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Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

(blog.emojipedia.org)
1456 points pulisse | 1 comments | 07 Oct 19 16:24 UTC | HN request time: 0.297s | source
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tibbon ◴[07 Oct 19 18:36 UTC] No.21184395[source]▶
What's it take for an engineer in the US to actually do something like this?

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.

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1. nacho_weekend ◴[07 Oct 19 20:11 UTC] No.21185423[source]▶
I work at an ecommerce company and we have to do something similar for displaying Taiwanese flag icons and refer to countries as “regions” as to not piss off China. Its the deal with the devil you make when you work on an international scale, and unfortunately making some small time political message will hurt your bottom line if the Chinese market share is taken away from your customer base. Unfortunate but it’s just economics. Not sure if it’s 1-to-1 with the Apple situation but it’s my anecdote.