Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

If my boss/product manager wanted me to do something like this, I'd be calling them out for shitty politics, and telling them they need to find a new engineer because I'd quit immediately - and likely incite others to come with me.

Maybe I have a higher sense of morality than others, but I'm no shill for China's power over Taiwan. I can use my entitlement/privilege as an engineer to say "fuck off" to anyone who wants me to do things I find immoral. Furthering the needs of a power hungry regime looking to assert dominance over others? Nope. I spend all my day working to further democracy and freedom, not to enable free thought and self-determination to be squashed.

Whoever coded this change and approved this PR, shame on you.

I'd probably have made the same decision as you (I'm fortunate to have a safety net), but many people don't have that luxury.

You want to ensure your design team and product matches the demographic you're trying to target so you can choose which ones are approved for that area. Completely reasonable, not a malicious feature to build either.

Except when it prevents you from selling your device in China.

There might have been several resignations over this change - you do not have the full picture. However, any number of resignations would not impact this directive being implemented.

The one to implement it - yes, they are anti-democratic. But we also need to acknowledge that one of the richest, most influential institutions on the planet is also anti-democratic...

What makes you think that it was an engineer in the US who made the change? Apple's got employees all over the world, including in China. If anything, my first guess was the update was made from a team based in shanghai or shenzhen, since the emoji is already banned there.

Edit: latest demographic data from Wiki, from 2010, says 63% Asian and 26% Chinese

But seriously, moral is the thing that applies not only when it's convenient.

Disclaimer: I have no moral right to preach this.

Notably, the code specifically looks for the "CN" locale, and calls "removeEmoji".

According to the book "Bullshit Jobs" [1] there are quite some people around the world -especially in FIRE and IT- who (partly) perform useless or downright harmful jobs.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

That is extremely viable how this could of played out in a tech firm. From there, such actions are in management hands. Management have a predisposition towards company loyalty and head nodding over morals and ethics - not all obviously, just from my experience - more inclined over engineers. When you have such a facility, then if management misuse it, is that the engineers fault all the time?

Let's not presume shame upon some engineer(s) who may of done such a change for other morally good reasons only to see their work abused for something they would never of intended their work to be used for. Then imagine that person reading presumptions that it was coded solely for this in mind and the hate bestowed upon them, with them already feeling bad about such abuse (as they will probably see it) and perversion of their good intentioned work.

Disclaimer: I work for Apple, but I don't work on iOS.

I don't blame anyone who is making $30k a year for going along with bad-politics at a company. But if you're making over 100k a year as an engineer? Yea, I hold you accountable for your actions and implementing bad politics.

My point wasn't a specific developer (as you point out, they might have been in China themselves and unable to do otherwise), but that anyone in the chain who is "safe" and in a position of power and privilege to not-play China's game, I find morally dubious. Engineers in the US are people I count as having this safety and privilege, but not engineers in China.

Executives, PMs and management in the US I also count as being able to tell China to shove it with their demands.

Though I'd go with the ability to add or remove emojis or restrict them was a facility engineered for more moral motives and was a point and click level of solution that those with access could do such a change with ease.

Or

It was upper management...

Either way - I do not expect an announcement from Apple saying "Zach in engineering did it, his bad, sorry for that", or indeed anything at all as that would fuel this and unless it is still trending as an issue after a few weeks, then they might. But in general, such things PR wise, blow over and Apple like most have found that not fueling it with any response unless it is exactly what the populus want to hear, it is best to say nothing. At least, that is how many such comparable matters play out with such large corporations throughout history, though they have improved.

EDIT[ s/hold/old/ ]

So not as clear cut that they can all just pack up and go walkabout.

Getting fired for not acceding to a demand like this isn't the result of an individual manager making a decision but the entire apparatus of corporate governance coming to bear on the person. It can be only be meaningfully resisted and fought with an equally organized group of engineers.

If you're on Hacker News, and our industry's willingness to compromise on fundamental values to maintain access to "the world's largest market" upsets you -

Join or start a union.

This would have to be done on a federal level. Just because Apple stopped doing this doesn't mean China would be any worse off. Google, Amazon, and every other tech company would still get in line to do whatever it takes to get that sweet, sweet money.

I would expect the Chinese to laugh as they've probably already stolen sufficient institutional and technical knowledge to respond with a "Bye Felicia" of their own.

Don't make it right, but it is a common theme by many countries and how they put business of trade ahead of moral and for the right price, will look the other way. Not singularing out any country as more righteous or guilty than others, as not the motives here or the point. Just that it does happen and sadly, I don't see that changing. Which is sad as it is in corruption/bribery on many levels and just not seen for what it is.

