Apple’s China ties under Congressional scrutiny after Jon Stewart cancellation
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To crib an earlier reply, you're posting on an American-hosted server and message forum. Now do China.
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Name a US company that has not raised their prices. Just one. Actually, name a company anywhere in the world that hasn’t.
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A bit rich coming from the USofA - which has been directly or indirectly influencing far more meaningful and important determinations around the world for decades.
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Learn the past few hundred years of world history, and report back.
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Maybe so, but let's give credit where it's due: that particular rhetorical tactic you're using was popularized by the Soviets.
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Was this rhetorical device ever funny or clever, or was it always just smug and obnoxious?
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So by this logic, Apple has no right to cancel a show on the basis of poor ratings just to avoid potentially bad press? They are supposed to just keep throwing good money in after bad?
It’s ridiculous. In this case, no company would ever fund another talk show ever again in the event they they decide to discontinue it some day, and disgruntled staff go running to the press with blatant misrepresentations of the truth.
It’s ridiculous. In this case, no company would ever fund another talk show ever again in the event they they decide to discontinue it some day, and disgruntled staff go running to the press with blatant misrepresentations of the truth.
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Do not forget that companies need each other and censor content along the process.
Like Mc Donald deciding the final cut in a movie or it does not make it in the Happy Meal campaigns.
Pleasing your commercial partners and potential customers is a core part of business.
Like Mc Donald deciding the final cut in a movie or it does not make it in the Happy Meal campaigns.
Pleasing your commercial partners and potential customers is a core part of business.
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No. Apple is free to rebut Jon Stewart's interpretation of events by putting out their own statement about the reasons they are cancelling the show.
It's entirely possible that Apple is bowing to real or perceived blow-back from China, but most folks agree that this wasn't Jon's finest work. Assuming that disappointing viewership numbers or similar factors played a role in the decision to cancel, if they had put out a statement to that effect I doubt they'd be getting a letter from a congressional committee.
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LOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
Between the US and the USSR - they make China look like kindergarteners. That's not to say, of course, that their influence isn't (rapidly) rising. And they're smarter than the U's - they're influencing with money and debt... not (predominantly) bombs and spy craft.
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Sure. But both the Soviets and the USA have never really been big on acknowledging their own hypocrisy - definitely erring on the 'do as I say, not as I do' side of things.
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Steve was also a terrible human being. I'm not sure how that is relevant.Right on! Steve was all about stickin' it to the man! He didn't care about making money or running a business... He was all about the freedom, dude!
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This is why conglomerates like Apple are untenable. It’s time to break them up. Companies can’t be allowed to own a media arm that can be used as a propaganda tool for the rest of the benefit
We need to break all the big corporate behemoths up just like they did to AT&T. We’ll all benefit. More competition, better jobs, and more innovation
We wouldn’t even have cell phones if the government hadn’t broken up AT&T in the 80s under the Reagan administration
We need to break all the big corporate behemoths up just like they did to AT&T. We’ll all benefit. More competition, better jobs, and more innovation
We wouldn’t even have cell phones if the government hadn’t broken up AT&T in the 80s under the Reagan administration
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Corporations aren't beholden to a banner of one country or another. Remember when Walmart was all about Made in the U,S.A in the 1980s? Eventually the desire to make a profit exceeded their desire to promote nationalist marketing. Corporations see profit and will act in a way that moves as much product as possible. While Bud Light suffered the misstep of marketing because bigots boycotted their product over Dylan Mulvaney, a number of other companies profited from similar tactics. The risks are calculated. Usually they pay off.
Apple was about preserving their business relationship with China. I get why they did what they did and I don't like it, but I understand their motives. At the same time, I understand Jon Stewart and I believe he was in the right. I hope some day authoritarian governments can learn to take a bit of criticism. I get so frustrated at some of our own people in the U.S. who get all bent out of shape because my friends and I want the history of the multiple times the U.S. used concentration camps over the centuries with very little repercussions. But some are quick to call that hating our country. I call it, "seeking to create a more perfect union."
Apple was about preserving their business relationship with China. I get why they did what they did and I don't like it, but I understand their motives. At the same time, I understand Jon Stewart and I believe he was in the right. I hope some day authoritarian governments can learn to take a bit of criticism. I get so frustrated at some of our own people in the U.S. who get all bent out of shape because my friends and I want the history of the multiple times the U.S. used concentration camps over the centuries with very little repercussions. But some are quick to call that hating our country. I call it, "seeking to create a more perfect union."
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Given how beholden the far right in the Republican Party seem to be to Putin, it’s amusing (in a not at all funny way) that they are complaining about others acting as beholden to foreign interests they don’t like.
