| of the US in their own wars of aggression.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmudiyah_rape_and_killing
| s
| onepointsixC wrote:
| This is just bad faith, I did no such whitewashing. The
| actions carried out in your source clearly is not US
| policy and the soldiers involved were not only brought to
| justice but the prosecutors attempted but failed to get
| the death penalty for the perpetrators.
|
| There is a very clear difference between systematically
| targeting innocents as policy, waging a war of terror to
| bomb a people into submission that is happening in
| Ukraine, and the targeted drone strikes carried out as
| part of the GWT.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| When you cause hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths,
| to say it's not a matter of policy is a complete cop out.
| Russia also ostensibly does not have a policy of murder
| and rape, not publicly and not officially at least. It is
| through their actions that we can infer such a thing,
| just like we can do the same for the actions (and not
| "official policy") of the americans. Hundreds of
| thousands of people still died directly because of
| American imperialism, so it does not matter what was
| publicly said.
|
| (Also, my comment on denialism was related to "The US
| does not purposefully target innocent people", when there
| are multiple examples of American soldiers doing just
| that. To separate the US from the actions of its soldiers
| is asinine, because you dont extend the same separation
| to the russians. Which only makes sense because you are
| defending "your" side.)
| onepointsixC wrote:
| The only cop out is you pretending that every civilian
| who had died was at the hands of the US, when the
| civilian casualties of the GWT was overwhelmingly caused
| by sectarian violence and mass casualty terror attacks on
| civilians.
|
| > separate the US from the actions of its soldiers is
| asinine, because you dont extend the same separation to
| the russians. Which only makes sense because you are
| defending "your" side.
|
| I make the distinction because as your own source had
| stated the soldiers responsible were prosecuted and
| punished. Show me the Russian Federation prosecuting and
| punishing Russian soldiers for the thousands of cases of
| rape, torture, and executions that had happened in
| occupied Ukraine. If that were to occur then it would
| make sense to make such a distinction. The reason why it
| doesn't is the overwhelming scale over a very short
| period of time, with no signs of any sort of punishments
| to those carrying out the crimes.
|
| Maybe you could have a point if there were a good
| alternative theory as to why Russia is using their
| limited supplies of expensive precision guided munitions
| on clearly civilian targets deep in Ukraine which are far
| from front lines and uninvolved in military industry.
| There have been none because it is overwhelmingly clear
| Russia's inability to win militarily has shifted their
| tactics to that of terror bombing in hopes of destroying
| the will of the Ukrainian people.
| trap_goes_hot wrote:
| >Saying that the US is profiteering by providing billions
| in weapons and aid to Ukraine, which it will never get
| back, betrays your lack of objectivity or reasonability.
|
| Or maybe, you've missed recent developments?
|
| https://twitter.com/kimdotcom/status/1505946734345994241
|
| https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-war-europe-
| uk...
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Did they ever?
| balozi wrote:
| From a tech standpoint, how would this be accomplished? Using AI
| to detect "protest videos" and purge them from devices? Or maybe
| tracing the source of widely shared videos then going into the
| devices and purge? Obviously scanning all phone would be an
| impractical albeit impressive task.
| meibo wrote:
| SELECT FROM user_videos WHERE time = "when the protest
| happened" AND exif_location = "where the protest happened"
| dicomdan wrote:
| vkou wrote:
| I don't think Huawei deleted any videos of that.
|
| I'm also not sure how an international crime against peace has
| all that much to do with... _Non-police_ suppression of
| _domestic_ protests.
| dvh wrote:
| Bot, you broke?
| ww520 wrote:
| It is an automatic script from their playbook to invoke
| whataboutism.
| p0pcult wrote:
| What about it? Your question seems to leave it very open-ended.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| It was satire I strongly think.
| copenseethe wrote:
| idiotsecant wrote:
| what about whataboutisim?
| gjvc wrote:
| Google for Huawei Nortel spying
| agilob wrote:
| Pretty sure this isn't new thing, I remember hearing about this
| ~2 years ago when first COVID lockdowns started.
| gryf wrote:
| I was speaking to someone at the weekend extolling the virtues of
| Huawei phones and how cheap they were and "I'm never paying for
| an iPhone or drinking the kool aid". I pointed out the history
| and security concerns and was greeted with a pfft and told I was
| paranoid.
|
| I'm begrudgingly iPhone user. But I keep an exit plan and backups
| of all data. If only someone else made something that actually
| worked properly. For now I'm happy to use a West controlled
| company to run my personal infra. I suspect we're on a downward
| spiral though.
| vehemenz wrote:
| There was actually some truth to this around 2014-2015, before
| the major clampdowns.
| misslibby wrote:
| You can back up your data from Huawei phones, too. Apple had
| plans to scan the photos on your phone and automatically report
| you to the police if the algorithm thinks something is off. I
| wouldn't trust them at all.
| willcipriano wrote:
| If you have a iPhone in China you'll find that Apple crippled
| the air drop functionality that protestors rely upon to
| communicate. I don't see this action and that one as having
| much daylight between them frankly.
| joshstrange wrote:
| I'm not a fan of Apple's bowing to China on things like this
| either but "Limiting AirDrop from 'Everyone' to 10 minutes
| before you have to turn it on again" and "Deleting pictures
| from user's phones" are quite different.
| gryf wrote:
| Completely missed that. What a cluster of assholes. Guess I
| should start thinking about the inevitable exodus. The CSAM
| scanning thing was the first strike off.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| I haven't ever heard of any concrete security issues with
| Huawei phones.
|
| Huawei has been under extremely strict scrutiny for years (and
| even got hacked by the NSA, as Snowden's documents revealed),
| so the fact that nothing has ever stuck makes me think there
| really is nothing there.
|
| As for this story, color me skeptical until some actual details
| come out.
| Aachen wrote:
| Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle between the extremes
| you posed? Both vendors only lease your device to you; it's
| ultimately under their control. There's a big open android
| world in between the Apple and Huawei ecosystems.
| gryf wrote:
| The whole android experience is a minefield though. It's like
| having a needy psychopath in your pocket that after 18 months
| disowns you.
|
| I'd rather they resurrected windows phone.
| fsflover wrote:
| Did you know that Windows tracks everything you do? Do you
| expect it would be different on a phone? Consider using
| GNU/Linux instead (on smartphones too).
| gryf wrote:
| Firstly, yes I do know that. Windows Phone was before
| Satya and the telemetry ramp up and was a quite
| marvellous platform compared to the alternatives on the
| market. Unfortunately they fucked it up switching from CE
| to NT and burned all the developers in the process.
|
| Would it be different? No. Should it be different? Yes.
| They had a unique market position and squandered it.
| Microsoft had the whole world as its oyster and chose the
| bad path every time.
|
| As for GNU/Linux on phones, only when they make a usable
| non Android distribution which AFAIK does not exist.
| Until then I'm going to have to sell a piece of my soul
| to the devil (Apple) who actually spend enough time
| making something fit for purpose to make it usable
| without incurring a major societal disadvantage.
| amatecha wrote:
| [citation needed], there's no evidence the phone has deleted the
| video (unless there's something in the text of the video that
| indicates as such)
| operator-name wrote:
| The big question is if this was deleted from the device, or from
| the cloud. Cloud censorship is well known, where apps like WeChat
| are known to censor and put you on a list.
|
| If I were to guess (and hope) this is a case of being deleted
| from the cloud - something that's not uncommon in the west, the
| difference being that the western world uses it to enforce
| copyright.
| DevX101 wrote:
| I'm skeptical videos are being deleted from the device by Huawei,
| which the title suggests, until actually proven. More likely is a
| cloud file storage provider is automatically deleting videos from
| a server based on some hash/identifier. Similar to how
| Google/Dropbox can flag copyrighted media.
| Havoc wrote:
| Yeah sounds like quite a feat for on device.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Apple's "child sexual abuse image" monitoring proposal would
| do the same thing. Easy enough to implement at the device
| level--the authorities provide a list of forbidden hashes,
| any matching file goes away.
| chinathrow wrote:
| The revolution will not be televised.
| neodypsis wrote:
| Does this confirm that Huawei phones come with some sort of
| spyware?
| jojo259 wrote:
| Every consumer device comes with spyware. You mean Chinese
| spyware as opposed to Western?
| neodypsis wrote:
| Yes
| josephcsible wrote:
| What spyware does the Librem 5 USA come with?
