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Apple Pulls Anti-Censorship Apps from China's App Store (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Fortune:Services helping Chinese users circumvent the "Great Firewall of China" have been pulled from Apple's Chinese App Store en masse. On Saturday morning, at least some software makers affected by the sweep received notification from Apple that their tools were removed for violating Chinese law. Internet censorship in China restricts communications about topics including democracy, Tibetan freedom, and the 1989 Tienanmen Square protests. The culling primarily seems to have affected virtual private networks, or VPNs, which mask users' Internet activity and data from outside monitoring. According to a report by the New York Times, many of the most popular such apps are now missing from the Chinese App Store.
It is the Apple way. Whether hiding taxes or helping repressive regimes, whatever Apple needs to boost profits, Apple will do. And Google, too. And Microsoft. And...
Not to put too fine a point on it, but doesn't the U.S. have laws that make it illegal to comply with demands like that? If not, why not?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Psalms 115:15, “Ye are blessed of the LORD which made heaven and earth.”
Look at our amazing sun, dwarfed in comparison to the size of other stars. The Science Channel has been airing a very popular DISCOVERY mini-series of programs called, “HOW THE UNIVERSE WORKS!” I've watched the series, including the expanded edition, and it's some of the most Godless, offense, unscholarly and retarded speculation I've ever heard and seen in my life! They ought to rename the series to “HOW THE UNIVERSE DOESN'T WORK!”
How the Universe Works is a mini-series that originally aired on the Discovery Channel April 25, 2010 to May 24, 2010. The first season was narrated by Mike Rowe and the second by Erik Todd Dellums. It was released on Blu-ray on February 28, 2012. The second season of the show moved to The Science Channel, consisting of 8 episodes. The second season aired between July 11, 2012 and August 29, 2012.
SOURCE: How the Universe Works - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Our text verse from Psalms 115:15 from the Word of God proclaims that the Lord God made heaven and earth. In the picture above of our sun to the left, and Arcturus (mentioned in Job 9:9; 38:32) and VY Canis Majoris (the gigantic star to the right), VY Canis Majoris is 1,000,000,000 times bigger than our earth's sun. Scientists had never really viewed the magnificence of the stars until 2004 when the Spitzer space telescope was launched into space. It uses infrared to detect heat, finding discoveries that were previously impossible. One astronomer said, “All you need to make a star is hydrogen, gravity and time.” How arrogant, lame and unscholarly!
Only God can create a star! Genesis 1:16, “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.” I love that... “HE MADE THE STARS ALSO”!!! Evolutionists and secular astronomers are idiots. They sound like total ignoramuses... “Oh yeah, making a star, no problem, you just take some hydrogen, gravity and time and Walla, presto magic... A STAR IS BORN! Only an idiot believes that stars formed that way! Where did the gravity come from? I feel sick when I listen to arrogant atheistic fools make such bold claims about HOW THE UNIVERSE WORKS, as if they know exactly what happened (they don't have a clue), when their best guess is that it all came from nothing by chance!
In sharp contrast, the Bible teaches that NOTHING in creation happened by chance. Isaiah 45:18, “For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.” Isn't that beautiful? I am so thankful that God didn't leave us at the mercy of fool-headed reprobate university-trained liberals, scientists, evolutionists and astronomers who think the incredibly orderly, intelligent and brilliant universe all evolved by chance from a chaotic Big Bang.
They believe two rocks collided in space to form the earth and moon, somehow becoming rounded. So how did all the other planets in our solar system form and settle in their respective orbits? Did they all come from rocks colliding? How insane! Life, they say, started with cosmic dust striking the earth, which somehow formed water, somehow created life, somehow evolved into thousands of different species, somehow produced intelligent humans with spirits (but animals that do not), and they cannot account for the sin-nature or the desire to worship God in mankind's very being. This all happened by luck, chance and being in the right place at the right time? Seriously?
We aren't at war with China, obviously. So how, exactly, would imposing the wartime rules you're thinking about work?
When you're in a country - your own, or someone else's - you are expected to obey their laws. If you choose to disobey them for any reason, you should do so knowing that the country will probably punish you if they catch you.
Seriously - how would it go over if the US arbitrarily said "other countries' laws do not apply to our citizens"?
#DeleteChrome
doesn't the U.S. have laws that make it illegal to comply with demands like that? If not, why not?