Make no mistake, Apple can be replaced in a sec. It needs China not vice versa.

Arguably the one and only big tech that has a significant Chinese stake, is Microsoft.

Google/Facebook/Netflix is banned, Amazon retreated. Oracle had just closed its research center.

By what fraction do you think Apple's profits would drop if it had to rebuild all of its factories outside of China? By what fraction do you think China's GDP or tax revenue would drop if it kicked Apple out of China?

Even if that situation were reversed, Tim Cook answers to shareholders via a board of directors. He's legally obligated to maximize shareholder value. Who do you think the Chinese officials who want power over Taiwan answer to? What legal obligations of any kind do you think they are under?

Good takeaway you had.

Is this actually true? Or just a "institutional wisdom"?

Basically, what a company is required to do is serve the BEST INTERESTS of its shareholders. This might not necessarily be the same as maximising shareholder value.

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

I believe the applicable phrase here is "courage of your convictions."

I've been fired twice for refusing to do things that I thought were unethical. Neither time did I have a safety net ready. But my life still continued.

A few years ago I stood up to a middle manager over privacy issues in a feature request. It went far enough to get HR and the legal department involved. It took half a year, but I won.

Bully managers count on people being afraid to lose their jobs. If more people stood up to them, they'd be afraid to make stupid requests in the first place.

There is no unified code of ethics that all software developers must abide by, so getting unethical work done is just a matter of moving the work to the next developer in line.

No he cannot. He would be immediately removed at CEO and replaced with someone who played ball.

Remember, Apple is a publicly traded company. What you're suggesting is, at a whim, Tim Cook could just completely tank the company. China has far, far more leverage over Apple than Apple has over them plus it's a huge market they're making progress in.

And therein lies the problem. We want to blame a programmer, or a flack. But it's never one or two people.

The real issue is a bureaucratic system or corporate culture that allows things like this to happen. Everyone can point fingers at someone else and absolve themselves internally of blame.

Taiwan should block shipments to Apple of whatever parts are made there that Apple needs. And I say this as a shareholder.

Live Flat Fucking Broke in San Francisco for only $250 a Day

But until I get a confirmation on this unselfish act I'm gonna go with probably didn't think much about it and took the next ticket on his list.

Which hey. I'm not on a high enough horse here to berate the guy, but not on a low enough horse to speculate how noble he must be in secret. (excuse the gender specific pronouns)

Really, the pressures should be on Apple and on China, not some low level engineer who had to write the code for this.

Sure he can. Google bailed on China once. Apple certainly has the money and talent to do the same.

He would be immediately removed at CEO and replaced with someone who played ball.

Would he? Why do you assume that this would be bad for it share price, or that the majority of shareholders would be against it?

Talleyrand

It could be configuration. Emoji settings are configured by region. So maybe someone with no dev experience could go into the iOS deployment package and simply change some config files around.

For engineer it’s just another rule, they get update like “locale X passed the law to do Y, update software to comply”. It’s not their job to do legal or ethical evaluations, and it’s unreasonable to expect it from them.

If you think it’s obvious, and any engineer should be well-equipped to do so, there is a story from inside the Big G. When Google employees had a protest-du-jour about Google planning to implement restricted version of search in China, it turned out that many Google employees of Chinese descent actually supported implemented restricted search in China arguing that restricted search is better than no search. Now, if you were an internatialization engineer working on restricting features, how would you evaluate claims of both groups and is it your responsibility to do so?

All the more reason why they (the replacement) should be blamed. Obviously, those who might have refused to comply and were replaced made a moral stand and deserve commendation, not blame.

> Maybe those engineers don't quit exactly because they want to hinder such actions by the management.

Perhaps. There are a lot of hypothetical scenarios we could construct that might absolve the implementor of blame but this is possible in any scenario where we're not privy to the internal process that culminates in a corporate decision.

If it's your company, maybe you have that privelege. But in the USA you're probably an "at will" employee. I would admire your moral stance but you'd probably get fired.

Refusing to do work you're asked of will probably only get the company to find someone who is willing.

So you're better off complying and using your talents to find other ways to allow users to circumvent this issue if they really wanted to.

China holds a lot of weight, but a company with a trillion dollar market cap also can make its own decisions.

Google didn't have much of any foothold into China when it dropped. It was also purely based on software which can be toggled off relatively easy (then you just have to wind down offices).

All of Apple's products require China to produce. All of them.

> Would he? Why do you assume that this would be bad for it share price, or that the majority of shareholders would be against it?

