Chinese Government Suspected of Unleashing Astroturfers Against Apple 194
An anonymous reader writes "A piece attacking Apple's treatment of Chinese consumers that aired on official government TV last week was followed by a wave of anti-Apple posts on Weibo (China's equivalent of Twitter) by Chinese celebrities. On the China-watching site Tea Leaf Nation, Liz Carter reports that sharp-eyed Weibo users noticed something funny about one such post from an actor and singer named Peter Ho: 'Cannot believe Apple is playing so many dirty tricks in customer service. As an Apple fan, I feel hurt...Need to post around 8:20 pm.' What was this 'need to post at 8:20 pm' business? After Weibo lit up with sarcastic tags such as #PostAround820, Ho claimed (rather unconvincingly) that someone must have hacked his account and posted the anti-Apple 'Weibo'. Mike Elgan at CultOfMac notes a parallel with the Chinese government's rough handling of Google in 2009, which led to Google's closing of its mainland operations. Google claimed that government commissioned hackers had apparently stolen search engine source code, Gmail messages and other user data. An earlier article by Elgan on Datamation notes the uneasy business relationship between Apple and China."
Nothing to look at here (Score:2, Funny)
Let's move along. Post around 11:20 am.
Re:Astroturfers against Apple? (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of a story (Score:5, Funny)
Back before e-mail, someone wrote a letter to the offices of some company, complaining about their product or service. A few days later, he received a nicely worded apologetic letter. Attached to the letter was the post-it note, written by the recipient in the company which read, "Send this son-of-a-bitch our standard apology form letter."
Re:another day, another anit-China article (Score:2, Funny)
Finally! (Score:1, Funny)
After all this negative hacking publicity and a precarious human rights situation, finally some good news from China ...
Re:Why government? (Score:4, Funny)
Western companies have long since evolved to be "multinational" to expand their markets.
FTFY.
Re:China should love Apple! (Score:3, Funny)
The OP and the moderators are astroturfing. They are, at best, anti-fanboys who can't think critically.
I can buy any product I want. There are Apple products I don't want so I don't buy them. There are others I have purchased. Apple can have whatever attitude they want to have. If I don't like something they offer as a result of that attitude, I can walk away at any time.
People who live in China don't have a choice, period. And the consequences of not going along can be dire.
To say that Apple and China are from the same mold is not only ridiculous, but so offensive to oppressed Chinese that the moderators who modded that crap up should be blacklisted from mod points for life.
Re:Astroturfers against Apple? (Score:5, Funny)