Apple Bows to Beijing, Removes Top Apps at Behest of Chinese Communist Party
CORRECTION, April 22, 2024: MSNBC isn’t among U.S. media banned in China. An earlier version of this article had a different name for the network.
Tech giant Apple is so vested in communist China that it is actually helping that government oppress its people, and this month the company took yet another step down that path by acquiescing to the Chinese state and removing more apps from its App Store in China.
Last week, Apple agreed to remove Meta’s WhatsApp messaging app and its Threads social media app from the Chinese version of the App Store so that Chinese citizens could not access them. Apple took this measure to comply with the red Chinese government’s demands, ABC News reported.
The government in Beijing claimed that the apps presented a “national security” problem.
It is, of course, no wonder that the communist masters don’t like apps that offer people the ability to directly communicate with one another without going through government officials first. That is what authorities mean when they talk about “security” problems. We can’t have people speaking to each other freely, now, can we?
“The Cyberspace Administration of China ordered the removal of these apps from the China storefront based on their national security concerns,” Apple said in a statement released to the media.
“We are obligated to follow the laws in the countries where we operate, even when we disagree,” the statement added.
Per wire service Reuters, messaging apps Telegram and Signal were also removed from circulation in China.
Moving forward, Chinese citizens will mostly be relegated to using the messaging app WeChat, owned by Chinese company Tencent, one that is monitored 24-7 by Chinese censors.
Utilizing its “Great Firewall,” China blocks all foreign-based social media apps such as X, Facebook, Google, and others because Chinese censors are not able to intercept, block, ban, and otherwise censor what its citizens see on those apps.
“China is considered to have one of the most extensive and sophisticated censorship regimes in the world. Dubbed the Great Firewall, a number of methods are employed to control online expression, including website blocking, keyword filtering, censoring social media, and arresting content posters that broach sensitive or political issues,” Investopedia explains on its website.
This same “Great Firewall” also prevents Chinese citizens from accessing any news agencies from outside China. Chinese citizens cannot see Reuters, the BBC, ABC News, NBC News, The Wall Street Journal and many other American news sites.
Curiously, MSNBC isn’t on the list of blocked U.S. media, likely due to its programming being indistinguishable from typical CCP propaganda.
Apple has been more than happy to help China censor the world.
In fact, Apple removed The New York Times app from its App Store in China back in 2017 when communist officials demanded that they do so, Reuters added. And last year, Apple pulled a number of ChatGPT-like apps when Beijing moved to censor and regulate future artificial intelligence programs.
Worse, if citizens are caught using any of these foreign services or looking at news from any sources other than those approved by the CCP, they can be arrested, tortured, and even executed at the whim of the authorities.
These are the sort of monsters Apple is only too happy to acquiesce and bow to.
Meanwhile, like every other tech giant here in the U.S., Apple is more than happy to allow China to extend its evil surveillance state to us Americans by fully supporting apps like TikTok, which is well-known for its links to the Chinese government and for sharing American user data with authorities in Beijing.
Unlike in the U.S., in China TikTok is an educational tool for its young people. Chinese children see music, math, and science videos there. Meanwhile, in the U.S. TikTok preys on upping viewers dopamine levels and presents salacious, smutty garbage with the goal of addicting viewers, almost like opium, Desert News noted.
“It’s almost like they recognize that technology is influencing kids’ development, and they make their domestic version a spinach version of TikTok, while they ship the opium version to the rest of the world,” said Tristan Harris, a social media ethics activist, Desert News added.
Naturally, Apple is heavily invested in China and much of its manufacturing is carried out in the communist nation.
Still, even the kowtowing tech giant has shown small signs of hesitancy on the question of China. Apple has been very slowly moving its supply chain outside China, and even moved some iPhone production to India, Business Insider noted last year, though it’s not clear how much of that is motivated by principle versus profit (but we can probably all guess which).
But Apple is so entangled in manufacturing in China that it will be difficult to fully divest from one of the world’s most oppressive nations. And Apple is not alone. Most other high tech firms are similarly invested in red China.
China is not our friend. China is not a friend to freedom or modernity, either. These tech giants are bowing and scraping to a China which, if it could, would coopt their businesses, steal their assets, and decapitate (figuratively and possibly literally) their c-suites. They are quite happily feeding the beast that wants to eat them.
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