The majority of their manufacturing and assembly is in China. China is their big growth market. Not only would it tank the share price by cutting out their huge growth opportunity but it's completely within China's power to stop almost all of their production.

The stock market reflects what wallstreet things will grow. When you stagnate your share price drops (there is no reason to hang onto it if you won't become more profitable).

https://jobs.apple.com/en-us/search?location=china-CHNC&page...

Is it reasonable to believe Apple might have signed that task to a team sympathetic to the One-China policy, or just generally someone who was happy to do it?

Why do people think there was some sort of circumstance that caused the engineer to compromise on their morals?

Did you mean safety net as in another job lined up or substantial personal savings? Having a safety net generally means that your situation might be tough but you're okay if you quit/lose your job.

Getting deported because of your H1B would be an example of "doesn't have a safety net". The definition has gray area (such as if your family in your birth country is rich), but as a rule of thumb if deportation is the likely outcome, then you don't have a safety net.

IF you are an immigrant family, this is a trolley problem. Regardless of the courage of your convictions, you are making a choice for not just yourself, but your spouse and kids. It's not purely your own choice.

Today. But maybe not tomorrow. India, Vietnam, Brazil, and a dozen other countries are more than willing to take on that production. Heck, most of Apple's contractors in China (think Foxconn) already have manufacturing in other countries.

Or, hell, maybe the person is an American citizen, not even of Chinese descent, and agrees with the PRC's stance on Taiwan.

(Frankly I probably wouldn't get along with someone like this, but at a company the size of Apple, there are bound to be more than a few.)

The same that made Adobe cancel Venezuelans accounts today: the power of government and regulation.

I had neither. I took menial temp jobs and short-term manual labor jobs for a while until I could get something full-time in my field. Took about six months the first time, and nine months the second time.

Getting deported because of your H1B would be an example of "doesn't have a safety net".

Is it? It's not like if you lose your job when you're on an H1B they send you to the suicide booth. You just end up back in your old country, but with a much better resume. Yes, life is harder than it was in the United States, but you start again.

That's what people do — they get back up when they're knocked down. I've done it four times now. Losing an H1B is not the end of someone's life.

Taiwan unfortunately needs to be careful. China is just waiting for provocation strong enough to justify an invasion. Would that be it? Maybe, maybe not.

If we blame anyone, it should be the CEOs, board members, and large shareholders.

If this act didn't stand to hurt anyone, why did China care in the first place so much? Let's look at the converse, what does having a flag in a phone do that hurts China?

Bring forced to move to a different community is always bad. The fact that states often force you to do it is a big reason I am an anarchist.

Your response doesn’t really address the issue though. Say you can find a company that conforms most to your own moral standards (which is already unlikely, depending on where you arbitrarily choose to draw that line), that’s not good enough. You need to find a company that meets those standards, that only does business with other companies who also meet those standards, and only employs people who again meet those standards. That’s simply not realistic in any way.

The real answer to this question is that in order to participate in society, you need to accept that you’re going to have to interact with people you disagree with. Otherwise you can choose between trying to exclude all those you disagree with, or excluding yourself. Neither of which are tenable. If a company goes further than you’re willing to participate in, then your only option is to not work for them. Anybody working at Apple today likely started knowing that Apple did business with China. If they can’t handle that they should leave, and prepare themselves for a difficult job search for a company that doesn’t. But trying to force others to make the same decision is just completely unreasonable.

That isn't an easy thing to do and it certainly wouldn't give Tim Cook any leverage. It would take them probably a decade to fully move their pipeline out of China and even if they did it, it would be very capital intensive so even if it was cheaper it would take quite some time to recoup those costs (and I'm not really convinced it would be cheaper overall but that's a separate exercise).

Well, depends on what you're going back to. Say it's China, and you morally disagree with a lot more of the Chinese tech industry's politics than you do the US's. Is it worth taking the one particular stand here to lose the long game?

Obviously I'm specifically crafting counterexamples, but the point I'm trying to get across is that it's not purely a matter of courage of conviction.

In your case, good for you - you went further than most would. I would not have held that particular line. If that was the choice I would have to make, I would start to look for a new job at that moment, not to quit.

(I mainly included that parenthetical as a signal to the kinds of people on HN who would likely consider my post, without it, as some sort of support for China's denial of Taiwan's existence, which is absolutely not the case.)

The Chinese government is known to own the media and pump worldwide propaganda to its citizens and ex-citizens living abroad. These are facts, and they are only related to race because they apply to Chinese people. Please stop with the bullshit. It's embarrassing.