Apple Removes NYTimes App in China, Shows How Far It Is Willing To Go To Please Local Authority (theguardian.com) 174
Apple has removed the New York Times app from its store in China after a government request, in an example of how far the company will go to please the authorities in its third-largest market. From a report: China operates what is thought to be the largest internet censorship regime in the world, blocking thousands of foreign websites viewed as a threat by the ruling Communist party. Google, Twitter, Facebook Youtube and Instagram are all inaccessible. Apple removed the English and Chinese-language versions of the New York Times app on 23 December, although it was not immediately clear why. "We have been informed that the app is in violation of local regulations," said Carolyn Wu, an Apple spokeswoman. "As a result the app must be taken down off the China app store. When this situation changes the app store will once again offer the New York Times app for download in China."
I'm not sure this will be surprising to anyone (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I'm not sure this will be surprising to anyone (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently violating local laws is OK by you. If the US government rules that a Daesh app is illegal, should Apple keep it in the AppStore?
They are not removing it from other countries. Only from the country that banned it. Some how, this is news or issue? Seriously?
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Re:I'm not sure this will be surprising to anyone (Score:4, Insightful)
The US makes up reasons all the time: "parallel construction" should be a known term.
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"Parallel construction" has never been used to frame an innocent party. Not yet, anyway.
But, yeah, I hear you, Joe McCarthy, who caused 50 people to lose their jobs is just as bad as Lavrenty Beria, who killed 5 million....
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Here is one example: police get an anonymous message (via Tor from "Russians", whatever) about John Doe having been killed. They go Mr. Doe's house and find his dead body there with a bullet in the head.
Are you going to claim, there is "no proof" of Mr. Doe's death because we don't know, who notified police of it?
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The difference is the US tells you what laws we're broken. China makes up reasons it is illegal, most likely because the app doesn't give some sort of backdoor access to monitor users. China literally requires government employees to be present in your physical location so they can monitor everything you do and say.
As a citizen of the United States of America, the US government has to justify it's actions to me...
The Government of China does not.
Perhaps they would if I were a Chinese citizen, perhaps not. The internal politics of a sovereign nation are not the business of anyone external to the nation -that is part of the concept of sovereignty.
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You mean like how the FBI went to court to demand Apple put a backdoor in the iPhones?
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China literally requires government employees to be present in your physical location so they can monitor everything you do and say.
That just shows how backwards China is. Here in the US the government virtualized and automated that task long ago.
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I miss Usenet. It was too hard for idiots like you to use so idiots like you were not often encountered.
AC clearly never used Usenet! It was always idiots all the way down.
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Why is everybody calling it "local" law? A local law would be "no walking on this lawn", or "no parking on the pavement in this village". However, this is federal law in China, law that governs more than a Billion people, about 1/6 of the world population.
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Why is everybody calling it "local" law? A local law would be "no walking on this lawn", or "no parking on the pavement in this village". However, this is federal law in China, law that governs more than a Billion people, about 1/6 of the world population.
China has a unitary system of government, not federal. But I get your point.
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It's local to China. Not applicable across the world. In case you didn't notice, the AppStore is per country. So it's local to China's AppStore.
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Apparently violating local laws is OK by you. If the US government rules that a Daesh app is illegal, should Apple keep it in the AppStore?
They are not removing it from other countries. Only from the country that banned it. Some how, this is news or issue? Seriously?
I think the political correctness rule goes more like this: US computer companies must mangle their product offerings against user wishes, including suppressing free speech, if the EU demands it, but no other country gets that privilege.
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You don't have the right to disobey unjust laws... but you do have the obligation.
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What's the problem? _If_ it's OK for the USA to crack down on 'fake news', it's OK for China.
The NYT will never have credibility again. Too far gone. When they learned that their reporters were acting as propagandists for the whitehouse (submitting stories for prior approval) they could have immediately fired everybody involved and said why, loud and clear. They didn't, it's over, stick a fork in it.
Pravda has more credibility.
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It came as a shock to me since most of what we get in the US tends to focus on the negative.
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Pravda has more credibility.
Well, I wouldn't go quite that far, but Pravda is certainly more entertaining than the NYT. They embraced their lack of credibility, and became something similar to Weekly World News. (I miss WWN - they alone carried the story of Saddam and Osama's gay marriage, and a year later their bouncing baby chimpanzee. They also broke the story in the 90s when Elvis finally died in a car crash.)
