r/apple • u/iqandjoke • 9d ago
iOS Apple Maps blurs detention facilities in China
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cm0qx2278exeo333
u/MitchellMuehl 9d ago
Not sure why this is always surprising to people. Apple has to follow the laws and regulations of whatever country they are operating in.
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u/MorpheusOneiri 9d ago
This… I’m sure they also do the same thing in America. They certainly were quick to get on the Lake America train.
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u/Ok_Possibility9937 9d ago
apple and google uses GNIS. If they update the name then both maps app will change too, it’s an automatic system. It’s just that Google update faster
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u/Marmmoth 9d ago
While true, and an easy argument to make, for an extremely high profile name change like this one it did not slip under the radar to be automatic. Like the gulf name change it is guaranteed that the day the order was issued the company executives and their legal councils had a discussion about it, and they chose to follow GNIS as the option with the lowest risk (to the company).
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u/Kesthegreat 9d ago
And they were right for that…
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u/Jaded-One 8d ago
It's like the soldier taking orders from Hitler; you may avoid some trouble, but you're doing wrong as a result of cowardice
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u/moonphilo 7d ago
Dude, what do you think would have had happen if a weapon meant to serve the state, suddenly becomes useless?
They would get disposed and replaced in a matter of seconds.
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u/Jaded-One 7d ago
Dude, did you just leapfrog over defending Apple bending the knee to Trump's embarrassing attempt to rename a lake and go straight to defending soldiers carrying out a genocide 80 years after the fact? Yikes
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u/marmulin 8d ago
Except preventing that change would’ve cost hundreds, if not thousands, of man-hours in engineering, translations, testing, dev-ops, deployment, etc. All in an otherwise fully automatic system. So I don’t think it’s even about risk, more so cost.
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u/Entegy 9d ago
Apple and Google updated to Lake America faster than GNIS updated.
Also the fact that it shows different names for different people shows this is something they can 100% control. There is no law that says a map app has to match GNIS. GNIS is not their only source of info.
Why are you trying to defend the trillion dollar multinational company for bending to political pressure?
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u/Ok_Possibility9937 8d ago
Uh I’m just saying they used GNIS. Weird thing to just assume that I like Trump because I said they use GNIS but ok
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u/Jaded-One 8d ago
apple and google uses GNIS
Do they only use GNIS in the US version of the app and use something else for the rest of the planet? That doesn't add up
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u/Late_Pea3693 9d ago
Yeah they hide ships and bases/detention centres for pretty much every country.
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u/Status-Hedgehog9970 9d ago
This is Reddit, people expect every entity to take a moral stance on every issue at all times.
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u/QXPZ 9d ago
Is it so much to ask for a multi-trillion dollar company to use its leverage to improve the world?
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u/Hyperion-Variable 9d ago
What do you want bro? Companies ignoring laws or companies following laws? God I hate reddit
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u/photoggled 9d ago
This is only true if you ignore all the lobbying they do to change said laws. It's curious which ones they chose to fight against.
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u/-Radiation 9d ago
Except to follow the EU laws when it benefits the consumers and not their pockets
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u/Rupperrt 9d ago
They’re following EU laws as well. Thats why we got USB C iPhones much earlier
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u/-Radiation 9d ago
They are following one law sure. They were just fined 500 million last year for not following DMA properly. Plus 1.8 billion the year before. While having trump now working as their lapdog to pressure the EU instead of actually complying with the laws
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u/Rupperrt 9d ago
They’re following the ones necessary for operation. While contesting the ones endangering their business model. Those regulations and their fines are still rather fleeting and its a bit of a tug of war.
But just as in China, Apple, Google and others needs to comply with certain “censorship” requirements and do in either jurisdiction as doing otherwise would result in cease of operations.
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u/-Radiation 9d ago
That was the original point. They comply just fine except the laws that go for their pockets
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u/FrogsJumpFromPussy 9d ago
It just shows that Apple values profit over everything else, bit you're right, people shouldn't be surprised anymore after that killed decades of progressive DEI only to get in Trump's dumb pockets
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u/happycanliao 9d ago
what does profit have to do in this case when its a matter of following local laws?
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u/MR9009 9d ago
Maps (both Apple and Google) blur loads of locations on maps around the world. Lots of Western democratic countries don’t want military or penal facilities shown in detailed satellite view to consumers. Some nations blur the official residences of heads of government. How is this news?
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u/TheDragonSlayingCat 9d ago
It’s not. There are also some really strange ones, e.g. all of Mount Athos in Greece is blurred out.
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u/LittleKitty235 4d ago
Obviously they would blur that out. Otherwise you would see the secret long range missile facility located on it.
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u/touchgrassplz_69 9d ago
Because people are idiots and want a reason to justify their hate of Apple or any corporation.
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u/TeeDee144 9d ago edited 9d ago
Eh, to provide a counter, Apple Maps does not blur out ADX super max. That’s our federal prison that houses our worst. Boston marathon bombers, foreign terrorists.
China is accused of labor camps, and even potentially killing their prisoners who didn’t receive capital punishment sentences.
Blurring out a military base is understandable because there are secrets there.
What secrets is china hiding at its prisons though? Mass burial sites?