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| It's possible that there is some firmware on some
| impossible-to-replace hardware bits that that phones home.
| They removed everything they possibly could that does that,
| and it's amazing how far they went, even running the binary
| blobs they couldn't remove on isolated processors iirc in
| order to keep them islolated from the rest of the phone
|
| They really achieved something rare with the phone. I hope
| the project continues and the next version is even better
| eric__cartman wrote:
| I don't agree with Richard Stallman's political or social views
| but he was right all along when it came to being wary of software
| not having the user's best interests in mind.
| nabla9 wrote:
| People are just noticing how their Twitter timeline changes
| rapidly.
|
| 1. Tweets about Ukraine have radically decreased 2. Elon posts
| increase even when you don't follow him.
|
| I'm not saying it's intentional. It just shows the power of
| algorithms. They dictate what is and what is not news. Even
| small tweaks matter.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| I suspect that twitter mostly slowing Elon is a function of
| twitter being used mostly to discuss twitter and Elon now.
|
| Most people I follow have either stopped tweeting, or largely
| tweet about Elon. Even popular YouTubers I follow can't shut
| up about twitter/Elon.
|
| Maybe I'm providing your point by not seeing non-twitter
| tweets but it feels like Elon starved twitter of real
| discourse.
| r00fus wrote:
| There are lots of people I follow - if I go to their
| Tweets/Replies "wall" I can see their posts. But they don't
| show up at all on my timeline (either home or latest
| tweets).
|
| Now, most of these folks are non-mainstream street
| reporters, establishment-critical types and the like (who
| Musk has claims are "repressing" him). Most of these folks
| simply don't care about Elon and just want to geek out
| about electoral / activism. But I don't see almost any of
| their tweets in the timeline.
|
| If I have to create a List to see all their updates, what's
| the point of a timeline? (note: when I tried to add a lot
| of people to a list, Twitter logged me out / locked my
| account until I did 2FA again - very antagonistic).
|
| That's when I decided to leave and haven't gone back since.
| Mastodon is very quiet comparatively but doesn't smell of
| Musk.
| nullc wrote:
| HN feels like every page has multiple elon/twitter stories
| now. Threads unrelated to elon or twitter, like this one--
| have posts like yours.
|
| I think this shows the power of fads, not algorithms.
| grobbyy wrote:
| Richard Stallman had extreme Cassandra Complex. Virtually
| everything he wrote 30 years ago came true (or will soon), but
| no one believed him.
| Keyframe wrote:
| There should be an adage, an internet one at least, along the
| lines of - The older one gets, the more one agrees with
| Stallman.
| dennis_jeeves1 wrote:
| Going one step further I will add: the older one gets the
| more one becomes like Stallman, lol.
|
| (I think the reactions of ordinary people to Stallman's
| views are quite predictable, mention sex and they go
| bonkers. )
| torvald wrote:
| Hence the fitting subredddit
| https://old.reddit.com/r/StallmanWasRight
| imachine1980_ wrote:
| the problem is he also have so f** _g wrong opinions about so
| much s*t, but yes when it come to software he was right all
| the way, that make follow him a mental gymnastics marathon._
| wazoox wrote:
| > _he also have so f*g wrong opinions about so much s*t_
|
| Care to provide examples?
| concordDance wrote:
| Struggled to parse this, but why would it be a problem that
| he was wrong about things outside his speciality? A
| professor of astrophysics being "wrong" about his opinions
| on whether eating meat is ethical says very little about
| how right he is on exoplanet mass distributions.
|
| (I happen to agree with Stallman on his non-software views
| that I know about, so am a bit curious on what you disagree
| with)
| gryf wrote:
| I haven't followed him for over 15 years when he started
| branching out from software into other things. What crazy
| has he accumulated since?
| heleninboodler wrote:
| Spoken like a person who has never attempted to give
| Richard Stallman a parrot.
| gryf wrote:
| I just googled that reference. Weugh.
| heleninboodler wrote:
| The whole rider is pretty nutty. Even on fairly mundane
| requirements he manages to sound a bit crazy. "I
| absolutely refuse to have a break in the middle of my
| speech. Once I start, I will go straight through."
| Presumably at some point he said he didn't want to take a
| break but someone stuck a break in the agenda anyway and
| he decided to declare his intention to throw a fit if
| that ever happens again. It reads a little like "100 ways
| in which RMS cannot handle the unexpected."
| nequo wrote:
| I'm hoping to see a GPL revival with a shift back from
| MIT/BSD. But one can hope.
| ilc wrote:
| Big corps won't let that happen. They make too much from
| MIT/BSD.
|
| Look at FAANG and other companies' policy towards the GPL
| and their abuse of BSD, and I think it is pretty clear
| what's up.
| nequo wrote:
| Do you have any links about their BSD abuse? I would like
| to read more.
| aaa_aaa wrote:
| How is a totalitarian state's actions are related with
| MIT/BSD anyway? It is absurd to think that states care
| about software licenses.
| jmount wrote:
| The Cassandra point is interesting.
|
| I think the loss of freedoms Richard Stallman described were
| very much what was already happening around in with the Lisp
| environment. He was correct in saying this would be repeated
| as software ate the world.
|
| So roughly the things he was right about were very hard to
| prevent. Which is partly why he was right.
| jterrys wrote:
| I'm not very familiar with the Lisp environment but what
| Stallman always argued was the logical conclusion of the
| current (at the time state) of software freedom and
| redistribution. Nothing being codified was ripe for abuse
| and misuse, but because the general community consisted of
| altruistic "doo-gooders" that reality always seemed very
| far away.
| aliqot wrote:
| Stallman came up in the time of mainframes and dumb
| terminals; so he had mainframe concerns and mainframe
| critiques.
|
| His relevance now is because we too have shifted to
| mainframes, but we don't call it mainframe and dumb
| terminals anymore, we say 'cloud' and 'mobile'. We are
| rebuilding the future in effigy of our past because it's
| what we know. Stallman's critiques being relevant again are
| a testament to the cyclical nature of humanity, like
| bellbottoms, hightop fades, and vinyl records.
|
| Now if you don't mind, I must iron these JNCO's, times-a-
| wasting!
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| horsawlarway wrote:
| My sentiments entirely. I think he's batshit crazy in a lot of
| ways - but one thing he got dead right was that letting
| companies put chips inside of devices that don't obey the
| device owner but the still obey the company is a damned
| terrible idea for freedom.
|
| I've started calling it the "little green man" in the device
| that only takes orders from the company - not from me.
|
| It's insidious, it's harmful, and it's _definitely_ not limited
| to Huawei or China - governments and corporations all over the
| "west" are playing with this power, and we're going to get
| burned.
| amelius wrote:
| This is why we should demand that after we buy a product, it
| should be possible to fully use and repair it without
| contacting the vendor ever again.
|
| No tethering by the vendor.
| alex7734 wrote:
| I'd go further and say that, for general purpose computing
| devices, it should be possible to fully use, repair _and
| repurpose it_ without contacting the vendor ever again.
|
| That is, bootloader locking and remote attestation should
| be forbidden by law.
| tomrod wrote:
| Mobile phones and similar should be included here.
| fsflover wrote:
| Librem 5 and Pinephone are already like this.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Can you give some examples or links to governments outside of
| China doing this? What sort of products are they trying to
| infiltrate?
| mzd348 wrote:
| "Smart TVs" come to mind, though this is corporate rather
| than government. For example there's talk of them having an
| embedded 5G modem so that they're able to phone home even
| if you've blocked them from your network, or never
| connected them to your network in the first place.
| wcfields wrote:
| Hey, have you ever thought of why even the $149 Black
| Friday loss-leader no-name-brand TVs all have Amazon
| Fire, Roku, or are now "Smart" in some way?
|
| Certainly isn't because they need to incentivise you to
| connect it to the internet so it acts as a Nielsen-esq
| measurement device of all media you view on the screen
| via digital fingerprints that exist in all commercial
| media and advertisements. [1][2]
|
| [1] https://www.ispot.tv/ [2] https://www.samba.tv/
| horsawlarway wrote:
| In both cases - I think the problem is that a device
| continues to listen to the manufacturer over the owner.