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When you see a story in Pravda, you know they are doing it for the clicks.
When you see a story in the NYT, you just have to guess which interest they are serving this week.
Pravda is more transparent.
WWN was more credible on their last issue then the NYT is now. I believe in Batboy more than I believe in Russian hackers at the DNC.
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Sure, I can buy "more transparent".
WWN was more credible on their last issue then the NYT is now. I believe in Batboy more than I believe in Russian hackers at the DNC.
Well, we did have plenty of photographic evidence of Batboy, after all.
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What's the problem? _If_ it's OK for the USA to crack down on 'fake news', it's OK for China.
The NYT will never have credibility again. Too far gone. When they learned that their reporters were acting as propagandists for the whitehouse (submitting stories for prior approval) they could have immediately fired everybody involved and said why, loud and clear. They didn't, it's over, stick a fork in it.
Pravda has more credibility.
What I'm wondering is - can't they do US users the same service - removing the NYTimes app, as well as plenty of other fake news apps?
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_If_ it's OK for the USA to crack down on 'fake news', it's OK for China.
Well, yeah, I guess that would be true. Although I missed the stories about the US government outlawing fake news or otherwise restricting its publication.
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You're a sad person for pretending to be someone else and linking to threads which show you acting like an idiot. You have no answer for my last post that you link to, so you just accuse me of doing something that I didn't. You are tone deaf, you're living a sad, unfulfilled life, and your programming achievements are no better than hobby-grade.
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You prove you can what, APK? Get paid $100 for a forum post at age 46? I was wondering something. You apparently graduated from college in the mid-80s, right? So what exactly did you do between graduation and getting something in a magazine in the late 90s? What did you do during those 15-some-odd years, and why doesn't your list of accomplishments include anything from that time? I was curious because I was already working on the application that still runs the company even while I was still in schoo
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Well done, APK very impressive. Ignore everything everyone else says, pretend to be someone else, accuse everyone else of running (no irony there), avoid the points I make because you don't want to address them, and when you feel like the things I've said have stung a little too much, just retreat into your third-party safe space. Great job impressing and wowing everyone with your amazing abilities and command of social interaction. Oh, and fart jokes. That's some classic high comedy from APK. Don't wo
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You're not even going to bother trying to defend or rebut any points, are you? You see what you're doing right now? That's called running away, APK. That's what you accuse everyone else of doing all the time. I'll accept your admission of defeat. You're free to call me whatever you want to call me, because nothing you say changes a single shred of reality. I can take your name-calling because I know that it's a defensive mechanism after you got your shit trashed and after I've made you realize that yo
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I've never claimed to write bug-free code, in fact I've never even claimed to be a good programmer. I don't make judgments like that about myself, other people who know me can comment on how good I am but I'm not the one for that. Even so, I talk about how much I get paid and you're totally bewildered. I talk about normal pay for a lead programmer with a lot of experience and you think it's not possible. That's why I think you're pitiful.
And by now you have totally abandoned all of your arguments and yo
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Allow me to add copy-and-paste trolling as another example of why you're losing. You know what we call people who lose, APK? We call them losers. That's what you are. You are a mid-50s loser with no achievements to speak of who trolls all day, all the while calling other people never-do-wells. You are the picture of irony. Maybe instead of copying and pasting your stupid insults, you should go out and find some work. Maybe get something worth actually citing in the future instead of telling people ho
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Allow me to add copy-and-paste trolling as another example of why you're losing. You know what we call people who lose, APK? We call them losers. That's what you are. You are a mid-50s loser with no achievements to speak of who trolls all day, all the while calling other people never-do-wells. You are the picture of irony. Maybe instead of copying and pasting your stupid insults, you should go out and find some work. Maybe get something worth actually citing in the future instead of telling people how that
Re: I'm not sure this will be surprising to anyone (Score:2)
A corporation being solely focused on making as much money as possible. Who would've believed such a thing?
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Whilst Apple and Apple fans love to portray themselves/the company as doing the right thing
No one with half a brain thinks that. Apple is a corporation. They exist to make money. All of their actions are taken with the interest of making more money. Pretty clear that retaining access to what is probably the market with the largest growth potential over the next 5 years is fairly important. Doing anything other than what the Chinese govt is asking would be grounds for firing the entire existing Apple board.
