Apple's Cooperation with Authoritarian Governments

<i>&gt; March 2021, Apple reportedly agrees to preinstall Russian software</i><p>Wait, this regulation is a result of an antitrust case against Google and Apple started by Yandex, as both were using their platforms against their direct competitor. The same thing that many people want to see in EU and US. Clearly it doesn&#x27;t belong to the list and the author did zero research on this, but included anyway because it fits the bad guy narrative they are trying to push.<p>What&#x27;s even funnier is that Apple threatened to withdraw from the russian market rather than having to do this, so the question is who&#x27;s the real bad guy here (how about &quot;a tech giant threatens an unimportant country to be able to bully domestic competitors&quot;?). I guess everybody is horrible in this story, because the government had to compromise and omit the requirement to be able to uninstall this software, and they also included many companies who were large enough to be able to lobby their interests, because obviously they didn&#x27;t want to make a single company special. Now Samsung reportedly has a backdoor deal with Yandex to install their software as system on Samsung phones, so it&#x27;s being shoved down customers&#x27; throats. Nice.

It&#x27;s easy to pick on Apple, when you don&#x27;t know the history of these political issues. Not picking on Red Hat, but because I know this from the first hand it was 18 years ago that they removed the Taiwanese flag from KDE3 control center: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;redhat-list.redhat.narkive.com&#x2F;b3p8HQaa&#x2F;bug-70235" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;redhat-list.redhat.narkive.com&#x2F;b3p8HQaa&#x2F;bug-70235</a><p>Apple is not a government, it&#x27;s a business. They&#x27;ll either have to obey the local laws or they&#x27;ll lose business.<p>While we are here, checkout how Google Maps handles these issues: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;2020&#x2F;02&#x2F;14&#x2F;google-maps-political-borders&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;2020&#x2F;02&#x2F;14&#x2F;google-...</a>

With the App Store, Apple’s really brought this problem upon themselves whether they agree with what they are told to do or not. Any sort of centralized distribution mechanism is always going to be the first thing an authoritarian government targets when trying to take down content they don’t like. On iPhone it’s even worse because the App Store is not only a centralized distribution mechanism but the <i>only</i> distribution mechanism. If you want something gone, you can just force Apple and that’s that for iPhone.

The &quot;Apple will preinstall apps for the Russian government&quot; bit is untrue, and has spread around due to shoddy tech journalism. iMore, which repeats the falsehood in the article title[0], includes a translation of a Russian news article:<p>&gt; The agreements stipulate that the first time Apple is purchased in Russia, the user will see a dialog window when setting up, in which he will be asked to install applications from the government-approved list by default, Vedomosti said. It will be possible to refuse installation, removing ticks in front of certain applications, explains the source of the publication.<p>So really it is an opt-out list of apps presented at setup, which are downloaded and installed after user confirmation. The apps are, presumably, still subject to iOS security policy.<p>It&#x27;s clearly not ideal, and reminds me of the dark years of trying to avoid accidentally installing the Yahoo Toolbar. But it&#x27;s not as evil as it sounds from the headline, and it would be stupid of Apple to pull out of the Russian market over this (as iMore says they once threatened).<p>Save your rage for when iMessage encryption is nerfed, and government-approved apps are no longer opt-out.<p>0: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imore.com&#x2F;apple-agrees-pre-install-apps-russian-devices" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imore.com&#x2F;apple-agrees-pre-install-apps-russian-...</a>

Most of this &quot;X does Y with authoritarian government&quot; is basically individuals picking up government signals (propagated through the media) for the new enemy of the day.<p>That&#x27;s why it gets increasingly more frequent at a particular time (whereas China has been authoritative for decades when the same now &quot;indignant&quot; people didn&#x27;t write about it), uses the same talking points (often of some bad but useful source that&#x27;s repeated as gospel, &quot;orange revolution&quot; style opposition, ex-pats with axes to grind, etc.), and is focused on the singled-out &quot;enemy du jour&quot; even if there are tons of allies doing the same or worse.<p>Selective government talk points, &quot;leaks&quot; to the press, propaganda pieces, &quot;exclusive access&quot;, etc, fuels this further.<p>Until there&#x27;s another enemy to focus on, when it all deflates.

