Tim Cook Defends Decision To Remove Hong Kong Maps App In Memo (bloomberg.com) 120
On Thursday, Apple CEO Tim Cook defended the company's decision to remove a mapping app in Hong Kong, saying that the company received "credible information" from authorities indicating the software was being used "maliciously" to attack police. Bloomberg reports: Apple pulled HKmap.live from its App Store on Wednesday after flip-flopping between rejecting it and approving it earlier this month. Apple made the decision after consulting with local authorities, because it could endanger law enforcement and city residents. Cook echoed that sentiment in an email to Apple employees. "Over the past several days we received credible information, from the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau, as well as from users in Hong Kong, that the app was being used maliciously to target individual officers for violence and to victimize individuals and property where no police are present," Cook wrote in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg News. He also said the app violates local laws.
The company has been criticized for the move, and Cook addressed that. "These decisions are never easy, and it is harder still to discuss these topics during moments of furious public debate," the CEO wrote. "National and international debates will outlive us all, and, while important, they do not govern the facts. In this case, we thoroughly reviewed them, and we believe this decision best protects our users." Apple's reversal came after the Chinese Communist Party's flagship newspaper criticized Apple for letting the app into its store.
The company has been criticized for the move, and Cook addressed that. "These decisions are never easy, and it is harder still to discuss these topics during moments of furious public debate," the CEO wrote. "National and international debates will outlive us all, and, while important, they do not govern the facts. In this case, we thoroughly reviewed them, and we believe this decision best protects our users." Apple's reversal came after the Chinese Communist Party's flagship newspaper criticized Apple for letting the app into its store.
In other words (Score:5, Interesting)
All of or raw materials and labor are done in your country and we can't upset that sweet deal. Grow some balls already. What China is doing is clearly illegal as defined by the 1997 handover agreement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Now isn't Orange part way between Yellow and Red, makes sense I guess.
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Re:In other words (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you for doing your duty citizen. 50 cents have been sent to your wechat account.
Re:In other words (Score:5, Funny)
waiiiiit, shouldn't he be getting social credit instead?
Re:In other words (Score:5, Informative)
You really don't know China, do you? I mean, I know your name is "ShanghaiBill" but your knowledge seems to be lacking. Carrie Lam [wikipedia.org] was hand-selected and installed by Beijing. As with pretty much all provincial Governors/Administrators, they are chosen by Beijing because they will dutifully carry out the will of Beijing. Lam was doing what she was told by the State Council. There are 12,000 Chinese troops and police [reuters.com] in Hong Kong right now, and to think they are not involved shows ni shi ben dan.
That little extradition treaty? That bill allowed extradition to China and Macau [wikipedia.org], and that was the problem. HK has always maintained independence from Beijing; extradition to Taiwan only probably wouldn't have been an issue. But Beijing - as greedy as they ever are - tagged in China and Macau as well, meaning that extradition of politically "difficult" people from HK to China would be a snap. Rightfully, the Hong Kongers stepped up and are resisting.
Hong Kong is the Goose that lays the golden eggs for China. Guangzhou and Shanghai won't take over, as banks are only allowed if they are controlled by Beijing (one of the key industries in China that Beijing refuses to relinquish control over). NO ONE would trust a China bank to allow unrestricted foreign currency transactions (like you get in HK). Or to have all deposits in RMB only (as required by law in China) where the currency can be changed at-will by the Government.
Hong Kong is doing what is right. Anyone who's lived in China (I spent 6 years in Shanghai) knows that for all it promises - freedom and fair play and respect for the individual is paid lip service only by Beijing and the CCC..
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These are the same people with ongoing pogroms against Tibet and Uigurs, and harvest organs from people because they practice Tai Chi.
I'm confident that any PRC cop deserves to be assaulted.
I also question why anyone chose to stay in Hong Kong. Everyone knew this would happen once it was given to the PRC.
Re:In other words (Score:5, Informative)
> The government in Beijing has not been directly involved.
Yes, they have their puppets that were approved in the last election doing the dirty work for them.
>The CPC has mostly just continued the British colonial policy of denying Hong Kong any direct democracy.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
>the protests was about extraditing a murderer to Taiwan, not the PRC
Certainly not able to be abused. I mean the Chinese government promised!
> The treaty has been withdrawn, so the protests no longer have any specific goal or objective.
They have 5 demands.
1) withdraw the extradition bill completely.