Because it would be bad for big business.
The original "great firewall" was built by Cisco for the Chinese government who then rewarded Cisco by setting up Huawei to compete directly against them.
It's all down to money, if you want to sell in that country you have to abide by their laws.
The Five Eyes are putting visible pressure on their governments to crack open encryption and provide back doors.
That'll be the real test for Apple, will they stand up to FVEY & it's governments or will they buckle?
I'm glad Tim Cook is trying to protect the environment, and that he's trying to avoid using conflict minerals. But I wish he'd stop making things in China, as long as China's government was so repressive. I also wish he wouldn't invest in Chinese companies, or build a "new research and development center" there.
Suppose Xi Jinping repressed only people of a certain race, or only gay people. That would be outrageous discrimination. But since Xi severely limits the freedom of all of his citizens, that's not "discrimination" - it's just "unfortunate". However, it's not unfortunate enough to stop doing business there. (I'm talking about all American companies that do business there, not just Apple.)
I'm very glad to read about the Apple-related manufacturing plants that will be built in India and the US. I hope this is the start of a trend away from manufacturing in China.
doesn't the U.S. have laws that make it illegal to comply with demands like that?
No. We do not, and should not.
If not, why not?
It is none of our business and would be ineffective and unenforceable. America is not going to "fix" China. That is up to the Chinese people.
One of the reasons that Liu Xiaobo was so ineffective is that he was viewed by many Chinese as a Western sycophant. Reform in China may work better if outsiders keep their noses out of it.
For a second I thought you might be inciting violence, but there's no wrestling gifs so I guess it's all good.
....letting that huge market get in the way of their alleged principles.
It is none of our business and would be ineffective and unenforceable. America is not going to "fix" China. That is up to the Chinese people.
Agreed; OTOH where should we draw the line regarding American companies assisting the Chinese government's abuse of their citizens? e.g. If China had a law on the books demanding that Apple immediately report any private message that mentioned democracy, so that the sender and receiver could be jailed and tortured, would it be morally acceptable for Apple to comply with that law?
IIRC IBM willingly assisted the Nazis with the IT tasks necessary for their roundup and attempted genocide of European Jews and other minorities, and IBM was rightfully criticized afterwards for having done so. How can we avoid a repeat of that sort of thing?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
How would would it if "the US arbitrarily said "other countries' laws do not apply to our citizens", well apparently they accept it under threat of nuclear strike and genocide of their population. Is it quite legal as far as US law is concerned for US agents to break any law they care too in foreign countries and in point of fact, you in a foreign country report US agents breaking the law in your country and report it to the public, they consider you an espionage agent and will seek to prosecute you ie Julian Assange and wikileaks, in a foreign country, gained all sorts of information about the US government and it's agent criminals breaking all sorts of laws all over the place and reported it to the public, the US desired response, varied from extradition and prosecution, assassination and even a drone missile strike, the punishment for obeying the law at your location when you expose criminal activity by the US government at your location.
Then you have US bases in Syria, attacking the Syrian government forces, in Syria for approaching their own territory because, the US will start murdering the Syrian population including the US government allowed use of first strike nukes. How about arming Afghanis to collapse the Afghan government to drive out Russia so that the US could invade instead (I don't get that one, use terrorist to kill Russian troops to drive then out, so those very same terrorists could kill US troops instead, WTF was the purpose of that, spend my tax payer dollars, how much profit does the US war industrial complex make each time they kill an American in uniform, it seems to be quite a lot).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
IIRC IBM willingly assisted the Nazis with the IT tasks necessary for their roundup and attempted genocide
That is very misleading. During the war, IBM's German subsidiary operated independently, and was outside the control of both IBM's HQ, and American law.
Everything you said made sense. And yet I fear the world where any company will roll over and submit the moment the government wants something. A lot of modern rule of law is based on the assumption that a private entity like say your phone company has records and the government needs a warrant to see it. Whether that system is officially broken like in China or unofficially broken like with the NSA in the US, it's getting to the point where you should just assume any information given to any organization for any reason whatsoever is stored and passed to the government willingly or unwillingly. And since most of us have embraced civilization and is dependent on trade to survive it's pretty hard to avoid. It's depressing.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
Indeed. Many of the comments here seem to think the rest of the world is some sort of US colony.