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They (Blizzard) maliciously threw up barriers to me playing one of my favorite games. They worked hard to break compatibility with WINE, and now I have to boot to Windows which can take 40 minutes depending on how many differently-named Cortanas I have to dismiss, from week-old news I disabled a month ago to begs and pleas to please please pretty-please jump into the void and "upgrade" to 11, sign up for backups, buy office software, see a weather report X X X X X interspersed with "Not now", "Skip", and "Cancel", all at different positions on the screen so I can't just take a nap while clicking and by the time I start my game my budgeted play time is up especially with Windows updates, eight out of ten of which require a restart while in my other OS there can be 78 updates and it takes one restart at most, and that takes less than a minute, not 10 minutes watching dots fly in a circle on a pretty picture of a mountain replete with glaciers that don't even exist anymore IRL and GRRR!!!! Rackafrackin jumping Jehosaphat oil-baron vulture capital Wall St. varmints! Yarggggh sorry went off a bit there but I hope you understand there's real reason to be upset. Ok slinking out through the kitchen now.
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It's actually not. China was a large film market a few years ago, but that hasn't been less and less the case since 2020. International releases are now downplayed if they're even released at all.
There were certainly boom-times pre-pandemic. In 2019, Avengers Endgame grossed CN¥4.2B. In 2017, The Fate of the Furious grossed CN¥2.6B. Even Aquaman grossed CN¥2B in 2018.
The only films to gain respectable grosses in the past few years were the Avatar sequel, Jurassic World Dominion, and Fast X. However, each of those under-performed compared to the previous entries in the franchise. Reports suggest Fast X fell considerably short of the CN¥1B mark. Most international films other than these marquee blockbusters weren't released at all, or had limited releases.
In comparison, patriotic films have been doing a roaring trade. 2023's Full River Red grossed CN¥4.5B. More than Avengers Endgame. The Battle at Lake Changjin grossed CN¥5.7B in 2021. Its sequel grossed CN¥4B. My People, My Country and its sequel, My People, My Homeland grossed CN¥3B each.
These patriotic films are often earning Chinese box office grosses north of US$500 million. Compare that to Ant Man: Quantumania (US$40 million) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (US$15 million). The latter gained better grosses from Brazil, Australia and South Korea. It had a worse opening weekend in China than in Indonesia.
The boom times for Hollywood blockbusters in China are well and truly over.
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Apple has to do this as long as practically their entire hardware supply chain is in China. When Apple doesn't depend on China to make their hardware, they can afford to be more critical.
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Despite the merits of this dilemma Apple is facing, I think it's quite interesting how China is way more successful in the cultural war against the west than the Soviet Union was. Instead of just banning western content and countering American propaganda with their own shitty propaganda, they use capitalism itself to influence which content Americans produce, it's quite brilliant I think. Again, I dislike China even more than I dislike the US (they have a greater potential of doing harm to other countries, even though until now the Americans did much more harm to my country than the Chinese ever did), but I got to recognise when they are smart about some things
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In news articles like this, where the majority of readers are Americans with all their weird biases, the best thing is to sort by votes and go to the last pages, this is the best comment in the whole discussion, and it's buried down there
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SpankyFrost
Ars Centurion
Apple and Moral do not go together... In fact most huge corps don't know what moral is. And your thoughts on 1st amendment is also flawed. Perhaps you feel the chinese spy balloons are protected with that lunacy? I personally believe that Any and ALL US technology should be mandated to return to the USA as much as possible. But that would take billions along with corps and govt with morals... pffffsssttt!
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Stewart largely lost the plot in his post-Daily Show years. His Apple TV show was middling at best. I’m not surprised it got cancelled independent of any desire to appease China.
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Do you find it dystopian that it's become completely normalised in English language online discourse to accuse anyone who is insufficiently supportive of US government policy of being a paid foreign agent, with zero evidence? It is just as unhinged as this, but people don't even bat an eye.
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I'll believe this isn't just empty posturing when Congress starts leading by example and moves to recognize Taiwan.
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Then you'd need to judge if a company (or person, why not?) is "under chinas boot" or is simply exercising their freedom of speech, part of it being the freedom to not speak (against someone or otherwise).
Course it won't be freedom of speech if you have to follow a script under the threat of being expelled from the country. Would you be proud of your country when the freedom of speech is regulated (formally or informally) to codify what you cannot or must not say but also what you can or must say?
This sounds a lot like the freedom of speech in countries like Russia. Are you under Russia's boot? Because you should just move over there.
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The sad thing is, I have a lot to say on the topic, but i fear speaking my mind about it, and I don't even live in China.
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Does the USG have any say when other countries’ governments violate our first amendment? Surely there is a legitimate legal question here about protecting domestic first amendment rights. Sure, Apple is subject to local laws when providing content to other countries, but I’m deeply uncomfortable morally and legally with the idea that any other country can dictate what speech I (or Apple) may have in the US. At the very least it must be in violation of some trade agreements.
If Apple is more than happy to do this, then that’s definitely Apple’s free speech, and well, fuck them. But I feel the USG should play a role protecting the first amendment within the US against overzealous foreign government mandates.
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Apple sure is one of the scummiest corporations on earth. They got more cash that god and could afford to lose the chinese market. Instead they sacrifice what's left of their dignity on the altar of shareholder value.
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I don't think they can lose Chinese manufacturing though. If they lose Chinese manufacturing, they will lose all markets, including US.
And that's hardly a problem that is only applicable to Apple.
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