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Apple Pulls WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, and Threads From App Store in China Following Order
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Yes one is removal of an app in the App Store. A procedure that has been done before. The other is opening up apples infrastructure to all comers. Other than that difference they are the same.
The WSJ is not the only news publication reporting this.
Precisely, that's a reflection of mainstream media being dominated by the same interests. WSJ, NYT, CNN, Fox, BBC News, whatever are all the same thing if they all work the same way: take a piece of news from China and provide zero critical context besides finding a way to make China look bad. The funniest ones are where they take an objectively positive development and try to convince you it's actually A Bad Thing™️
"China's economy is experiencing rapid growth... but is it too much growth?"
"China just ended extreme poverty... but at what cost?"
"China just banned gambling... is this a crackdown on FREEDOM? 😲"
"China are dealing with separatist terrorism... but is this actually a genocide?"
"China has record home ownership amongst youth... but is this a bad thing for their housing market?"
"China cures cancer... but is this a bad thing?"
"China launches a new Mars rover... do they intend on owning all of Mars?"
"China's standard of living is rising... but does that mean economic collapse?"
"China just built a brand new hyperloop style train prototype... here's why that's A Bad Thing"
And for the all time quarterly classic they've been printing since the 1980's:
"China is X months/days away from TOTAL ECONOMIC COLLAPSE! 🤯"
You could say there's a different Apple in every jurisdiction one promotes democracy and free speech the other submits to dictatorships.
Do you have any evidence for this? I'm going to guess no because there are plenty of examples of US companies using Chinese courts and winning their cases.
Still waiting for someone in this thread to explain why China allows Chinese iCloud customers to enable the same Advanced Data Protection as US customers which deletes encryption keys from iCloud and only stores them on device, rendering CPC/Apple spying extremely difficult. Everyone here assured me China banned privacy or something.
Why? Doesn't it make more sense to ban Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Signal, Twitter, and FB Messenger first since those represent the greater threat?
85 years years ago it was Germany, Italy and Japan.
Now it’s Russia, China and Iran.
Though we desperately need a Churchill, our politicians think Chamberlain.
Now it’s Russia, China and Iran.
Though we desperately need a Churchill, our politicians think Chamberlain.
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It just goes to show that the DMA is not a good piece of legislation at all.
The thing about China is that the government doesn't beat around the bush. If they want you to do something, they tell you in no uncertain terms what they want, and I don't think there is any room for ambiguity or alternative interpretations regarding "I want you to remove these apps from your App Store".
I am also not particularly bothered because android user can presumably still sideload these apps, meaning that people who want to access these apps still have alternatives, especially when iPhones have a minority market share in China (and as some people here like to so gleefully point out, has been losing sales to Huawei). So anybody wanting to message someone else can still buy a cheap android phone and install WhatsApp or Telegram.
In contrast, the DMA has been so vaguely written right from Day 1, and it shows in the way that Apple has been able to come up with so many interesting interpretations that many people here maintain do not meet the spirit of the rules. Did the EU really mean to allow Apple to charge users of third party app stores 50 cents per app download per year for installs over 1 million? Unlikely, but nothing in the DMA seems to expressly prohibit Apple from trying to monetising their IP.
If the EU wanted Apple to open up, they should have just be upfront about what they wanted Apple to do right from the very start. If they want Apple to allow both sideloading and third party app stores, and the manner to go about it, just say so. If Apple isn't allowed to charge developers a cut, just say so. If the prompt for selecting a third party browser sucks, then tell Apple what they want to see in the popup.
China doesn't try to pretend to be something they are not. By comparison, the EU can't even be honest about what they are trying to accomplish with the DMA. They aren't even allowed to admit to Apple that they are very likely violating Apple's property rights, and that this is to be balanced against the good of society. So in this regard, I do support Apple continue to push back against the DMA so we can get more clarity about just what it is that's happening here.
I wish Apple would stop with the lies. They are beholden because of manufacturing in the country. They would do anything at this stage. The US governemnt should step in.
It is news because decisions like this impact business. Not every story is a global conspiracy.
Against the Chinese government in decisions similar to this? I’m interested in reviewing a few examples. Can you point me to a few?
Why? WeChat has a solid track record of no security whatsoever. Has affirmed deep connection to CCP, a foreign adversary. Isn’t that enough incentive to investigate and determine its risk to national security? Or even the security of the democratic world?
Or more like it is not encrypted at all because it can be decrypted at will, making encryption useless.
Let me rephrase that, I meant to say that Apple as a major company, has no problem strongly & publicly supporting environmental & social causes - wether it be global warming or gay rights (which I commend)…but they always get cold feet when it comes to China. Just saying.
The cartel that is the EU has nothing to do with Apple’s or anyone else business in China. In fact many EU countries do business with China. Businesses need to comply with the the laws of the countries they are in. I am no supporter of China. They have been messing with Australia for years. But the Eu has nothing to do with this.
And yet the result is the average person continues to cry about authoritarianism. They know their target audience. People that seriously care about how this "impacts business" already knew these services were blocked via the Great Firewall and removing the apps today was a formality.
Western aligned entities (US, EU, Australia, Japan), government and private interests together, spend hundreds of millions of dollars on anti China propaganda at least, some say even more. Radio Free Asia alone has a $50mm budget or so. So much for no "global conspiracy." It's not that some of the central facts of a story are fake or lies (some are, look at the Xinjiang narrative), it's that the language surrounding them is designed to provoke a specific reaction.
Can you honestly say you don't think most mainstream media regarding China has a negative bent? You can't because it's all being done in the open for everyone to see: the funding, the ideological motive, the financial motive, etc.
Thankfully there are none otherwise I would lose respect for China. Sovereign countries don't let foreign entities dictate their national security policies. Similar to how there are no examples of foreign companies changing US national security policy. The original poster wasn't talking about decisions similar to this.
You must be kidding; Apple is debasing itself in China for a few dollars more and you are talking about quitting China. The only way they will quit China is if the Chinese government bans it and kicks it out.
I am sure majority of the Chinese use WeChat for communicating. Not sure if it can receive SMS messages or if China uses SMS messages for stuff like OTP and 2FA or if it uses WeChat for that too (I really don't know if that can be done). If SMS is required, only then will iMessage be used. Otherwise, nobody uses it in China. So is the case in many countries.
Apple can and does make an impact in the United States. They have almost zero capacity to do the same in China. So it isn’t about cold feet. It’s about completely different contexts.