|
| In China, we see this play out as government control. In
| the US, we see it play out as corporate profits under the
| guise of laissez faire governance (which then feeds back
| into political donations & lobbying, to allow more
| corporate profits).
|
| A simple example right now: I can't use hardware I own if I
| want a static IP from Comcast. I literally _have_ to rent a
| device from them. Is my hardware compatible? Sure is. Do
| they allow it? Nope.
|
| Same problem is happening with "Rental features" that are
| built into devices. Bought that car but want to use the
| seat heater that's literally built in? Better have an
| account with BMW and pay 18/month. Why? Because BMW shoved
| their fucking little green man into the car, and it only
| respects them.
|
| Using a phone? Even a phone that's working _really_ hard to
| be open (like Librem)? You 're loading a proprietary binary
| blob for the radio firmware. There's just no alternative at
| the moment. Who has control over that? No good way to know.
| Librem tries really hard to isolate that from the rest of
| your phone system, but that doesn't stop it from reporting
| your location any time the modem is on (even if you're not
| using it, or have asked it to be disconnected). At least
| librem provides a kill switch for it so you can ensure it's
| off, but it's annoying.
|
| Using an Apple device? Apple owns that fucker through and
| through. They control the updates to the software, they
| report every app you use (for malware reasons, of course!!!
| /s), they capture all sorts of information about you -
| using their little green man.
|
| And that's a company that actively works to market itself
| as privacy friendly - don't even get me started with Google
| and MS. They give you a little more control to wipe away
| their crap, but the defaults are pretty damn bad.
|
| Basically - Control over the "owner/user" is still the
| desired state for these devices. In regressive regimes,
| that control is used to increase government power. In less
| regressive countries that control is used for rent-seeking
| behavior, which ends up increasing profit, which is used
| for lobbying, which creates incentives to allow continued
| rent-seeking behavior.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| I don't think one needs to point to specific governments or
| their actions, and it would indeed be wrong to. The very
| fact that Pegasus and similar malwares are openly allowed
| operate as businesses, that smartphone cyber-security is
| essentially a lost cause, that companies like Huawei were
| able to ship devices with such deeply embedded flaws, and
| that harms are visited upon even serving political leaders
| shows that there's an epic power struggle which is out of
| control at every level.
|
| Without blaming this or that regime, fascist, communist or
| whatever, we need to recognise a new dimension in power,
| call it "techno-fascism" or whatever you like... that means
| it would be foolish to invest much trust in digital systems
| at this point in history. And that itself is a huge
| economic loss and bonfire of opportunity for us all.
| acomjean wrote:
| He gave a talk at northeastern (acm) in 1999? He's a very
| much hard core open source... (thanks for the correction:
| free software) I think he told someone if their job didn't
| include makeing the source code open they should quit. It's
| not Linux it's gnu/Linux..
|
| I still think it's too far, but we should control our own
| devices. We've lost that.
|
| I've started running Linux as my daily driver.. it's been
| great. Perfect? No. But pretty excellent.
| Karellen wrote:
| > [RMS is] a very much hard core _open source_
|
| No. He most definitely is not that.
|
| https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-
| point....
| concordDance wrote:
| In what ways is he crazy?
|
| Seems more sane than the average person from what I've seen.
| ulimn wrote:
| I don't know if you are really curious, but this article
| pretty much summarizes why people might think he was/is
| crazy: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/09/richard-
| stallman...
| aliqot wrote:
| They don't mean it, it's a pre-emptive cancel-disclaimer.
| What's really meant here is "There are some easy low
| hanging fruit shots to take at this guy, but with this
| comment we remove those from the table."
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Pretty much this - he made some bad remarks around
| Epstein, and he's genuinely more stubborn than is
| reasonable in a lot of cases (compromising is required to
| be effective in politics - and he won't compromise).
| Which is both admirable and batshit crazy.
|
| But I'm not interested in having "that discussion" again
| with regards to RMS, I'd rather just focus on the spots
| he got right, and it's hard to argue he was wrong about
| free software, and the user hostility of these systems
| (although I still disagree with some of his hardline
| stances there, but it's more about quibbling with the
| details then a hard disagreement).
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| > But I'm not interested in having "that discussion"
| again with regards to RMS
|
| Fascinating how nobody wants to talk about all of RMS's
| numerous problems, but only after they've declared that
| he's a poor victim of cancel/woke culture.
|
| If you don't want to "have that discussion again"....why
| did you comment in the first place? This is like hearing
| a topic mentioned in a room you're walking past, running
| in, stating a position, and then running out of the room
| with your fingers in your ears, shouting
| "LALALALALALALALALALA CAN'T HEAR YOU"
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Because this discussion isn't fucking about those topics.
| I'm not here to defend him at all on that front. I'm here
| to say that he has things that are correct to say about
| other fucking subjects.
|
| Read the fucking room.
|
| No one is an angel - no one is a demon. Which one is RMS?
| Don't really fucking care for the context of this
| conversation. This conversation is about how I happen to
| think his opinion about free software is - if not correct
| - at least way more prescient than many others.
|
| Does that imply I have some opinion about his "victim of
| cancel/woke culture" bullshit? You have no fucking clue.
| Because I'm not talking about woke culture right now, I'm
| talking about software.
| samizdis wrote:
| As a reminder that without context discussion is null, I
| found your patient-if-exasperated explanation to be
| sublime. Thanks for that.
| imchillyb wrote:
| > My sentiments entirely. I think he's batshit crazy in a
| lot of ways... - horsawlarway
|
| > If you don't want to "have that discussion
| again"....why did you comment in the first place? -
| KennyBlanken
|
| > Because this discussion isn't fucking about those
| topics. I'm not here to defend him at all on that front.
| I'm here to say that he has things that are correct to
| say about other fucking subjects. Read the fucking room.
| -horsawlarway
|
| ___
|
| @horsawlarway...
|
| If you don't want to discuss it, don't fucking make
| shitty comments about another human being. Then you won't
| be called out on your shitty statements about another
| human being.
|
| You don't want to discuss this, because your position is
| undefendable; you have none.
|
| You shouldn't disparage people. It's not nice asshole.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| TIL all the following is "low hanging fruit":
|
| Claiming that he had never worked with women on projects;
| a woman was a co-author to a book he wrote about GCC, and
| GCC had a number of women code contributors, and one had
| maintained the test suite for 6 years at the time he made
| the comment.
|
| Comments legitimizing/defending sex with underage people
| especially when he tends to make it a hill to die on or
| only backs down in an extremely petulant manner (ie
| 'sorry you were offended by my comments')
|
| A long history of defending child pornography.
|
| Likening people with downs syndrome to "pets" and
| asserting that they should not be born.
|
| Ditto for being such a prolific serial sexual harasser
| that women newly hired into his building at MIT were
| advised to stock their offices with a number of
| houseplants, as they're apparently a sort of "RMS
| Kryptonite".
|
| Ditto for keeping a mattress (no sheets) in his office
| and routinely having half-naked piles of people on it.
|
| Ditto for multiple incidents of telling women
| substantially younger than him that he'd kill himself if
| they didn't date or have sex with him.
|
| Ditto for passing out extremely creepy "pleasure cards"
| to women.
|
| Ditto for repeatedly using virginity jokes in his talks,
| in one case singling out a 15 year old girl in the
| audience, _repeatedly_. (See defense of child sex above)
| horsawlarway wrote:
| This is an ad-hominem logic fallacy. He can be the
| creepiest fucker around and still be dead right about
| this specific subject.
|
| Trying to point the discussion at his morals is literally
| a failing on your part in terms of this discussion -
| you're not adding anything of value to the discussion.
|
| If you want to have this discussion (and it's fine if you
| do) - go do it when the topic is sexual abuse, or women's
| rights, or progressive policy. I probably agree with you
| on all the above in that discussion - but this discussion
| _isn 't_ that discussion.
|
| This discussion is Huawei abusing the little green man in
| the phones that their customers "own" to serve the needs
| of China's government. A topic where I think Stallman
| happens to have a history of being correct.
| mort96 wrote:
| What? The question was "In what ways is he crazy", and
| your parent comment is a perfectly ok response to that
| question. At no point has anyone said, "he is crazy/has
| said or done these bad things and therefore he is wrong
| about this subject".
| weberer wrote:
| Just look at his political ramblings
|
| https://stallman.org/glossary.html
| elgar1212 wrote:
| RMS foresaw all of this crap happening. This is why his message
| is probably going to outlive us.
|
| I just wish someone would wade through all the crap he wrote
| and collect all the actually relevant stuff. All the other
| weird stuff just takes away from the core message of FOSS
| fsflover wrote:
| tl;dr: non-free software harms your freedom one way or
| another. Use and support free software as much as you can and
| even more.
| dvh wrote:
| Is there a video file I can test? I have Xiaomi phone.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Same with OnePlus.
| cwoolfe wrote:
| Where it gets really dystopian is: How do we know the tweet is
| real?