If you are thinking that corporations have values, morals, personalities, etc. you ought to
Slashdot cry and whine (Score:2, Insightful)
Who reads NYT anyway..
Just another propaganda machine.. No better than most media outlets in China. We here learned that from the last election, didn't we!!
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We here learned that from the last election, didn't we!!
I think if you were to learn something from the last election, that would set a precedent. But the lesson might be still on the way.
Re: Slashdot cry and whine (Score:4, Insightful)
Only if you're a delusional psychopath.
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Wait, are you for real?
I'll gladly meet you in St Louis, downtown, any time.
But then again, since you're a delusional psychopath, you probably think you're already president there or something.
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PARTY IN ST LOUIS!
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I could only hope.
Shockingly, coward ran away.
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I'd like to see you talk your shit to my face, you SJW faggot.
I think some of us would be happy to. Care to give your address, shit-posting AC?
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Stop the sufferaging!
As far as required by law - unlike Uber! (Score:3)
Like most companies, Apple follows the law in the places in which they operate.
Unlike Uber...
Their only other option would be to "make a statement" by not doing business in places whose laws they disagree with.
Including laws for unsafe labor practices. (Score:5, Interesting)
Aluminum machining for iPhone cases produces combustible metallic dust that can cause classic thermite reactions. This dust ignited in the Chinese manufacturing facility, turning it into a crematorium [computerworld.com] that killed four people.
Responsible management, union regulations, and OSHA largely make that impossible in the United States.
Apple should insist on higher standards. And this is hardly their only excess that has taken lives.
Re: Including laws for unsafe labor practices. (Score:2)
What are you, some kind of Commie? Nothing should be allowed to get in the way of the God-given right to make a buck! Hey I sound like Trump's Twitter feed.
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This dust ignited in the Chinese manufacturing facility, turning it into a crematorium [computerworld.com] that killed four people
What are you, some kind of Commie? Nothing should be allowed to get in the way of the God-given right to make a buck! Hey I sound like Trump's Twitter feed.
Yeah, those are now four new job positions that have been created! Thank God China did away with those job-killing regulations!
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There are four kinds of machinest in the world. Those that made thermite: by accident, on purpose, both and not yet. The last kind is the most dangerous.
Aluminum powder by itself isn't _that_ dangerous. It will burn, hot and fast, but isn't a high explosive. Mix it with a good oxidizer though...
Aluminum cuts like butter, I don't understand why they would be making dust rather than chips.
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I really like that quote. It's pithy. Thanks for posting it.
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Responsible management, union regulations, and OSHA largely make that impossible in the United States
I guess that depends on your definition of "largely" and "impossible." OSHA has a handy little database [osha.gov] that reports a dozen aluminum dust explosions in the U.S. since 2000, with about half a dozen fatalities.
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The major point being that dust control has been a solved issue since before time was time. It's not hard but it does require an investment of time and money. Something that the noted companies were loath to do. There are probably even appropriate laws on the books mandating it, but a small wink and bribe does wonders in many parts of the world.
Either the NY Times or the App Store (Score:1)
Apple, like any business, is going to do what they are required legally speaking in each of the markets they reside. It is not like they had any real choice since leaving it up would only mean that it would be blocked along with the entire App Store.... The dispute is between the NY Times and the Chinese government, it is not up to Apple to get NY Times unblocked.... it is up to the NY Times and the Chinese government.
What is this, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
They had a real choice. They had, and have, a choice in almost every nation, and definitely WRT doing business in China.
If a country does evil, by law or custom, and further, makes you complicit in that evil, then you don't have to do business there (and you shouldn't, obviously.) The fact that you do means that you have decided that your own goals are more important than whatever the evil consists of. In this particular Apple's v. China v. people case, they want money a lot more than they want freedom of speech. They have laid those cards out quite plainly.
Also, speaking of Apple, they do plenty of "not in our app store" discarding / refusing various applications based on their own biases. This isn't in any way new behavior for them. The only questions really on the table are, (a) is a person aware of this? and (b) will a person tolerate it?
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I'm pretty sure every country on earth has done some 'evil'.
So where do you stand wrt your own country?
What if Google left it?
Evil is pervasive, but not uniform (Score:2)
Yes, but that doesn't mean you have to be complicit in actively helping them do it. That is a choice.