2) Retract classifying the protests as riots
3) release all protesters without charges
4) set up independent commission of inquiry into police violence
5) universal suffrage
It may have started with the extradition bill and that may have been the straw that broke the camels back but it sounds like they want suffrage and accountability in the government. Only crazy people want that!
>The protests and riots will eventually fizzle out
Oh the poor poor Chinese government. They are the victims in all of this. After-all, they are making the censors work overtime without pay since the protests started!
Winnie the Pooh is a danger to maintaining the political stability of society. A little fat man that proclaimed himself emperor said so.
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>>The CPC has mostly just continued the British colonial policy of denying Hong Kong any direct democracy.
>Two wrongs don't make a right.
Actually, it's worse than that. The CPC that threatened the UK to halt democratic development in Hong Kong since the 1960s. Democratic reform in Hong Kong was only introduced after the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed (sealing the terms of the 1997 handover of Hong Kong), because the UK did not want to upset China or destabilise the Hong Kong. They f
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Yes. The Korean war only ended up as it did in the 1950s because the Chinese communists intervened with armed forces.
http://www.inquiriesjournal.co... [inquiriesjournal.com]
Stop lying to yourself to justify your CPC nationalism.
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The riots are being repressed by the HK police. The government in Beijing has not been directly involved. The CPC has mostly just continued the British colonial policy of denying Hong Kong any direct democracy.
The extradition treaty that triggered the protests was about extraditing a murderer to Taiwan, not the PRC. The treaty has been withdrawn, so the protests no longer have any specific goal or objective.
The protests and riots will eventually fizzle out, but in the meantime plenty of people are happy to watch Hong Kong burn. China is happy to see businesses move to Shenzhen and Guangzhou, and financial firms move to Shanghai.
The big losers are the old Hong Kong plutocrats. Under the British, they had a lucrative stranglehold on the HK property market. After 1997, the PRC left that in place with the understanding that the plutocrats would use their financial resources to maintain political stability. They have manifestly failed to do that, so they are now expendable.
Insofar as the parts I have data about are historically accurate, I think the troll mods are just censorship. Ergo I'm quoting your entire comment to restore some visibility.
The parts that are most unpleasantly true relate to British colonial policies. Other negative legacies in India and Iraq.
I would like to investigate the link to Taiwan. Do you (or anyone) have a citation for that? (Or a citation for the opposite?) If so, I almost have to congratulate Xi for seeing and trying to seize the opportunity, th
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You say that, can you describe exactly how China has violated the agreement? My understanding is they were going to pass a law regarding extradition to mainland China but it has since been withdrawn. My further understanding (and I'm being blunt and I'm willing to change my mind with some facts) is that at this point the riots are just people addicted to protesting because it makes them feel like they're fighting some Big Bad and are part of some important movement.
It's starting to look like China Derangeme
Re:In other words (Score:5, Informative)
The rest of the main points I'm seeing revolve around the treatment of the protesters. Independent inquiry into police brutality, amnesty for arrested protesters, and to stop describing the protests as riots.
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>You can hopefully see the downside to only being allowed to vote for candidates you know will side with the mainland.
It really brings the whole vote for a Turd Sandwich or a Giant Douche into a whole new realm of shitty.
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>You can hopefully see the downside to only being allowed to vote for candidates you know will side with the mainland.
It really brings the whole vote for a Turd Sandwich or a Giant Douche into a whole new realm of shitty.
It was almost always that way in the US but few voters see it that way and are happy to make a choice which is only symbolic.
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Re: In other words (Score:3)
We have always been at war with Eurasia. EastAsia has always been our allies.
Ever get the feeling he had a crystal ball?
No Crystal Ball (Score:3)
Orwell just wound up writing how to books.
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What China is doing is clearly illegal as defined by the 1997 handover agreement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ [wikipedia.org]... [wikipedia.org]
And Apple isn't the global police force. Or maybe they are? Many of the HK protesters have taken clearly illegal actions. Should Apple turn over tracking information to HK police?
Or maybe you meant Apple should be enforcing (and defining) morality, not the actual law.
I think the saying does: be careful what you wish for.
Article Summarized (Score:3, Funny)
Article summarized:
Tim Cook, geriatric CEO of well-known jewelry company Apple, was quoted saying "mmm mhmmm mmmph" while fellating Emperor Xi.
Pride before the Fall (Score:5, Insightful)
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After so many decades of not buying Apple products, it just becomes a matter of pride to continue not buying Apple products.
Like it matter who the intermediate corporation is, your money ends up funding the Chinese Communist Party and its oppression in any case. Although I guess in some Android cases the financial contribution is larger given partial state own enterprises.
