Google gets a whole different level of scrutiny on HN wrt their business practices than any other company it seems. Apple can do whatever the Chinese government asks, yet almost all comments in this thread are aimed at justifying their innocence using business and sovereignty arguments. However, the yet to launch dragonfly project gets huge opposition. Are there any other companies getting the same level of scrutiny.
> Google gets a whole different level of scrutiny on HN wrt their business practices
In part, it's because Google's business practices involve collecting all the information they can on users. I don't spend much time worrying about China (or other governments for that matter), but if I did, Google and Facebook would top my list of companies that I would be critical of.
I’m pretty sure that if Apple had Google’s privacy-busting business model they’d be loathed too. If as a bonus they also worked on drones with the Pentagon you’d have even more hate. As it stands I’m yet to see an Apple article here that isn’t filled with people talking about the “Apple tax” and trying to define them as a monopoly.
Microsoft works with the DOD and gets minimal scrutiny. Also all the posts about apple tax also have similar number of posts talking about the google tax, even though google atleast allows people to download apks and install, like the route fortnite took.
Microsoft is one of the more loathed companies for what they’ve already done, never mind what they do now. I’m not sure where you’re getting “minimal scrutiny” from, except as another attempt to mitigate an understandable reaction to Google’s “winning” combination of hypocrisy and dominance.
I don’t know about you but I challenge every MSFT employee I know about the moral gymnastics involved in working for the largest software vendor defense contractor. Battleships run Windows. It made me really sad when they bought GitHub.
Same for Amazon, who runs a whole racist region (GovCloud) which only employs US citizens.
They do have a privacy busting business model in China. It's called selling a $1000+ device advertising its privacy features, and then handing over iCloud to a PLA owned company. They effectively sacrificed their own principles to stay in the Chinese market.
Do we really believe that the way to circumvent all of China's internal internet control is for someone to just buy an iPhone? There are Uighurs in Xingjiang who own iPhones right now. Should they believe that iMessage in China is end-to-end secure and not worry that the government can obtain access? Based on the assurances of Tim Cook?
True, but if you believe the marketing hype as a Chinese user, you might be suckered into using it, believing it would protect you better than WeChat did.
The point is, Apple sells Privacy everywhere as their brand, but in China, has deprived their users of most means of attaining it, either by making their own offerings less secure, or by banning from their App Store, any third party apps that could let their users have privacy from the government.
A lot of excuses being made for Apple not living up to their principles in China and kowtowing to the almighty dollar (or renminbi in this circumstance)
In the context of this article, you seem to be comparing "not making Apple News available in China" with Dragonfly and pretending that the two are even remotely the same.
Yes, DragonFly is a theoretical / not launched project. Apple's iCloud collaboration with Chinese government and Apple News censorship isn't - they've actually deployed it. The double standard is striking, why is HN giving a pass to Apple when they collaborate with totalitarian regimes?
Apple is simply not making Apple News available in China. That's not "censorship", that's "not doing business in China". Censorship would be if Apple News was available but only carried state-sponsored articles devoid of any criticism. Ya know, kind of like what Dragonfly is aiming to do.
Apple has done the right thing here, which is to refuse to provide a service in the market where the only way to do so is to be complicit in human rights violations. This is exactly what most people unhappy with Dragonfly said Google should have done.
Dragonfly was this outrageous: (from memory) Google's managers sold the Chinese government on this: "we will require and verify a phone number for every user of Google in China. We will provide a state-run police department of your choice with an unredacted list of every single Google query performed by every single phone number. No restrictions. No warrants. Do whatever you want with it."
Whatever China wants includes concentration camps on the same order of magnitude as the Holocaust (they're not death camps, just imprison over 1 million people based on ethnicity alone.) It includes a social score that is similar to America's no fly list, except extending to rail and not restricted to a few thousand people. Simply mentioning the anniversary date of tiananman square over any chat network (such as whatsapp, or wechat) would get your Internet cut off immediately. Free speech is such that you cannot publish a childish caricature (of their president as a teddy bear). And Google says here is every query by every user, by phone number. Go wild.
On the outrage-o-meter Google's dragonfly is like a surprise thermonuclear strike against an unsuspecting populated city during peacetime. Apple not showing news is like a guy grimacing at you, shaking his head in disgust, and turning on his heels and walking away.
We were talking about the outrage over Dragonfly, versus the smaller outrage over lack of availability of Apple news.
By the way, can you be more specific about iCloud? The Dragonfly claim is that Google would be sharing a list of search queries per telephone number with a state company, to use however they want. Can you be clear regarding the equivalent iCloud functionality? (I don't doubt you, just interested in where the abuse would happen.) Could you give an example?
It seems from your comment that you have a lot more knowledge on dragonfly than what is out there in the open. If possible, would you please elaborate a little more on the the google executives promises to China?
>GOOGLE CHINA PROTOTYPE LINKS SEARCHES TO PHONE NUMBERS
>GOOGLE BUILT A prototype of a censored search engine for China that links users’ searches to their personal phone numbers, thus making it easier for the Chinese government to monitor people’s queries, The Intercept can reveal.
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>Sources familiar with the project said that prototypes of the search engine linked the search app on a user’s Android smartphone with their phone number.
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>“Linking searches to a phone number would make it much harder for people to avoid the kind of overreaching government surveillance that is pervasive in China.”
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>The search engine would be operated as part of a “joint venture” partnership with a company based in mainland China, according to sources familiar with the project.
>Google's prototype Chinese search engine links searches to phone numbers
>Google’s secret prototype search engine for China reportedly links users’ mobile phone numbers to what search terms they’ve used.
>This feature would allow the Chinese government to simply associate searches with individuals, thereby putting Chinese citizens at increased risk of government repression if they search for topics that their government deems politically sensitive, according to the Intercept.
If we are being honest, Facebook easily gets most of the scrutiny here because of the rampant news hysteria. Google is a very distant second.
But I agree that Apple seems to get a pass here and in the news coverage as well. Perhaps because Apple is more established or because Tim Cook has better connections with media and government? Or maybe they hire the best PR firms.
But rather than focusing on individual firms, I think we should be focusing on the monopolies these tech giants are creating and the dangerous it can be for society if they aren't "fair" actors. And if we want, we should expand it beyond tech to banking, agriculture, media, etc.
Just a few years ago we were worrying about "too-big-to-fail". And here we are with endless mergers and ever greater concentration of wealth and power and influence.