In Montana, generally. ;-) But if you mean, do I think the US does evil with its laws and customs? Oh, yes. Absolutely. Deeply so. On a regular and profoundly impactful basis.
That would be flat-out awesome. They do a great deal of harm in general, and as a search engine, they are the
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They do a great deal of harm in general, and as a search engine, they are the largest driving force behind mediocrity in our society
Free and fast access to information is by far the most important advancement of the last century. Maybe you aren't old enough, but I remember when if you wanted to know about some things, at best you'd have to hoof it to the library but in many cases the information just wasn't available anywhere that was accessible.
Because while we suck, we don't suck as bad as almost anywhere else
There are certainly other places that are more together, but "almost anywhere else" is a ridiculous statement.
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Because while we suck, we don't suck as bad as almost anywhere else in a lot of ways
Just about every other country on earth doesn't see it that way. I'm sure it's them, not us.
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If a country does evil, by law or custom, and further, makes you complicit in that evil, then you don't have to do business there (and you shouldn't, obviously.)
You are profoundly confused about the nature of a corporation. Corporations don't see evil, good, moral, amoral, etc. They see money. Everything they do is aimed at getting more of it. To do otherwise would warrant removal of the corporation's board. This is why we have (or should have) laws to keep corporations in check. They'll never do the "right" or "moral" thing on their own unless it happens, by chance, to line up with path that makes them more money.
Apple sells pop culture. Not information. (Score:2)
I don't think that any assertion that Apple's app store promotes "information getting to China's citizens that normally wouldn't be there" holds up under even mild scrutiny.
Apple is not an information vendor; and its app stores (OSX/MacOS, iOS) in particular are notably lacking in freedom of expression. Those stores are terrible examples of freedom of any kind, generally speaking. Quite the opposite, in fact. If I wanted something pretty much guaranteed to have been filtered for content, looks and behavior
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2. Google changed their motto to "Do What's Right" after turning into Alphabet.
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Google's old motto: "Don't, be evil" ... what's right?"
Google's new motto: "Duh
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The world isn't a Saturday morning cartoon.
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Uber's flouting of medallion regulations is the same as Apple's refusal to decrypt the San Bernardino phone: asserting that their specific conduct is not infringing. Courts must ultimately decide whether this assertion is correct.
Meanwhile, back in the USA (Score:1)
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For those of you not familiar with Gab, it's the tweet site designed to host people who have been ejected from Twitter. Its whole point is that it doesn't censor users.
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Apple is making Gab jump through flaming hoops to get their mobile app published.
Yes, and they can do that, because it's their app store and they make the rules. Apple isn't a democratic society with a constitution and bill of rights. Don't be confused. If you don't like how they operate, you choice is to vote with your wallet and buy non-Apple product alternatives.
The problem of course is that our spoiled society is unwillingly to actually do anything that deprives them of some product or service they desire, regardless of how much they disagree w/ the actions of the company behind it.
They know why (Score:5, Informative)
Apple removed the English and Chinese-language versions of the New York Times app on 23 December, although it was not immediately clear why.
Maybe because the NYT was banned in China in 2012?? http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/26/world/asia/china-times-website-blocked/ [cnn.com]
and
From How the New York Times is eluding censors in China [qz.com]
Using apps: Articles are published on apps targeting the Chinese-language market that have often been ignored by Chinese censors for weeks or months at a time, before being blocked. Often these apps are openly branded with the “New York Times” name.
I'm not saying censoring them is right, but this crap they are peddling about not knowing why their apps were pulled from China is pure bullshit. They know exactly why: They were banned in 2012 by the Chinese government! China just never got around to asking for the apps to be pulled until now.
How Far It Is Willing To Go To Please [ insert ] (Score:2)
When in Rome ... (Score:2)
Their rules are law.
Explain it to us Tim? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would like to understand from Tim Cook why he feels privacy rights need to protected even in the case of terror investigation (I agree they do) but access to information and a free and independent press does not require protection?
Is he simply a legalist, we have laws like the 4th amendment here in the US that protect privacy, but China has no laws preventing the government from acting as a censor so it is fine? There are valid philosophical cases to be made on those lines but I did not hear that rhetoric from him around the time of San Bernardino.
Maybe he is a racist or a nationalist an Chinese people are simply less deserving of basic rights in his opinion?