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Claims random Twitter thread...
| oxplot wrote:
| I'm amazed by how HN just takes every piece of data at face value
| and starts reacting to it like it's gospel. News story after news
| story. This place is no different than Twitter, Youtube comments,
| etc. It's very sad to watch.
| boringg wrote:
| Agreed - I think there should be a huge asterisk over the
| source of data. Twitter reports are not inherently accurate -
| they need 3rd party verification.
|
| If this is true - it is a concerning but not surprising
| maneuver.
| nwellnhof wrote:
| Right, and the tweet even has the disclaimer "Not sure if it's
| from the cloud or device level". If it's deleted from the
| cloud, which I consider more likely, it has nothing to do with
| Huawei phones.
| mvdwoord wrote:
| Well, although I tend to agree with the point you are making,
| in this case it is not completely out of the blue, single data
| point..
|
| CCP is ruthless and has been repeatedly shown to have no qualms
| oppressing and killing people and abusing technology in similar
| ways. So the data point is not far fetched.
|
| It would be good to have this either confirmed or proven false.
| Until then I find it a perfectly valid discussion.
|
| $0.02
| ehsankia wrote:
| > in this case it is not completely out of the blue, single
| data point..
|
| It kind of is a single data point with a vague "users report"
|
| Also, extraordinary claims like this still require more than
| vague anecdotal proof. If this is on device, can we see the
| request packet that caused the video to be deleted? Can we
| see the decompiled code that allows for such a thing to
| happen?
| aaronheid wrote:
| JeremyNT wrote:
| Yeah, this is bonkers. At one time I thought the collective HN
| BS detector was calibrated a bit better, but the willingness to
| accept this tweet at face value is troublesome. This is similar
| to the debacle recently where Apple was supposedly scanning for
| QR codes and opening canary URLs clandestinely, which turned
| out to be simple user error.
|
| I'm flagging this submission, I encourage everybody to do the
| same. A tweet suggesting that "some users report" some
| ambiguous behavior is not news. Perhaps some corroboration will
| emerge and this tweet will eventually be proven correct, but
| the onus of proof should always be on those who are making the
| exceptional claims.
| butler14 wrote:
| I'm glad someone said it. One random chap on twitter is hardly
| a reliable source.
| KyleBerezin wrote:
| We are all here reading the comments. There is always at least
| one comment investigating or questioning the authenticity. I
| love HN because of that discourse.
|
| With stories like these where I have known bias, I always come
| to the comments before reading the article.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| The reason this gets accepted is that we see no reason to think
| it's false. It's quite consistent with previous Chinese
| behavior.
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| Humans are stupid, buddy, it doesn't matter what forum you're
| on. Same dumb meat sacks, same heuristics, bias, emotions.
| We're even dumber in groups. Thinking you're smarter than the
| rest is proof that you're not.
| albertopv wrote:
| Fact is this could be very well be real in today China, a
| country known for her extrem level of censorship.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| Wether or not they can actually do this is debatable, but I
| wouldn't be surprised they did this if they could. I don't
| immediately accept it, but in terms of technology it seems
| plausible.
| Regnore wrote:
| This could be mostly rectified by having a free press in China.
| Another way to say it - the sole entity that could solve the
| problem of needing to rely on random internet claims about
| things happening in China is the Chinese government.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| On the other hand, a lot of claims about China that are very
| easy to disprove - even with limited media freedom - are
| still widely believed in the West.
|
| I'm thinking of two huge examples from recent times:
|
| * The widespread belief that people in China have social
| credit scores.
|
| * The belief that zero-CoVID was fake, and that CoVID was
| actually spreading like crazy in China, but was somehow
| covered up.
|
| These are claims that can be disproven just by knowing people
| in China and asking them about their lives. Given how many
| millions of Chinese people live abroad, how many expats live
| in China, and how many cross-border connections there are in
| general, it's crazy that so many people still believe the
| above theories.
|
| There's very little knowledge about China among the Western
| public, and there's a strong tendency towards conspiratorial
| interpretations of everything regarding China.
| dang wrote:
| I agree that it would be good to have more than one source for
| this story, and some independent confirmation. It's true that
| often these things turn out quite differently than was
| initially reported, and of course the correction never gets the
| same coverage.
|
| On the other hand, many true stories also first circulate
| online in this format.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| @dang is there any way the title could be a bit more clear
| that this is not a settled matter of fact? As it stands now,
| the submission's title summarizes the tweet and presents it
| as truth without any caveats, but in fact the tweet itself is
| simply hearsay ("Chinese social media users report" etc).
|
| I know we're all expected to click through all links and make
| informed judgments, but like it or not, the title on HN is
| very powerful in guiding the conversation. Claims like this
| need an appropriate level of skepticism until corroborated...
| dspillett wrote:
| For those who do not have a twitter account:
| https://nitter.net/msmelchen/status/1597807914395500545
| jmoak3 wrote:
| It's hard to know for sure if this is real, but I wouldn't be
| surprised.
|
| If this is happening, I hope Apple says no to the CCP when they
| inevitably ask Apple to do the same.
|
| Could Apple use that new CSAM-hash-comparison feature to
| accomplish something similar?
|
| EDIT:
|
| https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/CSAM_Detection_Techni...
|
| Nevermind - it looks to me like this mechanism is just for
| letting Apple know if they should pop open an encrypted image
| stored on their Cloud.
|
| In the case of China, they should already be able to do that with
| impunity since they control the regional iCloud and keys
|
| EDIT 2:
|
| I'd also not be surprised if this was false however - I don't own
| a Huawei phone and I'm not located in China, so I can't verify
| this at all.
| kube-system wrote:
| Apple doesn't own or operate iCloud in China. They have no say
| in the matter.
| jmoak3 wrote:
| Maybe I'm confused but the new CSAM-hash-comparison thing
| runs on-device, right? Or no
|
| EDIT:
|
| Yeah looks to be on-device (page 4):
| https://www.apple.com/child-
| safety/pdf/CSAM_Detection_Techni...
| kube-system wrote:
| That is irrelevant when it comes to iCloud China. iCloud in
| China is owned and operated by the government of Guizhou.
| They own the building, the servers, and the private keys.
| jmoak3 wrote:
| I'm aware of iCloud in China.
|
| If a user chooses not to use cloud, could this mechanism
| still allow protestors sharing videos to be identified?
|
| EDIT: Or is this mechanism only for giving Apple the
| green light to pop open images already stored on the
| cloud (in which case you're right, the whole conversation
| is irrelevant)
|
| EDIT2:
|
| looks like this is just for giving apple the green light
| to open up uploaded images - which is irrelevant in China
| because they can already do that
| vineyardmike wrote:
| The CSAM hash utility was to pop open images in an
| encrypted iCloud, or witch china (nor the US) have today.
|
| There's no reason that the tech couldn't be used on non-
| iCloud images in china. But by that logic, they could
| just force-ably upload images in china and forget the
| whole hashing nonsense.
| kube-system wrote:
| I would presume on-device software updates come from the
| same mechanism.
| bogantech wrote:
| > If this is happening, I hope Apple says no to the CCP when
| they inevitably ask Apple to do the same
|
| Apple gladly does whatever the CCP asks of them
| janalsncm wrote:
| Does anyone know how it works between Chinese and US Apple IDs?
| For example if I FaceTime someone in China or use iMessage with
| them, is that protected from the Chinese government? Is there
| any info on this?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| The same Apple that censors the Taiwan flag emoji[1]?
|
| Apple will do whatever the CCP tells them to do because they
| are not willing to lose a market of a billion+ potential
| customers.
|
| Companies have no problem being complicit in enabling
| authoritarianism as long as it's profitable.
|
| [1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/7/20903613/apple-hiding-
| tai...