US companies frequently have to censor things in various countries in order to adhere to local laws which are less liberal than those in the US. Facebook, Twitter, youtube, etc. all have special country-specific censorship in order to deal with government requests to block content. Germany particularly has stricter laws on threats and Nazi propaganda which end up being enforced by US companies on a regular basis.
You can't operate in China while breaking their laws. And despite China's crackdown on information, the net result of tech there is that the society and government are being forced to slowly liberalize their policies. Apple and other US companies' presence there is a net positive even when they are forced to abide by laws with which they'd rather not.
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
Not true. IBM was sending employees once a month to repair and maintain the machines. The arguement that they didn't know what their customer was doing with their machine doesn't fly because they continued the maintainence schedule!
You"re seriously proposing that the U.S. should have laws that force a U.S. company to sell software to citizens of another country that has been deemed illegal by their government?!?! You _do_ know that that doing so would be reciprocal with other countries being able to impose upon U.S. citizens, right?
If you're proposing that the U.S. be able to impose their laws unilaterally upon foreign countries, by what right?
As you're the one proposing to upset the current status of international relations, _you_ are going to have to explain how that'll work, not just play fake innocent and ask "why shouldn't we".
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Hey AC, what have _YOU_ done to defend the downtrodden? You can't even screw up the courage to login to post so clearly you _are_ a coward. _That_ is the difference between people like you and that of your grandparents: All mouth, no action.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Most if not all those story about pulling app or stopping software is solely about china censorship laws. Going to the crime against humanity was unnecessary for the argument.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Indeed. Many of the comments here seem to think the rest of the world is some sort of US colony.
US companies frequently have to censor things in various countries in order to adhere to local laws which are less liberal than those in the US. Facebook, Twitter, youtube, etc. all have special country-specific censorship in order to deal with government requests to block content. Germany particularly has stricter laws on threats and Nazi propaganda which end up being enforced by US companies on a regular basis.
Indeed. And US companies often censor things in order to adhere to US culture, even if the local culture is more liberal than US culture. For instance Facebook and Apple routinely censor tits in Denmark even though they are not compelled to do so by Danish law or Danish culture.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
As in, is the app suddenly removed for the installed base as well?
And the maintenance contract was paid directly to Armonk, NY to boot.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Do you not realize that Apple has already changed China? Keep in mind that millions of Chinese citizens are using iMessage encryption to have communication that their government cannot read. The use of these apps is another good example.
IBM took a lot of Flak for assisting nazi Germany back in the thirties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
IMHO, if IBM were to blame, the same principle applies to all companies doing business with totalitarian regimes, like China, Iran, and Saudi-Arabia. These companies aid the regimes suppressing their citizens, for profit. The right thing to do for anyone believing in democracy and human rights, is to boycott Apple and others.
For giving in, to the Communist Chinese. See what happens when you put all your eggs in one basket? They pretty much "make everything". Piss off the Chinese, and all of a sudden there will be production delays, shipping delays on Apple products.
I like how he feels the needs to add "firearms", as if police and military may or may not have these things. But then, he's a Trump supporter, so what d'you expect? He's a fucking simpleton.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
You must speak to very special people, or be a liar Among the Chinese I meet frequently ( in China ), they have very good knowledge of things, and has their ow opinions for sure. They are well informed regarding Tianmen square, Ai Weiwei, Liu Xiaobo, Taiwan etcetc. - No they are not writing an article in a newspaper about it. But claiming they are unknowing is not true. As traveling in both China and US frequently, I often feel the Chinese are better informed than the Americans. And better at seeing their own flaws, and understand them. I know more brainwashed Americans than brainwashed Chinese. And for Liu Xiaobo, you can just use www.baidu.cn ( Chinese "Google" ) and search for his name. 431000 hits. http://www.baidu.com/s?ie=utf-...
lol omg ... yea this is edgy ... like edgy and stuff, in soviet europe merkel would be on it and skinhead houses would be searched at this very moment looking for evidence of hatespeech ... and i dont know how far off that is and btw, the russians had molotov coctails and scorched earth, they still wiped the nazis ass with dysentery and "shit" like that
i guess apple is doing what in america and europe would be called "complying to the law" lol
sad but true huh ? so where's the factories with the million jobs ? they're still cook'in ?
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?