This should be in the mind of anybody using an Apple device for its privacy &#x2F; security feature and not living in a democratic country and even in democratic country, but there is usually more safe-guard against police overreach in democratic country.<p>Apple will &quot;take a stand for their users&quot; when they can do it with no consequence (for example when they refused to decrypt an iPhone for the FBI). But if the country can ban you from doing business for not &quot;fully cooperating&quot; with their law enforcement, they will abide (unless the country is irrelevant for their business).<p>I won&#x27;t say that it is any better than using a non-encrypted device, or less secured device, since, in a lot of cases, even Apple cannot &quot;break-in&quot; their own device. But don&#x27;t think that Apple won&#x27;t send everything they know about you to your local police.<p>I don&#x27;t think it should surprise most people (and in a way, don&#x27;t you want company to comply with your laws ?). But when Apple talk about privacy, remember that it&#x27;s privacy toward other company, not the government.

Which governments are &quot;bad&quot;? Who gets to make that decision?<p>The UK government is defying international law in the Chagos Islands and has broken its treaty with the EU over checks to&#x2F;from N. Ireland. Does that make it a &quot;bad&quot; government that private companies should not do business with? If the UK demands that an app is withdrawn from the app store, or that private communications should be turned over to government agents with no justification, should a private business refuse to do that? The same arguments can be made for the USA (as the article does).<p>People generally get the government they deserve. If a country is authoritarian, then it&#x27;s up to the people of that country to deal with that problem, not private companies. China&#x27;s government is representative of the wishes of its people, and if it&#x27;s not then China&#x27;s people will deal with that.<p>Contrast that with Myanmar: the democratically elected government has been overthrown by the military, who are in the process of killing anyone who protests about it. This is clearly different. There can clearly be no international co-operation with this regime, because it&#x27;s obviously been taken over by bad people. There should be international outrage over this, and action from the international diplomatic community - part of which should be guidance to private companies about whether to co-operate with the military regime.

Apple complies with all governments in markets that are sizeable to their business.<p>Authoritarian governments that are into surveillance love looking into your icloud and itunes accounts. They use FISA and National Security Letters to pry into your and everyone elses life.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnet.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;apple-fbi-government-national-security-letters-orders-data-requests&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnet.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;apple-fbi-government-national-secu...</a>

&gt; July 2017, Apple removes VPN apps from China App Store<p>This is the only thing keeping me from buying an iPhone. Their control on what apps you can run on your phone is absolute. This may not be a problem in liberal countries where pretty much every website is available. But in some places VPNs have become a necessity.

So even US and EU can&#x27;t deal with Authoritarian Governments and they are closing their eyes, you are expecting Apple to do that?<p>I wondering when we are going to start critize our governments before critizing the companies. You know, they are the ones that make law.

Could be summed up as &quot;Company&#x27;s cooperation with local government&quot; period.<p>Once you do business in a country, you follow the country&#x27;s rules.<p>Simple as that.<p>You don&#x27;t get to pick and chose or impose your own (and usually, your own culture&#x27;s and governments and national interest&#x27;s) ideas and laws.<p>Unless of course the country is a banana republic, which China isn&#x27;t.

I find the word &quot;problematic&quot; in the first paragraph. That&#x27;s usually a sign, but it is a word that people use, so whatever, let&#x27;s ignore it and continue.<p>Sure enough, the article enters a tirade about the &quot;human rights violator in chief.&quot; Draws <i>motive</i> from an advertisement with the then president of the US in it, and advertisement of an american company, the first trillion dollar company who reached that valuation under that president, and attributes it to the CEO. The CEO of apple will <i>stoop to any level</i> to garner favor, lower than cooperating with authoritarian dictators even, so says the article.

Anyone has examples of companies (big or small) who actively go against this and refuse to cooperate and thereby willingly give up the money?