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Not just losing the market but losing access to their network
| of fabricators and suppliers that make the iphone possible at
| Apple's healthy (to say the least) margins
| 323 wrote:
| To be fair, not even the US govt recognizes the Taiwan flag.
| One could say that Apple it's following US guidance on this.
|
| > _the White House deleted a social media post on COVID-19
| vaccine donations that included Taiwan 's flag. A spokesman
| for the White House National Security Council called the use
| of the flag "an honest mistake" by the team handling graphics
| and social media that should not be viewed as a shift in U.S.
| policy towards Taipei_
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-asks-us-
| no...
| heavyset_go wrote:
| This is an really wide stretch considering that I can type
| the Taiwan flag emoji in the US and any country that isn't
| China or claimed by China.
| indymike wrote:
| > One could say that Apple it's following US guidance on
| this.
|
| Emoji are governed by the Unicode Consortium, not the US
| government. In this case, the Taiwan flag is character
| number 1848, codes: U+1F1F9 U+1F1FC
| czzr wrote:
| No company operating in China uses the Taiwanese flag in its
| products.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Which is why even morally reprehensible companies like
| Microsoft, Google and Facebook balked at this censorship
| and ceased business relations with China. Apple is the last
| man standing, ironically preaching their independence and
| dedication to the end-user.
| ashwagary wrote:
| They didnt cease business voluntarily, they were kicked
| out or banned.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Because they wouldn't comply with CCCP requirements. They
| chose being kicked out rather than compliance.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| My point exactly. Expecting Apple to operate differently is
| wishful thinking, at best, or outright naivety.
| matt3210 wrote:
| AAPL will do what it's told by the government so the
| shareholders keep their money.
| fortuna86 wrote:
| Apple often says no to the US Government, something Huawei
| cannot do by law.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/apple-refuses-barr-
| request-t...
| smoldesu wrote:
| And the US government can say "no" right back to Apple
| since iPhone-unlocking tools are/have been readily
| available and purchased in droves by American law-
| enforcement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grayshift
| 99hexagons wrote:
| fortuna86 wrote:
| What does that have to do with my statement ?
| smoldesu wrote:
| It illustrates that your consent is worthless where
| protecting personal privacy is concerned.
| ashwagary wrote:
| Apple can try to say no because the US government asks them
| to do illegal things that violate the US constitution.
| That's not the case in China.
| solarkraft wrote:
| > Could Apple use that new CSAM-hash-comparison feature to
| accomplish something similar?
|
| Only if the video is previously known, as far as I'm aware.
| _boffin_ wrote:
| Let's take a few steps back...
|
| What's even easier than that?
|
| - Was this video taken within a geofenced area between these
| times? - does audio contain any filtered
| words?
| cronix wrote:
| Why would Apple say no? They just proved they'll likely say yes
| by removing airdrop in China, at request of the CCP government,
| because protesters were using it to pass along info bypassing
| the internet so it couldn't be censored.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/30/apple-limited-a-crucial-aird...
| thebruce87m wrote:
| That article doesn't say they removed it.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| I would not be surprised if this turned out to be yet another
| of those unverifiable China stories that pop up all the time,
| but later turn out to be wrong.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| "Could Apple use that new CSAM-hash-comparison feature to
| accomplish something similar?"
|
| Yes, that was why there was an uproar. If any hash is deemed
| bad, that could be of anything.
| baybal2 wrote:
| develatio wrote:
| Apple already applied a change in how AirDrop works in
| China[0]. It's fair enough to assume that they won't say "no"
| to the CCP.
|
| [0] - https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-restricted-airdrop-
| cap...
| [deleted]
| Animats wrote:
| Wow.
|
| Soon we'll have US police departments demanding that phone
| providers delete pictures of police brutality, or even traffic
| stops. See this story, where someone was live-streaming a traffic
| stop so there was no way seizing the phone would lose the
| data.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-
| va/2022/11/29/livestrea...
| indymike wrote:
| The US police have no right to delete someone else's video.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| We already have police in the US do that. Your link shows how
| they'll use brute force to stop the evidence from being
| gathered. They'll also play copyrighted music in the background
| so automatic copyright enforcement will delete an uploaded
| video.
| kube-system wrote:
| They can demand it all they want. The difference is that US law
| gives companies the legal right to say "no" when it comes to
| suppressing speech critical of the government.
| fortuna86 wrote:
| Amazing so many people are quick to compare this story to
| Apple or Google in the US. Huawei is functionally a part of
| the Chinese government.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Most people are comparing this story to Apple's behavior in
| China. Google doesn't operate any substantial services in
| China due to data privacy concerns iirc.
| kube-system wrote:
| These decisions always boil down to business, even if
| there's some philosophical disagreements as a part of the
| broader context. Google pushed back against the CCP, but
| ended up following the law to the minimum extent they had
| to. It wasn't until the Chinese military hacked Google
| and stole their IP that they threatened to leave the
| market. Regulators called their bluff as they started
| blocking Google services in China. When they pulled out,
| it was clear they weren't going to be able to operate a
| profitable business there.
|
| > These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered
| --combined with the attempts over the past year to
| further limit free speech on the web--have led us to
| conclude that we should review the feasibility of our
| business operations in China.
|
| https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-
| chin...
| nottorp wrote:
| Perhaps now it's clear why people are against Apple scanning
| our photos under the pretext of looking for child porn...
| jeswin wrote:
| The bigger news to me was that Apple blocked AirDrop in China -
| specifically to limit dissent and for preventing people from
| organizing [1]. A company that misses no chance to showcase its
| liberal credentials, bending over backwards for perhaps the most
| dictatorial government in the world to suppress the most basic of
| freedoms.
|
| To quote from Apple's article on racism [2], "With every breath
| we take, we must commit to being that change, and to creating a
| better, more just world for everyone." I guess according to
| Apple, Chinese people don't deserve any of what's written in
| their post.
|
| [1]: https://qz.com/apple-airdrop-china-protest-tool-1849824435
|
| [2]: https://www.apple.com/speaking-up-on-racism/
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _Apple blocked AirDrop in China_
|
| Just to be clear, it's still possible to use AirDrop in China
| -- the change was that you can't set your device to receive
| from 'Everyone' indefinitely. It's now limited to 10 minutes. I
| don't support this change, but we shouldn't conflate it with
| blocking AirDrop entirely, which would be much worse.
| brookst wrote:
| Yes it's very odd that people keep characterizing this as
| "blocking Airdrop in China". Is it really that hard to
| understand the actual change?
|
| Still fine to be angry at Apple about it, though this feels
| like the way it should always have worked. Remember all the
| "Apple is terrible because people airdrop unwanted nudes"
| articles decrying the previous setting?
| neodypsis wrote:
| Nevertheless,
|
| - was this change in response to the protests?
|
| - was this change only for Chinese users?
| dagmx wrote:
| This change landed in iOS 16 which launched a few months
| ago so was not rushed for these protests.
| quenix wrote:
| More precisely, 16.1, a month before the protests.
| Suspicious that it was China-only.
| neodypsis wrote:
| Also: why don't give users both options? Is up to the
| user to decide which to use. Make it 10 minutes the
| default but leave the unlimited option available.
| gambiting wrote:
| That's not how apple works - they always pick one
| option(or a very small set of options) and basically tell
| the users these are the best options, if you don't like
| it you're welcome to leave.
| neodypsis wrote:
| This would mostly make sense for hardware options, but
| less so in this specific case of a software feature that
| previously was available.
| jaywalk wrote:
| I'm sure it was in response to the protests. Apple said
| it's rolling out worldwide, but starting in China.
| threeseed wrote:
| The timeline doesn't match up with it being in response
| to the protests.
|
| Apple needs time to design, implement and test changes
| even small ones.
| brookst wrote:
| Yes, but they're _sure_ ;)
| jaywalk wrote:
| Despite your snark and the downvotes, I am still sure.
| It's a tiny change in the grand scheme, and it's pretty
| conveniently being rolled out in China first.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Judging by the bugginess of recent iOS releases, I'm not
| sure they take too much time for testing.