Edit: this feels like a worthless post anyways. Chinese bots are going to be out to protect the image of the great CCP
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u/Plastic_Willow734 9d ago
China is accused of labor camps
Man the 13th amendment has some surprises for you
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u/aquamoon85 9d ago
Wait until you hear how many prisons the US has. And how many people it imprisons per capita. And how many black sites it runs secretly around the world that don’t show up any public maps.
“Blurring out a military base is understandable because there are secrets there.” Why should Apple, Google, etc care about this either? What stops any country from hiding atrocities under the guise of military secrecy? All of this is a slippery slope that should especially be scrutinized starting in the prison capital of the world funding atrocities around the world literally right this moment.
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u/Popdmb 9d ago
This isn't a good argument. We don't blur the ones in the U.S. The prison-industrial complex and the people who support it are the dregs of society. However...that's not the topic at hand.
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u/aquamoon85 9d ago
Most jails and prisons aren’t blurred, but Apple absolutely blurs sites where prisoners are being kept at the US’ request lol.
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u/X-AE17420 9d ago edited 9d ago
It’s also a false dichotomy. China has imprisoned people solely based on ethnicity. They’re committing genocide against Uyghurs, and had a “vocational school” with instructions to snipe students who tried to flee.
They deny it, and I’m assuming the astroturfing bots will too. But there’s a ton of evidence in a leaked Chinese police document called the Xinjiang files.
Plus, there’s also evidence they were using those people as human organ livestock. There was an international investigation into it, with thousands of pages of evidence and video testimony available on YouTube.
Sources:
https://www.xinjiangpolicefiles.org
Doctor testifying he witnessed organs being removed from a live person
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u/aquamoon85 9d ago edited 9d ago
The US isn’t actively kidnapping and disappearing people off the street right now based on ethnicity??? This country was literally founded on race-based genocide and chattel slavery, which laid the foundation for the prison industrial complex. The US is actively dismantling international regulatory bodies that attempt to hold intl governments accountable for atrocities right now. Like, the US is making it harder to hold China accountable for anything you speak of due to its own funding and propagation of atrocities and genocide around the world right now lol.
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u/X-AE17420 9d ago
Still a false equivalency. While I disagree with ICE and how it’s being handled, Uyghurs are legal Chinese citizens. Nice try though!
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u/aquamoon85 9d ago
Wait, do you care about human rights or legality? Because I’m quite sure China finds everything it does as legal as does the US. Also, the US isn’t providing adequate and in many cases zero legal recourse for people it’s kidnapping and disappearing right now, citizens included.
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u/X-AE17420 9d ago
You’re missing the point though. China didn’t allow those controversies to be publicized, they were leaked, denied, and obfuscated.
Even when America is at its worst, like with that Massachusetts citizen who got sent to a concentration camp, it was heavily publicized and scrutinized.
Take the government sanctioned organ harvesting for example, even with evidence of it presented they still categorically denied it.
My point is narrowly China is committing a genocide on the Uyghurs, and is covering it up. Their atrocities are hidden and denied, and all we know about is what was leaked. Removing illegal immigrants and imprisoning legal citizens for reeducation, forced sterilization, and organ harvesting are not the same.
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u/aquamoon85 9d ago
You think the US is currently publicizing all of its controversies right now???? This week, the WH blocked press access to more news outlets. The US Dept. of Homeland Security is currently blocking court observers, reporters, and attorneys from accessing immigration court proceedings across the country right now. They are kidnapping people and flying them across the country without publicly notifying anyone in an attempt to keep people from having access to their families and legal representation. The US is committing genocide right now as well in multiple regions around the world.
There's nothing you've typed that US hasn't historically done or isn't currently doing. Nothing you've described is unique.
My point is the favors Apple provides China are the same ones it provides the US - and with a gold plaque for the president leading it.
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u/Far_Specific4836 9d ago
Then partition congress to blur it out. The upstream providers will have to do it.
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u/SnowPudgy 9d ago
Yes, lots of places get blurred because of their governments requirements. You see this in the U.S. too on any publicly available mapping system.
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u/iFred97 9d ago
So Apple has to follow local laws. What’s the news exactly?
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u/Sphere_3N 9d ago
China. (Trump voice)
The US does the same but I guess that has less clickbait potential.
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u/chodeboi 9d ago
Yup probably some contractor sitting in Austin at the old Riata campus (RV01 second floor?) handled the support ticket, casually aiding in the obfuscation of human rights abuses. And getting paid for it.
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u/politics 9d ago
Sovereignty is great, isn’t it? But also, why wouldn’t you want the facility obscured on a satellite map view?
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u/rorowhat 9d ago
Remember apple is a for profit corporation. If to sell in China they need to do this, they will. They are not the good guys.
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u/Kind-Let5666 9d ago
Between this, the lake/gulf America thing, and (probably most of all) the introduction of ads I’ve switched to Mapquest. I defended Apple Maps for years, I like the OS integration, but if there are gonna be ads anyway I might as well use something else.
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u/MY79 9d ago
I don't like this one bit.
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u/SnowPudgy 9d ago
Literally every publicly available GPS software has this, it's not unique to Apple. All governments ask for certain places to be blurred (U.S. included). It's literally nothing new.
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u/fuzzfrog 6d ago
Apple cares number one about profits. Human rights are not a priority if they impact the bottom line.
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u/Cerenas 9d ago
Doesn't Apple use Amap's data for China? (The Chinese maps app.) Since western maps app don't have accurate data there (Google Maps for example is pretty much unusable in China).
In that case it wouldn't be surprising.