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Apple reportedly brings Chinese Communist Party web censorship to Hong Kong

 1 year ago
source link: https://macdailynews.com/2023/01/26/apple-reportedly-brings-chinese-communist-party-web-censorship-to-hong-kong/
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Apple reportedly brings Chinese Communist Party web censorship to Hong Kong

Thursday, January 26, 2023 4:15 pmThursday, January 26, 20232 Comments

Users of Apple’s Safari web browser in Hong Kong who recently tried to visit code-sharing website GitLab, received a warning instead, that Safari was blocking the site for their own safety.

Apple's Safari icon
Apple’s Safari icon

Sam Biddle for The Intercept:

The access was temporarily cut off thanks to Apple’s use of a Chinese corporate website blacklist, which resulted in the innocuous site being flagged as a purveyor of misinformation…

The warning screen itself came courtesy of Tencent, the mammoth Chinese internet conglomerate behind WeChat and League of Legends. The company operates the safe browsing filter for Safari users in China on Apple’s behalf — and now, as the Chinese government increasingly asserts control of the territory, in Hong Kong as well.

Apple spokesperson Nadine Haija would not answer questions about the GitLab incident, suggesting they be directed at Tencent, which also declined to offer responses.

The episode raises thorny questions about privatized censorship done in the name of “safety” — questions that neither company seems interested in answering: How does Tencent decide what’s blocked? Does Apple have any role? Does Apple condone Tencent’s blacklist practices?

The block came as a particular surprise… because Apple originally said the Tencent blocklist would be used only for Safari users inside mainland China. According to a review of the Internet Archive, however, sometime after November 24, 2022, Apple quietly edited its Safari privacy policy to note that the Tencent blacklist would be used for devices in Hong Kong as well.

MacDailyNews Take: Financial Times this week reports that China is moving to take “golden shares” in local units of Tencent as Beijing formalizes a greater role in overseeing the country’s powerful technology groups. “The stakes, usually involving a 1 per cent share of internet groups’ key entities, are akin to “golden shares” as they come with special rights over certain business decisions,” Ryan McMorrow, Qianer Liu, and Cheng Leng report for Financial Times. “Within China the stakes are known as “special management shares” and since 2015 have become a common tool used by the state to exert influence over private news and content companies.”

Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. — Potter Stewart

Regarding Apple’s role, as we wrote back in 2019:

There exists a dichotomy that screams hypocrisy that is impossible to overlook:

Apple CEO Tim Cook, winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights’ 2015 Ripple of Hope Award for “his lifelong commitment to human rights,” who subsequently took a place on the board Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights the following year, and winner of Newseum’s 2017 Free Expression Award in the Free Speech category, no less, also aids and abets China’s commitment to violating human rights with serial regularity.

Two phrases immediately spring to mind:
• Do as I say, not as I do.
• Talking the talk, but not walking the walk.

Accepting awards, plaudits, and board positions for “free speech” and “human rights” while banning publications and protest apps are tough actions to reconcile due to their diametrically opposed nature.

For how long can Tim Cook, and by extension, Apple, get away with positioning themselves as the world’s white knight while kowtowing to every whim of the Chinese authoritarian socialist censors?

This is about leadership, or lack thereof.

Obviously, in recent days, this all seems to be coming to a head, but it’s been building for years.

• Apple removes Quartz news app from App Store in China over Hong Kong coverage – October 10, 2019
• Apple kowtows to China by censoring Taiwan flag emoji – October 7, 2019
• Apple Music censors songs in China that reference Tiananmen massacre, democracy – April 9, 2019
Apple removes VPN apps from China App Store – July 29, 2017
• In bid to improve censorship, China to summon Apple execs to discuss stricter App Store oversight – April 20, 2017
• Apple removes New York Times apps from App Store in China at behest of Chinese government – January 4, 2017

China is critical for Apple in every way from sales to product assembly, so Apple continues to kowtow to China. With Apple’s strong stance – in other places of the world – on users’ rights and privacy, it’s a bad look for the company and a tough tightrope that Tim Cook is trying to walk.MacDailyNews, July 29, 2017

See also:
• Tim Cook firmly latched Apple onto China’s CCP teat. What’s his plan for weaning it off? – November 2, 2022
• Apple CEO Tim Cook signed secret $275+ billion deal with China in 2016 – December 7, 2021
Tim Cook’s Apple is built in China; now it has to answer to the Chinese Communist Party – May 17, 2021

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