| flappyeagle wrote:
| I've received random dick picks often enough on airdrop
| that I have turned it to contacts only, and so has every
| female friend of mine that I know of.
|
| The primary usecase of allowing everyone to send at all
| times seems like mass organization
| tshaddox wrote:
| I support this change. It's a simple but significant
| improvement to the basic usability of AirDrop. It's
| _conceivable_ that Apple came up with this simple usability
| improvement, publicly announced it, then rolled it out
| deliberately to hamper the efforts of protesters in China,
| but I think it 's more likely to be a coincidence.
| gnicholas wrote:
| How is it an improvement if it prevents users from doing
| what the service has allowed since day one? This is even
| worse than their disable-wifi setting, which (when toggled
| from the Control Center) only disables wifi until the end
| of the day. You have to go to the Settings app to disable
| wifi (and perhaps also Bluetooth?) permanently.
|
| But the AirDrop change makes it even worse. There is
| nowhere you can go to make this setting stick. There is no
| reason to remove this option.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I'm not saying there aren't use cases for both options
| (permanently opening AirDrop to everyone and opening
| AirDrop to everyone for 10 minutes). I'm just saying that
| the temporary option is a huge usability improvement and
| a very reasonable default.
|
| And I think the exact same thing about the Wi-Fi setting.
| On the rare occasions that I want to turn Wi-Fi off I
| usually add a reminder to turn it back on when I get
| home.
| DelightOne wrote:
| Do They have access to who enables this setting frequently?
| If so, it does not seem harmless.
| neodypsis wrote:
| It's debatable that it is totally harmless if the measure
| was taken in response to the protests. It could prevent the
| free-flow of otherwise censored information that could be
| relevant to keeping protesters safe.
| kenjackson wrote:
| That distinction seems hugely important. This actually seems
| like a very reasonable feature change, even outside of China.
| The ability for the internet to overreact never ceases to
| amaze me.
| rocket_surgeron wrote:
| >A company that misses no chance to showcase its liberal
| credentials, bending over backwards for perhaps the most
| dictatorial government in the world to suppress the most basic
| of freedoms.
|
| Anyone who claims they would act differently is either a fool
| or a liar.
|
| Doubly so if the screen they're using to read this contains but
| a single IC made in China, while they let the self-righteously
| indignant stank of their own morality waft up into their nose.
| testbjjl wrote:
| $2+T market cap or karma? Why not both.
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| False. It can't be left open to Everyone for more than 10
| minutes at a time. Frankly, from a security perspective cutting
| this off after a few minutes is preferable. You can turn it
| back on for another 10 minutes.
|
| Pure conjecture on my part, but I wouldn't be surprised if
| China wanted them to block it entirely and Apple negotiated
| this compromise to try and appease officials while still
| allowing information sharing.
|
| Your hyperbole is a massive exaggeration. They didn't "bend
| over backwards" to help China suppress freedom. They maintained
| as much usability as they could under almost certain direct
| legal pressure from the host country. If China says turn it off
| completely, that is what they would have to do if they want to
| operate in China. Apple must obey local laws.
|
| Would the interests of freedom be served if Apple refused to
| obey local laws and there were no iPhones sold in China?
| Everyone running a Huawei phone. Would that advance the cause
| of freedom? Samsung, Google, everyone has to make these choices
| if they want to operate in China.
| euroderf wrote:
| > I wouldn't be surprised if China wanted them to block it
| entirely and Apple negotiated this compromise to try and
| appease officials while still allowing information sharing.
|
| My reading too, fwiw. If so, rather well done on Apple's
| part.
| tooltalk wrote:
| Samsung mostly pulled out of China back in 2019 -- except
| their NAND factory in Xi`an -- and Google opted out years
| ago. Apple went the other way -- Tim Apple went all-in in
| China with $270+B _investment_ to train their young,
| unskilled, slave-wage laborers from rural China and, as
| recent as last month, made huge efforts to prop up China 's
| domestic tech/chip industry (eg, YMTC).
|
| - "Inside Tim Cook's Secret $275 Billion Deal with Chinese
| Authorities," Wayne Ma, Dec. 7, 2021, the Information.
|
| - "Apple Reportedly Helped China Chipmaker YMTC Hire US
| Engineers, Apple Reportedly Helped China Chipmaker YMTC Hire
| US Engineers," Tom's Hardware
| malshe wrote:
| > The bigger news to me was that Apple blocked AirDrop in China
|
| The article you linked doesn't say anything about blocking. It
| just says that they changed the "Everyone" option to "Everyone
| up to 10 minutes." How is that blocking? Do you have any other
| source to support your assertion that they blocked it in China?
| post_break wrote:
| Because you can no longer keep it on everyone 24x7 to
| anonymously airdrop protest information without fear of being
| caught or tracked. You also can't use it to adhoc communicate
| when the internet is shut off. It's effectively blocked and
| rendered useless for those reasons.
| quenix wrote:
| You are underestimating how severely it cripples it for
| sharing of protest material, especially between people who
| may not formally know each other. It is a fatal blow, make no
| mistake.
| huggingmouth wrote:
| It's situations like this that show the truthfulness of these
| statements and the organizations that make them. Un this
| instance, it shows that Apple is only using privacy as an
| excuse to achieve whatever ends they're aiming for.
| gumby wrote:
| > I guess according to Apple, Chinese people don't deserve any
| of what's written in their post.
|
| Sometimes I find Apple's response to some of these issues
| cleverly passive-agressive. For example you can still use mass
| airdrop, you just have to keep enabling it. While, I assume,
| Google would simply have disabled the feature (does Android
| have a similar feature?). A related example is how they support
| you disabling face/finger authentication when you are afraid of
| the authorities.
|
| N.B. This is not to defend or condemn Apple. They are simply a
| huge, largely incomprehensible steamship not deserving my
| adulation or scorn.
| mola wrote:
| Like any other commercial entity in the west, and especially in
| the US, it's a machine for making money. All other values are
| subjugated to that purpose. As long as some other value isn't
| hurting the bottom line, it'll be tolerated. Once it does, all
| those other values go out the window.
|
| This is what makes these machines so effective. This is what
| makes liberal western values vulnerable.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| Until public companies aren't legally mandated to make money
| or get sued by shareholders, this will keep happening.
|
| There needs to be a new model for public companies
| oDot wrote:
| What you say is true but did you didn't follow the logic all
| the way.
|
| Apple doesn't care about it because their customers don't
| care about it. Stop buying and they start caring.
| squarefoot wrote:
| "Pecunia non olet".
| Beaver117 wrote:
| Then why did they pull Twitter ads? Surely they're losing
| sales from that?
| garciasn wrote:
| Twitter Ads really have low value and always did. The
| investments, relative to other social channels, are low and
| the ROAS is terrible. Brands were just there because they
| felt they had to cover the bases, not because they were
| truly having any impact.
|
| Twitter has been dead on that front forever and El Musky is
| definitely not helping things.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| To add some context to this, I met a woman a few years
| back who worked in marketing for Kingsford Charcoal.
| Kingsford had something like 94% USA marketshare at the
| time, but they still spent millions on marketing. They
| already dominated their space, and I could totally see
| Kingsford blowing six or seven figures USD on Twitter
| advertising, just in case.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| An aside, but if you like grilling with charcoal, chunk
| "natural" charcoal produces a hotter fire than briquettes
| like Kingsford.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Seems like Musk is focussed on cost reduction. Which
| might actually save a lot more than the ad losses. Or
| might not.
|
| "Engagement" and "page views" and blah blah don't pay the
| dividends, leftovers after expenses are paid do.
| threeseed wrote:
| Advertising losses are not Musk's only financial concern.
|
| FTC, EU commission and EU member states are all circling
| as a result of them losing trust in the companies ability
| to enforce previous agreements. And it's a legitimate
| concern since all of those employees responsible for this
| are all gone.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| Apple have issued guidance that they can't make enough
| iphone 14s to meet demand. They likely don't need to
| advertise on Twitter right now anyway and this way they get
| free PR advertising from news orgs covering the Twitter
| story instead.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| If the marketing works, reducing it reduces their pricing
| power.
|
| Lots of ways of doing that without raising list price
| (removing promos/discounts, keeping the price higher
| longer).