&gt; (Note: you may be wondering why I have included the US in a list of authoritarian governments. Let me remind you of the outrageous police brutality that we saw last summer. And let’s not forget the orange elephant in the room.)<p>Okay then. OP seems to suggest that a private company should take the responsibility to defy government requirements and orders because the government is labeled bad?<p>I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s very practical.<p>Besides, an OS or device vendor can arbitrarily dictate what kind of app a user can get, in my opinion, is the true elephant here.

The problem is not what Apple removes from the App Store. It is that they do not allow a third-party store to exist on their platform.

The issue is not that this is happening with Apple products, the issue is that it is happening everywhere. What do I purchase?<p>I want a device which puts my privacy first and one which my family members can operate too. Without me being on the line to teach them how.<p>We simply have too little competition in the phone OS market from my point of view. Also web-first phone are pretty rare.

I&#x27;m really happy to not own any Apple products. They cost too much while simultaneously limiting what I can do.<p>I am happy they are popular, because I own stock in them. Other than that, they clearly have near zero patriotic morals.

I think people would have far less problems with tech companies selling to <i>anyone</i> if they didn’t push moral crusades themselves. Apple is clearly interested in pushing its own ethical views, but only when they don’t risk serious profits for it. It’s a special kind of self-serving hypocrisy; paint yourself as noble when nothing is on the line, but keep mum when you might lose something.<p>If they stopped acting like moral crusaders and simply said, “We sell computers to anyone with money,” there would be much less of an issue.

I&#x27;d have more sympathy if he didn&#x27;t include, in his primary examples, one that he himself admits there&#x27;s no evidence for.<p><i>there is little direct evidence to support this exact claim. While I am willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt and consider this an inconvenient coincidence, I would not be surprised if this were a deliberate move.</i><p>&quot;I would not be surprised if&quot; is not how honest argument works. On the other hand, at least he admits it. A hit piece would have insisted it&#x27;s all true.

It is reasonably likely that, in a pinch, the US uses iPhones to target missile strikes. There is no way the iPhone isn&#x27;t being used in cooperation with the NSA spying program either.<p>It isn&#x27;t new for corporations to cooperate with the ugly parts of government. I don&#x27;t really understand why Apple is being singled out here. They are better than average because at least their abuses are fairly obvious and they don&#x27;t make plays to control people&#x27;s data like certain other companies.

Apple made this problem itself. They wanted to retain a full, complete control on what users can do with their product. This made their App Store a single point of failure. Coincidentally, those authoritarian governments want the exact same control on their people so it&#x27;s perfectly natural to see their relentless attempts to control App Store. The solution is obvious, but I&#x27;m 100% sure that Apple won&#x27;t take that path unless it&#x27;s forced to do so.

Just to give some perspective on how far things have changed since 1998, have a look at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;1998&#x2F;04&#x2F;17&#x2F;world&#x2F;apple-removes-the-dalai-lama-from-its-ads-in-hong-kong.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;1998&#x2F;04&#x2F;17&#x2F;world&#x2F;apple-removes-the-d...</a> .

I think it is kind of an unreasonable expectation that businesses will flout the law of countries they operate in out of some sense of principle. There are plenty of unsavory actors right here at home Apple answers to, and I’m not sure that a world of sovereign corporations would be improvement anyway.

This seems like it misses the point - American companies doing business with authoritarian regimes that don’t have American interests at heart, are inherently un-American and unworthy of American support.<p>Either we’re in this together, or the invisible line in the dirt means nothing and I want my money back.

Reminder of Tim Cook’s twitter bio[1]:<p>&gt; “Life&#x27;s most persistent and urgent question is, &#x27;What are you doing for others?&#x27;” - MLK<p>Maybe he should read it more often.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;tim_cook" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;tim_cook</a>

Well, I&#x27;m not surprised - Belarus and China Apple experience was discussed on HN widely.

I think it&#x27;s pretty damn weird people think Apple should probably be solving the problem of authoritarian governments around the world.<p>Apple isn&#x27;t Superman. It&#x27;s just a company selling phones and some other things. Their leverage over the legal and regulatory systems various countries is limited... a very good thing, BTW. If they had more, do you <i>really</i> think they would use it only for good?