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Nice to see some companies actually taking a stand; not like spineless apple.
Samsung is closing the plant for financial/competitive reasons -- it has nothing to do with Hong Kong (or other human-rights-related) politics.
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Nice to see some companies actually taking a stand; not like spineless apple.
As if Vietnam or India have better governments and working-conditions.
Riiiiight.
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Nice to see some companies actually taking a stand; not like spineless apple.
As of July, 2019, Apple is producing AirPods in Vietnam, and is looking to abandon China, too. So I guess Apple isn't so spineless after all, eh?
https://asia.nikkei.com/Econom... [nikkei.com]
This is not something that happens overnight, like the Colts football team moving from Baltimore to Indianapolis.
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Nice to see some companies actually taking a stand; not like spineless apple.
Oh, and I don't see Samsung producing, well, anything, in the U.S.
Unlike Apple, who have been doing it (again) since 2012:
https://www.politico.com/story... [politico.com]
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A majority of Samsung phones are made in Vietnam [businesskorea.co.kr], and overall China is about 25% of their production.
And Samsung represent a minority of Android phones. Face it, most Android phones are also coming from China.
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And Samsung represent a minority of Android phones
Well just based on my own observation Samsung is the most popular brand in the Asian country where I live and almost no one has Apple phones.
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Not buying from Walmart, Target, Costco, Macy's, Kohls, BassPro, etc., etc., etc.?
Do let us know what's actually left for you to buy after you're done not buying all those other things that are also made in China.
But maybe you already have everything you need. I hope nothing ever breaks.
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That's a pretty lousy reason to not stand up for humanity. And quite a lot of what you mention is manufactured outside of China in other asian countries these days.
Also consider that while it is a game of chicken, they have almost two billion people and very little money. They're as addicted to our trade as we are on their goods. We do have the power to push them around, and we should use it.
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Did Steve Bannon told you?
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That's a pretty lousy reason to not stand up for humanity.
You really had to bend over backwards to come to that. I hope you didn't hurt yourself in the process.
And who has two billion people? Not China. Not even almost.
You talk about standing up for "humanity" and then say we should push China around, because we can. I thought Lindsey Graham was a hypocrite, but you're giving him some serious competition. I dunno, maybe you think we should nuke the Norks, because we can. Whatdyathink?
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And quite a lot of what you mention is manufactured outside of China in other asian countries these days.
Yeah, from my personal experience, it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 99.98% China, 0.01% everywhere else.
Seriously. Look at the labels of pretty much anything.
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I'd much, much rather buy something that was made in the US from US sourced components. I'd even pay a bit more for the privilege of helping places like the rust belt be better off.
Unfortunately, that's somewhat hard to do as you correctly point out.
Re: Pride before the Fall (Score:2)
See why it was a *splendid* idea to ship our entire industrial base to our biggest geopolitical rival? Thank you, Bill Clinton! Thank you, traitorous capitalist dogs on Wall Street!
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Realistically, the American people did this.
Walmart pushed for cheaper, and cheaper pricing. They also sourced brands from China, giving them inhouse brand names.
Those that could not compete, were excluded from Walmart's shelves. Those that could, invariably had to seek (mostly) China as a cheap source of production.
Yet, Americans LOVED It. LOVED the cheap, crappy products made by companies now either sold to the Chinese (eg, brand names sold to Chinese firms), or just companies closing everything.. and
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YOU ARE AT FAULT!
I am absolutely not. I was voting for Pat Buchanan back in the 90s. I have never been a free trader and never will be. The rest of you people are catching up to the fact that there are more important things than cheap trinkets.
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*Voted*? Voted? You can vote to force your fellow countrymen to but American, but that's sort of totalitarian in a way, yes?
The point is, that given freedom? Americans chose SELFISHNESS! That Americans can't be trusted with the ability to chose between their own job, and a cheaper trinket! But worse than that.. watching jobs go overseas, watching plant after plant close, did Americans do everything they could to halt it?
Did they only buy the remaining American products that existed, and reject anything
Re: Pride before the Fall (Score:1)
Lay off the meth, fucktard.
It absolutely reasonable and normal to blame a prominent political leader for the public policy enacted during his administration. Many, many people among us deplorables were against "free trade". Alas, we had no big money and thus no voice in Washington.
Your deranged rant sounds really, really angry. Were you or your family among the traitorous dogs who engineered and profited from the offshoring of America's industrial base? Is that why you are so eager to blame powerless indiv
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You still don't get it.