|
| And an iPhone 14 ad still spills into other iPhone and
| apple product sales.
| kredd wrote:
| They could also be losing sales for having ads on Twitter.
| v0idzer0 wrote:
| Are there people who actually won't buy an iPhone if they
| advertise on Twitter? That sounds so absurd, but I guess
| we're talking about Twitter users
| kredd wrote:
| Biggest problem that my friends in marketing/sales
| explained to me - if there's no proper conversion from
| ads to sales, huge problem with bots AND negative
| targeted ads, then it's not worth it. Honestly, I have
| close to 0 knowledge in terms of marketing and
| advertisement, so mostly rely on others' opinions and
| tactics.
| philistine wrote:
| That's a very limited point of view. Think of brand
| management. What if suddenly people start seeing tweets
| from very problematic people, and Apple ads next to that?
|
| And imagine if that makes the news cycle after that?
| yakkityyak wrote:
| Conversely, how effective are Apple advertisements on
| twitter anyway? At least half of the install base is
| probably already tweeting from an iPhone.
| threeseed wrote:
| Apple was the largest ad-buyer on Twitter. Up until
| recently of course.
| terribleperson wrote:
| "Brand safety". Apple cultivates their image and don't want
| it damaged. Twitter isn't valuable enough as an advertising
| space to take a risk for. That is, they pulled twitter ads
| because they think advertising on Twitter isn't worth the
| price and might reduce the value of their brand.
| onetimeusename wrote:
| I think this is correct but I also think that means the
| US public has strange, contradictory values.
| czzr wrote:
| In what way contradictory?
| creato wrote:
| How is it contradictory? You're free to say what you want
| to. I'm free to go somewhere I can't hear you if I want
| to.
| onetimeusename wrote:
| We denounce dictators and oppression and champion human
| rights and democracy. Companies that work with oppressive
| rulers have tarnished brand names. For example: software
| companies that worked with the Saudis or CBP and ICE.
| Apple has determined that Twitter could cause brand
| reputation damage because Twitter is accused of having
| disinformation or hate speech on it.
|
| On the other hand, Apple works cooperatively with the
| Chinese government to suppress human rights. The update
| to air drop and the separate icloud and app store as well
| as appearing to work closely with the CCP does not seem
| to be pro human rights.
|
| So I think it's contradictory that there is no brand
| reputational damage for cooperation with a government
| accused of violations of human rights but there is for
| allowing Twitter on the App Store ostensibly because it
| is a threat to democracy. Maybe that changes as a result
| of people pointing this logic out, but I won't hold my
| breath. I don't think it's nuanced, I think it's
| straightforward. You can't be a champion of global human
| rights except where it is inconvenient. Or maybe the
| human rights and pro democracy stuff is all BS.
| vondur wrote:
| The fact that Apple is more than willing to work with a
| violent repressive dictatorship is cool, but we won't
| advertise on Twitter because they are evil...
| kasey_junk wrote:
| Brand protection isn't a value judgement about the
| service. It's the recognition that ad dollars are poorly
| spent if your ads end up next to damaging content.
|
| That said, of course the us population has contradictory
| positions. It's hundreds of millions of people.
| [deleted]
| denton-scratch wrote:
| How does shameless hypocrisy help their brand-image?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It does not, but the calculation is that any loss in
| value of brand is sufficiently offset by profits in the
| Chinese market.
|
| Assuming any of the claims are even true.
| copx wrote:
| Their customers are hypocrites too.
| ufmace wrote:
| I think it should be noted that "brand safety" is
| entirely theoretical. It doesn't necessarily mean that
| anything actually happens. What it means is that certain
| people in Apple's marketing department believe that their
| ads being pictured next to things that they think people
| might not approve of might harm their image and possibly
| lead to a loss in sales. There is no proof that this will
| actually happen though. For all we know, the only solid
| reason is that their trendy cocktail party friends won't
| approve of them if their ads are next to something they
| don't like.
| BaseballPhysics wrote:
| > Then why did they pull Twitter ads? Surely they're losing
| sales from that?
|
| Probably not really? Compared to Google, Facebook, and even
| traditional TV, Twitter is a drop in the advertising
| bucket.
| threeseed wrote:
| a) Widespread reports from the advertising industry that
| the Twitter ad engine is falling apart. ROAS and engagement
| have significantly dropped whilst inauthentic bot requests
| have significantly increased. And some are seeing data
| inconsistencies in the dashboard and so they are unable to
| effectively audit campaigns. So for many it is simply not
| worth the effort compared to investing in other channels.
|
| b) Larger ad buyers depend on account managers being there
| to assist with getting the most out of the platform and
| helping to understand changes. They are all gone.
|
| c) It is a proven fact that brand association matters. If
| your ad is next to CSAM people will remember that and de-
| value your brand. Given Musk has fired the entire Brand
| Safety team, hollowed out the Content Moderation team,
| empowered ultra-right-wing people like Andy Ngo to make
| moderation decisions and is now sole arbiter for all
| decisions companies are simply believing it is too risky to
| stay. And advertising groups like Omnicom, WPP, Publicis
| etc agree ranking the platform as "high-risk".
|
| d) Apple wanted to send a message to Musk that this
| direction Twitter is going on is not going to end well.
| There is a risk, albeit small, that they can be held
| legally responsible for the behaviour of the applications
| on their store. Allowing apps that take no responsibility
| for content moderation is untenable for them.
| grog454 wrote:
| You can "lose sales" and save money by spending less on
| marketing at the same time.
| kornhole wrote:
| The money is real, but the other important aspect is that any
| government can compel these companies to restrict free
| speech. One of the governments is the board of directors of
| the company itself. Unless you truly own your phone, the
| speech/software allowed on it is determined by the
| government. If you have complete control of the software
| running on it such as FOSS, then you own/control the phone.
| Otherwise you are basically renting a device that is
| controlled by government.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Google left China in 2010 and hasn't really gone back, other
| than some hardware manufacturing there. Bing on the other
| hand is available and fully complies with Chinese censorship.
| yabones wrote:
| Google was still collaborating with the CCP until early
| 2019.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Did Google actually talk to the CCP about launching this,
| or was this just Google wondering how easy it would be to
| sell out on their values and reclaim all that revenue
| they gave away to Baido? My understanding was that this
| was more of the latter. Unsettling that they would even
| consider this, but still better than basically every
| other large tech firm.
| jb1991 wrote:
| This is a form of whataboutism and distracts from this
| particular article. The Apple AirDrop change has its own thread
| with meaningful discussion:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33778302
| vharuck wrote:
| "Whataboutism" is when somebody or something else is brought
| up as a defense. It's common in HN threads about the Chinese
| Communist Party, but the grandparent doesn't seem like it. It
| reads more like, "Here's another company helping the CCP!"
|
| It extends the shame and conversation instead of excusing it.
| jb1991 wrote:
| The definition of this term is a bit broader, from the
| British dictionary:
|
| > the technique or practice of responding to an accusation
| or difficult question by making a counter-accusation or
| raising a different issue.
|
| Article criticizes company A, and then a different issue
| about a different company is raised as a way to somehow
| minimize the original company A offense.
|
| It's basically saying, "if you think Huawei is bad, what
| about Apple?"
| ok123456 wrote:
| It's not 'whataboutism'. Two tech companies are adding
| comparable restrictions on their technologies to humor the
| political interests of a government.
| ok1234567 wrote:
| threeseed wrote:
| a) Not comparable restrictions in the slightest.
|
| b) Timeline doesn't match up that Apple did this in
| response to protests.