Apple definitely listens to China, since their entire manufacturing is there and it&#x27;s a huge market for them, but the claim that Apple listens to Myanmar has no basis at all. Why would they care? And there&#x27;s a ton of other VPN apps.<p>It&#x27;s an AppStore glitch and nothing more.

The author indirectly advocates sanctioning these regimes. If that is the case, their best path is through government. Playing whack-a-mole with individual companies is, while decent clickbait and PR fodder, useless with respect to real-world outcomes.

&gt; In Seattle, Apple has given the feds vital evidence from one of its iCloud users who was arrested for firebombing cop cars during the George Floyd protests in late May.<p>&gt; The case shows how Apple is willing to help even where the context of the crime is controversial, namely the Black Lives Matter protests.<p>EXCUSE ME??? Are you saying that firebombing cars is somehow an acceptable act in the context of a protest, and that helping track down the perpetrator of such an act is a bad thing?

It&#x27;s not only apple. Almost all of the big tech doing that these days, either out of concern about their manufacturing resources, or other motives. Something I won&#x27;t support, but can understand their motives behind. But I am trying to understand how this part fits in the list.<p>&quot;November 2019, Trump re-election campaign ad shot in Apple’s Mac Pro plant in Austin<p>Given the context and the headline, Apple working with authoritarian governments. Unless the author thinks the US is authoritarian.<p>I don&#x27;t see any problems with any high tech executive supporting one politician or another, if the author is making the alleged Tim Cook&#x27;s support for Trump the reason to include that in the list of incidents showing Apple working with authoritarian regimes.

I don’t remember the exact controversy, but I remember some controversy during the Obama years where a prominent US company complied with some censorious Chinese requirements. Obama said something along the lines of “I wish you’d come to us before agreeing to this. We would have helped.”<p>As these the list starts in 2017, I wonder how much of this is the result of the US’s decreased willingness to export its values abroad during the Trump years.

I for one, am shocked and stunned, that John Gruber is defending Apple.<p>After all, will you bite the hand that feeds you?

Am I the only one who thinks this story smells like smear campaign from facebook??

And Parler

All of Europe at present.

Capitalism is perfectly compatible with Authoritarianism, Fascism, and worse.<p>We cannot rely on the agents of Mammon to rid the world of authoritarianism. That is a hopelessly naive approach. They’re just not that interested, and they’re a poor fit for the job.<p>Capitalist companies are good at making things, they’re good at making profits, but <i>by design</i> they are useless for meaningful social change and increasing freedom, because they themselves require the maintenance of a world of peasants and kings.

I am always amazed and surprised when reading comments on HN regarding Apple, even though I know what I will read.<p>No matter what Apple does, the Apple apologists come out of the woods to defend their overlords.<p>I always like to play a little game, which I believe could also be a nice browser extension.<p>Read the comments and articles, but replace the word Apple with Microsoft. Opinions and stances would shift dramatically under a minute.<p>I cannot fathom that there are adult educated people living in a free democracy defending a company which works with a authoritarian government which is involed in a GENOCIDE.

Things are a bit worse, Tim Cook may be a closet communist as suggested him hiring a lobbying firm to shield communists from forced labour bill <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;2020&#x2F;11&#x2F;20&#x2F;apple-uighur&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;2020&#x2F;11&#x2F;20&#x2F;apple-u...</a>

I mean capitalism goes together with authoritarianism pretty good. Just look at the companies that still exist today that helped the Third Reich. Perhaps it&#x27;s time to want a different underlying system that wouldn&#x27;t have a bottomline for profit maximization? idk

I once, naively, bought into the benevolent dictator spiel. The coordinated hit on Parlor dispelled my rose colored glasses respective to that narrative.<p>It&#x27;s all BS and past time for Apple (and Google for that matter) to be forced to open up and allow authorized alternatives to the &quot;official&quot; stores. And yes, while there is a generic open sourced version of Android, let&#x27;s be honest - the one everyone wants is Android integrated with Google&#x27;s services and for that one you have to go through the Play store.