Apple Censors Dalai Lama iPhone Apps In China 253
eldavojohn writes "Google and Yahoo! have relinquished any sort of ethical integrity with regards to free speech in China but Apple appears to be following suit by blocking Dalai Lama applications in the Chinese iPhone app store. An official Apple statement reads, 'We continue to comply with local laws. Not all apps are available in every country.' A small monetary price to pay for the economic boon that is the blooming Chinese cell phone market but a very large price to pay for that in principles."
These are not American companies (Score:2, Interesting)
I keep telling people that these "American Companies" aren't American at all. Fewer and fewer of their worker's are American, their ideals are not American and their tax revenue isn't reported in America.
As a people, we need to take back America
Re:A new low? (Score:5, Interesting)
I hate to double post, but I would just like to illustrate my point more vividly.
There's a difference between an acknowledgement of sociological fact and racism. For example, I can say that there is a higher rate of reported offences and convictions amongst the Black population without being racist. That does not entail that I can say that many Afro-Americans are gangsters and should be locked up.
Likewise, you can criticize the policies and practices of the Chinese government. But that does not entail that you can start throwing around Chinglish as a cheap laugh against Chinese people.
He could easily have made his point without using Chinglish, but he chose to throw that insult against Chinese people, whether intentionally or unintentionally. In my opinion, it's even worse if he did it unintentionally - if racist insults are trivialized to the point where a cheap laugh at the expense of an entire race is considered insightful and someone who raises a voice in protest against such a racial insults is considered a troll, then we have reached a point where racial minorities are oppressed on /. in a way that is socially harmful for the community as a whole.
Seriously, Who Really Cares? (Score:2, Interesting)
Honestly, I don't think any of you truly care. I know I don't. Apple is just a corporation, it can, for better or for worse, sell what it likes, when it likes, where it likes, as long as it doesn't break any laws doing so. Even if it does, there's not much that could happen to it, other than a small fine.
If any of you are so enraged, stop buying Apple products (easy enough for you GNU/Linux, "my kernel don't taint" bigots), and go and protest against this in whatever way you see fit. Please, if you have a shred of sincerity, you will.
I'd personally be much more concerned about who supplies the equipment for China's great firewall, of if a nation builds a Linux supercomputer/cluster to hack/analyze/accumulate sensitive data on its population, or to test nuclear bomb designs (it's better than building them, but it's still an evil use of technology, IMO).
Besides, is any information really free of censorship? Most news in the U.S. is driven by advertising dollars and ratings potential. Your news is filtered more than your bottled water.
Re:A new low? (Score:3, Interesting)
More people should grow up in multicultural neighborhoods. You learn ALL the denigrating slur, realize they are funny, then you begin to realize that none of them apply all the time, but they all apply equally to all ethnic groups.
Got a good Polish joke? Go ahead, pick your favorite. Tell it to 100 people - but for each person, substitute the ethnic term. First, use "Redneck", then "Hillbilly", then "Russian", "English", "French", "Catholic", "Chinese" - etc ad nauseum. Almost all of the people you tell the very same joke to will think it was just as funny as it was when it was a Polish joke.
You may also note that the people who actually take offense at the joke recognize that there is an uncomfortable truth in there. For instance, almost all Americans CAN recognize a first generation immigrant by speech alone. They talk funny. 2nd generation? Maybe. 3rd generation? Not likely.
Could it be that you're just embarrassed by your family's failure to completely blend in after a generation or two? Don't worry - your kids will blend in just fine.
Re:Cross another one off the list (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How there they... (Score:1, Interesting)
If we hold the right to criticize Google and Yahoo, we also hold the right to criticize any and every corporate doing the same shit. Where were you when we discussed this earlier??? Fanboism is one thing, defending them no matter what is... wait - it's the same thing.
You're calling Tharsman out for being a hypocrite. Do you have any comments of his where he complains about Google and Yahoo caving into the Chinese government? If not, then what's the basis for your post?
You have a good point in that Slashdot is not one single person with one consistent opinion. But, it is fair to call out the difference in this discussion vs. fx the one about Bing on exactly same topic some weeks ago. All the people out in force here now voicing the opinion that it is just natural for Apple to follow local laws where not here saying the same thing about Microsoft, that discussion was dominated by outrage over how morally corrupt and evil it was to do this.
I'm of course not saying they have a duty to always voice their opinions in a consistent manner or anyting like that. Just noting a clear and interesting difference in how the exact same topic is discussed. And with the danger of being called a payed astroturfer, it seems that especially Apple has an interesting special standing with their users being able to evoke support and defence like this. Google had some of the same also, but not to nearly same degree, and less today than years earlier.
Well, then maybe we customers should do so too (Score:3, Interesting)
i mean, let go of some principles. like, respecting copyright ownership, patent rights and so on and pirate their products like there is no tomorrow. i bet they would go berserk if we did that wouldnt they. and maybe they deserve such a hypocrisy for their own hypocrisy.
Re:Cross another one off the list (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you also refuse to buy any product made in China?
If the manufacturer is known to violate basic human rights, then yes.
Or are you implying that every single company doing business in China is a human rights violator?
Microsoft? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Chinese don't care about freedom (Score:3, Interesting)
Mexican-American War: Substantially positive effects on acquired territory.
Spanish-American War: Substantially positive effects for Puerto Rico and Guam, less so but still positive for the Philippines... Cuba not so much, the degree of which depending on whether you want to blame the revolution on the US.
World War II: Positive effects for numerous occupied territories, Japan, Germany, former Japanese Pacific island mandates too numerous/small to list...
Korean War: Substantially positive effects on South Korea
Vietnam War: Negative effects, but to be fair, what happened in post-war Vietnam is what the Vietnamese did to themselves, we lost the war and had no further direct impact on Vietnam's development. (And if we hadn't been involved at all, the South just would have lost more quickly and the same things/conditions would have happened faster.)
Grenada: Positive effects
Panama: Probably barely net positive, but hard to say considering how little Panama has advanced and how much collateral damage was done.
Kuwait: Substantially positive effects
Somalia: The place was so messed up when we started there I don't think it was substantially more messed up when we left, and just like Vietnam the Somalis themselves must shoulder the responsibility for their condition after our withdrawal.
Balkans: Net positive effects
Afghanistan: Net positive effects, primarily because the country was practically starting from zero.
Iraq: Substantially positive effects in the north, substantially negative effects in the south. It's too bad Turkey is such a bitch about Kurds, otherwise it would make a lot of sense to just split Iraq and salvage what's working.
So there you are, even if we assume that what countries do to themselves after we leave is our fault, that's still round about an 80% rate of positive effects to places we have occupied.