Stephen Silver
Chinese state media outlets have been trashing Apple for failing to cut down on Messages content related to pornography and gambling.
According to a Wall Street Journal report Tuesday, several state-affiliated media outlets in China, including state-controlled news agency Xinhua, have ripped Apple in recent days for not doing enough to filter prohibited content out of iMessage. CCTV went on to criticize Apple for allowing illegal gambling apps in the App Store in that country, under the guise of lottery apps.
It has often been a custom in China, the Journal said, for state media to launch campaigns against companies during times of trade-related tension.
The dispute illustrates the perils of an American company operating in a country without a free speech tradition, as the Chinese government is pushing Apple to intervene to block certain text messages, containing pornography, pirated content or other illegal activity. Apple has traditionally valued user privacy over such concerns.
Apple and the trade war
The controversy comes as trade tension between the governments of the U.S. and China grows and Apple fears being caught in the middle.
Apple's strategy has been to do all it can to keep the peace while maintaining strong relations with both governments. Tim Cook met with President Trump at the White House April 25, which the White House described as a "good meeting," and at some point this spring the Trump Administration reportedly promised Cook that the iPhone would be exempted from any tariffs directed at China.
Meanwhile, Cook has attempted to smooth relations with Beijing. He visited China in March and met with various government officials. Workers at Foxconn, according to the New York Times last month, have dubbed Cook's efforts "Red Apple."
The fog of (trade) war
With China a major market for Apple's products and also the place where the majority of its supply chain and manufacturing operations are located, the country is very important to Apple's business. But a trade war, as threatened by the president's tariffs, has the potential to bring all sorts of complications to Apple's plans.
Even if the iPhone ends up exempted from tariffs, the restrictions could affect Apple in other ways, from other Apple products to components or even accessories falling under the tariffs.
The barrage from state-run media is just the latest possible unintended consequence of the current trade tensions.
Andrew Orr
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15 Comments
I sometimes wish that Apple's profits and sales weren't so dependent on China. Increasingly, one gets the feeling that the company is being held hostage to their whims.
In a twisted way, the fact that Google and FB are not in China works to their advantage on the stock price front.
I suspect (or hope) Apple would leave these areas of business in China before completely sacrificing their ideals. Their stock would take an initial dive but the company itself would remain overall healthy.
I still have a hard time understanding how one could effectively censor nudity in an app like iMessage.
In any event if Apple wants to survive they need to get manufacturing out of China. No matter what the USA does there will be a war area of the world. It IS the primary reason China built up its economy. The government there doesn't give a damn about its people, they want money to build up an army to settle old scores. There educational system is built around conditioning the populace to blame Chinas woes on the outside world.
It is amazing that so many companies have been gullible about China and so willing to to put all of their eggs in one basket. It wont last and frankly the saber rattling has already started. The first to go will be Taiwan with Japan a close second. I wouldn't be surprised if most of Indochina gets occupied at some point. The writing is on the wall, hopefully the idiots doing business in China wake up and get manufacturing out if China.
Sadly Apple has become too greedy to care. When SHTF in China Apple will suffer big time maybe even collapse as a viable company. Of course liberals will blame this on Trump even though China has been working on this for decades.
Censorship isn't a China problem, we suffer from it here in the USA, often as the result of big companies creating arbitrary policies of discrimination. The problem is rather the government of China and its intentions with respect to other countries. Sadly this will just lead to more suffering for the good people in China that really could use a break.
If people in China don't like it, they can change their government.