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| As far as I'm aware Apple didn't block access. They limited it
| to 10 minutes at a time. You can re-enable it manually every 10
| mins.
|
| This is obviously really bad but it doesn't come close to what
| Huawei is doing.
| dang wrote:
| Edit: argh - this story already had a major HN thread:
|
| _AirDrop is now limited to 10 minutes_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33778302 - Nov 2022 (692
| comments)
|
| , so https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33806401 is actually
| a dupe. I'm going to undo the change I just made and put
| everything back the way it originally was. It will take a few
| minutes. Sorry all!
|
| --- original, now invalid comment: ---
|
| This comment was originally posted in response to
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33803692 -- hence the
| reference to "the bigger news". Since this topic deserves its
| own discussion, I've moved the comments about it to the thread
| that's actually about this. The other topic deserves its own
| discussion too.
| zaroth wrote:
| Since Apple did not in fact "block AirDrop in China" this
| whole thing just feels like flame bait.
| dang wrote:
| I haven't dived into the details but I assume there's a
| legitimate debate about why they did whatever they did.
|
| From a moderation point of view, the issues are simply that
| (1) the Airdrop story is off topic in this thread, and (2)
| it already had a massive thread on HN.
| matai_kolila wrote:
| I dunno if, "use Apple AirDrop" is a "most basic freedom".
|
| Is it shitty and contrary to what they claim to support? Yeah.
| Does it merit this melodramatic response? Probably not.
| Archipelagia wrote:
| The issue here is not "using Apple AirDrop", it's "hindering
| attempts to organize political resistance".
|
| I don't think there's anything melodramatic about calling
| Apple out on it.
| matai_kolila wrote:
| I think pretending AirDrop is the only way people can
| coordinate is weird.
| function_seven wrote:
| What alternatives check off the following boxes?
|
| * Can't be blocked or monitored by state-controlled
| Internet
|
| * Is widely installed throughout the population already
|
| * Existence of which is not evidence of anti-government
| organizing.
|
| That's what made AirDrop sharing so powerful for
| protestors. They all already had it, having it is not
| suspicious, and using it doesn't rely on government
| internet filters allowing it.
| totalZero wrote:
| Protests have been around for far longer than AirDrop has
| existed. It seems AirDrop was being used to share posters
| and slogans and perhaps some basic information, not as
| some kind of instant messaging app. If Chinese iPhone
| users are anything like American iPhone users, I'd guess
| that most wouldn't want to receive a ton of iPhone
| notifications for unsolicited content.
| matai_kolila wrote:
| Paper?
| bewaretheirs wrote:
| I don't think anyone's claimed that was the case.
|
| Apple isn't removing the only way to coordinate, but they
| are removing a mechanism which has reportedly been used
| by Chinese dissidents.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| they aren't removing, they are limiting to 10mins.
| bewaretheirs wrote:
| Always-on is qualitatively different from "only on for 10
| minutes".
| pannSun wrote:
| Yes, until every spark of freedom has been irreversibly
| extinguished, we are blameless for helping in that
| process.
| danpalmer wrote:
| This sucks, but as a decision maker who cares about privacy,
| and who believes your product on the whole improves users'
| privacy: would you rather keep a hard line and lose market
| share, or give in on select things so that you can maintain and
| grow market share.
|
| I don't think there's an obviously correct choice, but it's
| very easy to criticise not taking the hard line. It's possible
| that's the wrong thing for overall privacy.
| ypeterholmes wrote:
| I built an iOS app for location-based sharing that that nobody
| uses lol. But it works in China too. So if anyone knows anyone
| over there, send them this:
|
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/radius-report-news/id152474203...
| 0x0 wrote:
| Looks like this app is only available in the US and Canada
| app stores.
|
| This link is leading to nowhere:
| https://apps.apple.com/cn/app/radius-report-
| news/id152474203...
| martimarkov wrote:
| Is it only available in the US? Can't open it in the uk
| store.
| dymk wrote:
| Apple did not block AirDrop in China. Apple made it harder to
| fingerprint protestors who forgot to turn off "Everyone"
| sharing.
| BaseballPhysics wrote:
| > The bigger news to me was that Apple blocked AirDrop in China
|
| Why is this bigger news? Seems equivalent to me.
|
| Is it because Huawei is already seen as an adversary while
| folks persist in seeing Apple as somehow more benign?
| Joe_Boogz wrote:
| To me I read this as Huawei is already a "state controlled"
| entity. So this is egregious but expected by them.
|
| Apple however is two faced. Saying that they stand for bigger
| ideals but quietly supporting the communist party by
| disabling airdrop.
|
| Edit: I know it's more complicated than my comment indicates.
| But it's still a weird response by Apple none the less.
| BaseballPhysics wrote:
| Eh, it's only weird if you ever thought Apple _wasn 't_
| two-faced, and nothing about their behaviour has ever
| suggested that to me. I've not once seen them make a
| business decision that was in line with some expressed set
| of ethics while damaging them financially, which to me is a
| key litmus test of whether a company actually lives by
| their stated values. Anything else is just lip service.
| adrr wrote:
| It is kind of expected they would follow the rules and
| regulations of a country they are selling in. I would expect
| Tim Cook to be fired by the board if Apple was banned from the
| largest consumer market in the world.
| password4321 wrote:
| Discussed 2 days ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33778302
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Are they not bound by the local law and regulation as any
| corporation or individual is regardless of their moral point of
| view? You could argue they could be principled and withdraw
| from China because of policies they disagree with but are
| compelled to comply with. But given the economic structure of
| electronics manufacturing in todays world that seems like a
| suicidal task.
|
| I'd argue a more effective route is to comply as minimally as
| possible while advocating for improvement in policy, law, and
| regulation. Practically speaking if apple were to self immolate
| on principle a more compliant competitor will fill their
| vacuum. How is that advancing any agenda?
|
| I feel you can both comply with laws and regulations and take
| the stance they are wrong and publicly advocate to the extent
| you're legally allowed for their reformation without moral
| hazard.
| [deleted]
| totalZero wrote:
| I agree with your stance. Lawlessness is rarely a convincing
| argument. There is also a moral basis for respecting the
| local laws and regulations; the debate over whether to follow
| so-called immoral laws is a complicated one, but the biblical
| stance is credible in the hearts of many people:
| Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities,
| for there is no authority except that which God has
| established. The authorities that exist have been
| established by God. [Romans 13:1]
|
| This doesn't mean one should necessarily treat the law of the
| land as perfectly moral (eg MLK Jr), but lawfulness and a
| respect for order will serve to elevate arguments against the
| established practices. I believe that Apple has more
| influence in China when the Chinese authorities view their
| company as respectful and cooperative.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I think more than that they can't operate in China against
| the law. The Chinese police have way more guns than the
| Genius Bar employees and have built more effective prisons
| - whether god sanctioned them or not. No company can
| operate outside the law of the land without being a
| criminal enterprise, and that's not a great way to sell
| iPhones.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > The bigger news to me was that Apple blocked AirDrop in China
| - specifically to limit dissent and for preventing people from
| organizing [1]. A company that misses no chance to showcase its
| liberal credentials, bending over backwards for perhaps the
| most dictatorial government in the world to suppress the most
| basic of freedoms.
|
| It's a private corporation, which are known for manufacturing
| sweet-smelling lies. I mean, a "new an improved" label on a
| package often literally means they're just giving you less
| product. If they'll be that blatant, there's no limit to how
| low they'll go.
|
| Short-sighted Western economic policy has allowed China to grab
| companies like Apple by the balls, which means the Chinese
| government is the one Apple ultimately is accountable to (with
| varying amounts of smoke-and-mirrors to obscure it). Tim Cook
| knows who his boss is.
| brookst wrote:
| Now that you know that Airdrop is not in fact blocked in
| China, has your opinion changed?
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Now that you know that Airdrop is not in fact blocked in
| China, has your opinion changed?
|
| No, because it's a general statement that you can't trust
| marketing.
|
| Also, looking around at sibling comments because you
| provided no source, it looks like you're splitting hairs.
| It may not be blocked, just _crippled specifically in
| China_ in a way that thwarts how the protesters used it:
| https://twitter.com/tibor/status/1597296268275240960,
| https://www.macworld.com/article/1377200/apple-to-limit-
| aird...:
|
| > By default, AirDrop is set to allow incoming connection
| requests from Contacts Only, but that setting can be
| changed to Everyone-popular among protesters and teens
| alike. Starting with iOS 16.1.1, users in China will find
| that the "Everyone" option has changed to "Everyone for 10
| minutes." Apple won't admit why this change is being made
| in China, but the peer-to-peer nature of AirDrop has made
| it popular for spreading anti-government protest material,
| and hopping into your settings every 10 minutes to re-
| enable the ability to receive AirDrop from strangers makes
| it a lot less useful for that.
|
| Framing an action that thwarts censorship circumvention as
| preventing "spam and abuse" is exactly the kind of sweet-
| smelling lie I was talking about.
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