You, again, are suggesting that "some other guy" is at fault. For example, if Americans went down to the store, saw a Chinese product, and an American product.. and said "WOHA!" and bought American, there would never, ever have been a problem. Ever.
You've ignored this fact, and just spouted on more blather about "But!! OUR LEADERS MADE US BUY THIS STUFF!".
Is that true? Is it really true? I mean, there are two options here.
1) Americans are intelligent, capable of self-direction, of
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You know, I don't want the above to end on such a harsh note. The "grow up" note.
But my point here is simply this. I think one danger of democracy, is to externalize blame. Once you externalize blame, you then have given up control of your own destiny, for the difference between self-direction (democracy) and controlled-direction (communism), is key here.
And politic ads, political rhetoric makes one fall prey to such thought processes. The political ad stresses how key, how vital, how important the cand
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See why it was a *splendid* idea to ship our entire industrial base to our biggest geopolitical rival? Thank you, Bill Clinton! Thank you, traitorous capitalist dogs on Wall Street!
It started long before Clinton. And no one after him tried to reverse it.
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After so many decades of not buying Apple products, it just becomes a matter of pride to continue not buying Apple products.
Mods: In what world is the Parent's post even remotely "Insightful"?
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After so many decades of not buying Apple products, it just becomes a matter of pride to continue not buying Apple products.
I was not buying Apple products before it was trendy.
Use Find My Friends feature of iOS (Score:2)
Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is a bitch to the governments it depends on in terms of fat margins. All the rest is posturing and PR.
Apple could have opened its devices to alternative app stores like it's perfectly possible in the world of Android, but again, they won't do that to preserve their fat margins.
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Apple is a bitch to the governments it depends on in terms of fat margins. All the rest is posturing and PR.
Apple could have opened its devices to alternative app stores like it's perfectly possible in the world of Android, but again, they won't do that to preserve their fat margins.
Do try to keep up.
You can sideload on iOS ever since version 8.0 (it is now at version 13.0). There ARE several "App Stores" that offer various ".ipa" files that can be Installed onto an iOS device using Cydia Impactor, which runs on any platform.
Here's some examples of alternate "App Stores" for iOS:
https://www.unlockboot.com/bes... [unlockboot.com]
Time to stop the meme.
But don't let that stop your Anti-Apple screed.
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Quite the decision (Score:5, Informative)
Their decision appears to be that because an app could be misused by some people, it cannot be used legitimately by others.
This is what you get when someone else controls what you can install and run.
Re:Quite the decision (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple based the decision on the claims of the Chinese regime, which was of course entirely objective when investigating the people they want to oppress and determining that those people broke the law. This is the best of all possible ways to determine the truth. /s
Re: Quite the decision (Score:3)
The protesters almost certainly DID break the law. Some laws are badlaws. Rule of law is worth much less than nothing when the laws are wicked.
It would be nice if our companies could stand up for American values. Unfortunately 4 decades of deindustrialization and offshoring have left America with close to zero manufacturing capacity. So our corporate masters - who reaped vast financial benefits from selling us out - now find they have no choice but to bend over and take it for Emperor Xi.
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This is what you get when you're manufacturing centers are based oversea's.
Like it not, sometimes you gotta bend over.
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that's why you can't have privacy on Apple phones (or any other phones).... because privacy can also be mis-used
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Don't tell Tim Cook that people also exchange messages "maliciously" to attack police via email, SMS, and iMessage.
The older ones may even place an actual voice call.
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Their decision appears to be that because an app could be misused by some people, it cannot be used legitimately by others.
That is their position for purposes of public relations. The real reason is that Apple serves China.
Apple's restrictions become increasingly (Score:2)
What they are really saying (Score:2)
Drop MFN status (Score:5, Interesting)
China should never have been given this in the first place. Time to revert that mistake. The fig leaf the Clintons used at the time was, ironically, commitments to "human rights" in China. The actual reason was direct and indirect Chinese campaign contributions [nytimes.com].
And shut up about the "economy." The US was a mature and prosperous nation long before Clinton (Mr.) gave MFN status to China and the US evacuated half its industrial base there. We'll be fine, even if — heaven forbid — we must further roll back our regulatory nest feathering. But we won't do that either. Our captains of industry will just find new hell holes in which to make iphones.
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Hurting the people of China won't encourage them to change governments.
Wrong.
When people feel like they have nothing left to lose, or no other recourse, is when they will clash against their governments.
Re: Drop MFN status (Score:2)
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Which in this scenario would be the US.