Maybe his only real guiding principle is money and he simply says and does whatever the situation demands in order to make more of it?
Really though I don't want to dump on Tim Cook and Apple, I could ask the same questions and more of just about every company, and individual that does business in main land China. I think as Americans we need to be asking ourselves some hard questions about why we have been willing to prop up and do business with a nasty, oppressive, lawless, violent communist regime for the past 60+ years?
I think we need to ask not why we have a one China policy but why that one China is not the one with its capital in Taipei! As a citizen of the US I am damn tired about hearing about how great our role in the world is why we sit by and not only tolerate but enable the very worst actors! You can't claim to support freedom and human rights while shoveling money into the coffers of Communists and Islamists.
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It's pretty simple, If the US Government said "Do this or we'll shut you down in our market" Apple and other companies would start playing ball real quick.
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I doubt it. They'd take their chances with the court system.
Re:Explain it to us Tim? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe he is a racist or a nationalist an Chinese people are simply less deserving of basic rights in his opinion?
I'm not sure it's racist or nationalist for someone to push his own country to respect the principles under which it was founded, yet not try to change another country to also respect those principles.
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So genocide would be fine if a country was founded under those principles? Moral relativity FTW!
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I agree strongly with your last statement. I'm a US citizen with permanent residency in Taiwan. My grandparents would say decades ago the US would not tolerate a Communist country like China and that the US would have fought to protect Democracy in places like Taiwan. Sadly, I feel the US has lost its way. The dollar is the only thing that matters now, freedom be damned.
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I would like to understand from Tim Cook why he feels privacy rights need to protected even in the case of terror investigation (I agree they do) but access to information and a free and independent press does not require protection?
Don't complicate this. Tim Cook, and all of Apple's board, and their shareholders, maximize profits. Dropping access to the largest growing market for Apple products is obviously not an option.
When it comes to San Bernardino, they made a choice, based on profits. Decrypting phones for the authorities would be bad for business. Have a few cops swear off iPhones vs. the general populace understanding that anything on their iPhones can be turned over to the authorities without their permission at any time.
should of said go our way or we will pull out the (Score:3)
should of said go our way or we will pull out the factory's
But they will not help the FBI unlock an phone (Score:2)
But they will not help the FBI unlock an phone maybe it's time for tim cook to go to trumps reeducation camp!
Can't ignore a billion-person market (Score:1)
It wouldn't go over well if Apple just said, "Sorry, we don't support this, so we're going to stop selling apps and iThings in China." There's a market of billions of people to sell things to, and I doubt they're willing to fight with the Chinese government over their censorship policy.
I think reaction to this is actually bigger than Apple -- it's the way the US in general acts towards the rest of the world. We have no tolerance for anyone who does anything differently and are convinced that our way is supe
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China has chosen a system where they have total central control over the population, media and economy.
Whoa choose? You mean a gang of violent oppressors kicked out a lawful elected government by the people the ROC, don't you? China chose the PRC in the same way you might choose to hand your wallet to someone pointing a gun at your head!
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It's not quite please, it's the law (Score:2)
Yes, I don't like that Apple is part of censorship like this.
But it is the law. It isn't upon request, it is surely under threat of action. I know everyone would like to indicate how they'd stand up to China but if Apple weren't to take this down then China would just kill the entire app store in China and then the app still would be down.
It is frustrating that Apple has no way to convince China to knock this off.
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It is frustrating that Apple has no way to convince China to knock this off.
Yeah, I'm always wishing Apple was more powerful than the third most powerful country in the world.
Or to put it another way... (Score:2)
Apple Removes NYTimes App in China, Shows How Far It Is Willing To Go To Please...
...its shareholders, to whom it is beholden to make as much moolah as it can.
NY Times pulled in China (Score:2)
and nothing of value was lost...
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Nobody would miss the piece of shit that is the WSJ
Like always (Score:1)
NYTimes is a foreign agent, (Score:2, Insightful)
The NY Times is nothing but a liberal propaganda mouth piece, they have every right to ban it. The NY Times has done everything to hype up their is some HUGE conflict coming between the US and China, which there won't be.
Maybe it's the other way round (Score:3)
They remove the app hoping there will be protest in china as well as in the "western world", so the government gets some pressure to stop the broad censorship (of apps).