That's inevitable anyhow. May as well rip off the scab.
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Hurting the people of China won't encourage them to change governments.
When people feel like they have nothing left to lose, or no other recourse, is when they will clash against their governments.
How many successful slave revolts are recorded in history? Or even more relevant, how many revolts against hydraulic empires were successful? What did you think China's "social standing" was for? The US does the same thing with government identification and occupational licensing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Credible information? (Score:1)
Courage (Score:1)
Dear Apple - learn from this. Keeping that app would have been an act of courage. Those protesters in Hong Kong have courage. Caving to the Chinese for financial reasons was an act of cowardice.
Not everyone can afford to be courageous. I'm married to a Chinese expat. Posting this without using the anonymous filter would put her remaining family in danger. Exactly the kind of danger that the people of Hong Kong worry about and are protesting against. While it would be easy enough to post this under my handle
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robot (Score:1)
Anti-customer walk (Score:2)
If it quacks like a state actor...
The Turks have a saying " watch their feet". No other action speaks the truth louder than Apple imposing China's policy beyond its sovereign borders upon the rest of the world. Apple == China.
"Maliciously" from the ChiCom perspective, perhaps (Score:2)
Since this is the PRC doing the demanding, perhaps Cook shouldn't have taken the word "maliciously" literally. When a tyrant wants to force compliance, ANYTHING the peons do to defend themselves is "malicious" from the tyrant's perspective.
But we now know: Apple and Tim Cook care far more about Chinese profits than Chinese people.
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But we now know: Apple and Tim Cook care far more about Chinese profits than Chinese people.
Stacking up dollars is the only thing Apple cares about. They've got what, $250B in the bank? Even if they can't come up with anything new or interesting, they can afford to buy something like that. But they don't, because Tim Cook's imagination would fit in 640kB.
It was a sad day for Apple when Tim Cook took the helm. Apple needs to be run by a visionary with a hard-on for quality, not a bean counter.
Cook suddenly cares about ROI (Score:3)
Again, here he was 5 years ago when a conservative investor was asking him about ROI on some renewable energy initiative:
https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
"If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock."
Suddenly, ROI seems to matter to Cook.
As for this:
"Over the past several days we received credible information, from the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau, as well as from users in Hong Kong, that the app was being used maliciously to target individual officers for violence"
Good. The officers have made a poor choice, they should suffer for it. Maybe they'll realize that "not showing up for work tomorrow" is a better choice. They've jailed protestors, let them suffer the consequences for their actions.
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Again, here he was 5 years ago when a conservative investor was asking him about ROI on some renewable energy initiative:
https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
"If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock."
Suddenly, ROI seems to matter to Cook.
It was always about ROI. Cook's statement was to claim a virtue that Apple did not have and was only interested in for public relations purposes. He lied.
What a load of horse APPLES (Score:2)
Good Thing Apple did not exist in 1776 (Score:2)
Neither would we.
This was debunked by Daring Fireball (Score:2)
Send this issue back (Score:2)
So if we follow his reasoning (Score:2)
Or you could, you know, blame the criminals for their criminal acts, instead of the tools they happen to use.
"protects our users" (Score:2)
"In this case, we thoroughly reviewed them, and we believe this decision best protects our users."
clearly, the users in this case are the police/goverment.
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"In this case, we thoroughly reviewed them, and we believe this decision best protects our users."
So selling your users into slavery best protects them? And that is if their users are lucky.
And _that_ friends, is the power of capitalism (Score:2)
China can censor the world because profit.
Local laws?!? (Score:2)
WTF, Tim?! "Violates local laws"?! Hell, I'll bet a ton of apps violate sharia law but I don't see you pulling those.
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WTF, Tim?! "Violates local laws"?! Hell, I'll bet a ton of apps violate sharia law but I don't see you pulling those.
Some laws are more lawful than other laws.
comes down to one word: cowardice (Score:2)
I bet that's the quote.
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This doesn't entirely hold up. Or we'd all be vegan.
Kosher foods as the article mentions are "easy" and satisfy everyone. Depriving us of meat pisses off a lot of people. Both sides are intolerant, and the majority wins (ok maybe you can find vegan food on offer somteimes, but rarely, vegetarian is usually the best you see).
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I'm trying to figure out if you think that Apple are elected government officials or that the Chineese Communist Party are liberals.
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It's easy and safe to insult the USA; it might be dangerous and expensive to insult the PRC. Especially since all their stuff is manufactured in the PRC.