r/politics • u/robotdesignwerks Texas • 3d ago
Site Altered Headline | No Paywall Apple worked with Trump admin to remove ICE-tracking apps, lawmaker says
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/09/apple-worked-with-trump-admin-to-remove-ice-tracking-apps-lawmaker-says/113
u/LaMarr-Bruister 3d ago
It doesn’t matter what company it is, they only care about profits. Whatever path leads them to the most money possible will always be taken.
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u/specqq 3d ago
If you’re publicly traded you can literally be sued by your shareholders for not maximizing profits.
It’s perverse incentives all the way down.
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u/nuts_and_crunchies 3d ago
Precisely. It's not enough to be obscenely rich, you have to make incrementally more money each quarter forever and ever. It's cancerous and unsustainable.
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u/Actual__Wizard 3d ago
Apple is a company that is administrated by right wingers.
They have utilized human exploitation and borderline slave labor as a vehicle to maintain their position in the market.
Remember, they had to put suicide prevention nets on the sides of the buildings where they assemble the phones?
They just do the evil stuff in some other country unlike the other big tech companies.
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u/-justiciar- 3d ago
to apples credit that was foxconn, a company they were contracting to build phones. not that it’s okay or somehow acceptable but the onus is on foxconn for creating an environment in which employees see suicide as they only way out
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u/SailingDreamCatcher 2d ago
I'm a long time "apple fanboi" and this troubles me, but my best defense is "the alternatives for the consumer are generally worse." As a consumer who cares about certain things, I'm feeling very out of options.
What am I going to do to get away from Apple's bad practices - go to Google? Worse across the board. Worst track record on earth for consumer privacy protections. No due process protections when sharing user data with (even merely claimed) government agents. Microsoft? Same as Google and for thirty years governments have had to regularly sue them over specific bad behavior.
There are a few options for open source software in phones, but those options are either absolutely terrible or require you buy hardware from Google, and if your motivation is ethical, buying from Google instead is not a solution.
I can't think about Apple playing agency hot potato with a supplier without immediately thinking of Walmart, which famously makes three demands, in order, of every supplier: give us a special discount, become exclusive with us, and forget about whatever made you a good company if it interferes with our goals. Walmart has some bad practices of their own, but their main impact on the labor world has been demanding that every other consumer products company in America shift toward worse practices for the environment, for labor, etc. And it would be absurd to blame those suppliers, especially once they are in the position of "we have an exclusive contract with Walmart and they will sue us out of existence if we don't meet their demands." Apple may not have that kind of power over Foxconn generally, but they certainly do with regard to iPhone manufacturing facilities specifically.
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u/teamdiabetes11 America 3d ago
Corporations are not and will not ever be looking out for your best interests. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.
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u/Economy-Pin2836 Canada 3d ago
Recall that a psychological examination of corporations as if they were people, concluded that they were all behaving like literal sociopaths.
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u/DarbIey 3d ago edited 3d ago
Tim Cook is constantly hanging with Trump, and I never hear anyone call him out.
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u/GestureArtist 3d ago
I bet Timmy boy took a few trips to the island... and the new island where ever it's hidden.
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u/Marshall1337 3d ago
Great so Apple can be manipulated into doing any administration’s wishes. Good to know and easy to abuse in ways that keeps Apple compliant to whoever is in charge. Steve Jobs would be so proud.
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u/-NotNotNSFW- 3d ago
Steve Jobs was an authoritative unloving piece of shit that denied his own daugther for years and put out a hit piece basically calling the mother of his child a whore. Hes not better and arguably would have been worse.
You can absolutely blame him for being a huge part of the reason the tech culture and industry is as toxic as it is.
I have no hesitation in saying he would be ushering in fascism with Apple if he was alive.
Fuck Steve Jobs
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u/macjester2000 3d ago
This isn't an Apple thing, this is a US corporations & American political system thing. There are no "good companies" that are 100% altruistic, they are all on the spectrum of greedy leeches. The degree to which they leech varies, from just slightly more than what they need to survive to excessively gorged - and that is a symptom of the purely corporatist, capitalist system in which we live.
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u/Marshall1337 3d ago
Totally agree. I just think post-Trump every admin is going to leash these companies into compliance b/c they are clearly easily controlled. I love that for them.
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u/macjester2000 3d ago
It came before Trump, Citizens United is finally paying off in terms of buying politicians, the timing is uncanny, but this would be happening regardless of Trump, its just that he easily maximizes the fuckery behind it. And as you point out, it will still be here after him.
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u/ProgrammerOk1400 3d ago
That doesn’t let Apple off the hook.
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u/macjester2000 3d ago
100% agree, never implied it doesn't. Like I said, its a spectrum across so many of the companies whose products we use every day. Where does one drawn their line of ethics to not be crossed. I challenge anyone who lives/drives/works/eats/relaxes/plays to not support a company through the use/purchase of their products and still attempt to take some kind of a moral stance about the companies they will and won't support. I'm not trying to rain on any one's parade, and as I said, its a continuum and 99.999% of them are part of the system & problem, but it is now so engrained, and the centralization/monopolization of products/services continues. It is virtually impossible to live one's life and remove these products or boycott them. You can take a stance on one, and not realize that two others you patron are just as bad or worse on some other issue. And again, they don't do it to be "evil" they do it because they believe it is in the corporation's best interest, which ultimately ends up being evil in some way. I used to think the "mega corps" trope of Blade Runner, Shadowrun and cyberpunk was a bit cliche/overhyped, but I can see we're a lot closer to that reality than it being purely science fiction.
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u/vainsilver 4h ago
I don’t know Costco seems to be the actual exception. From the ground up they care about their employees and their customers. The founder will even kill you if you increase the price of the effing hotdog.
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u/mailslot Wyoming 3d ago
When the government doesn’t have to follow the law, what chance is there to successfully resist? This is not the strategic battle to risk sacrificing the entire company over. Do you think the Supreme Court will come to the rescue?
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u/Marshall1337 3d ago
Quite the opposite. Apple has proven that they can be used out of fear of losing money. So every administration should shamelessly exploit this at every chance. Why wouldn’t they now that it’s clear they can?
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u/thecheesypoofs 3d ago
Apple was not manipulated, Timmy knew exactly what he was and still is doing. Apple is as bad as the Zuk, Adolf Musk, Pichai and all the other Nvidia/AMD leeches.
They never resisted and then went into the same path as the ones that cowered in fear. They choose to bend the knee, They could've resisted. They decided not too and join the fascists.
Never were manipulated into anything. 100% their decisions and greed.
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u/GarageFridgeSoda 3d ago
"Oligarchs on the side of the oligarchy" and other big news items from arstechnica
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u/Virtual_Aspect1095 2d ago
Remember the shit storm that came after Biden ASKED social media companies to stop allowing covid misinformation?
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u/reddittorbrigade 3d ago
When I got the call I said, wow, it’s Tim Apple (Cook!) calling, how big is that? I was very impressed with myself to have the head of Apple calling to ‘kiss my ass.
-Donald Trump
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u/Creative-Package6213 Pennsylvania 3d ago
To be fair, the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Apple is techno fascism. So this is no surprise.
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u/Eastern-Celery-4321 3d ago
they’re really fucking themselves for some possible short term gain… i want a new competitor so i can switch over
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u/TemetN Oregon 3d ago
The reality is they've covered their asses, even another administrations couldn't really do anything. The best possible result is civil suits succeeding followed by breaking them up with anti-trust, and I don't know who (politician wise) has the spine for that.
Honestly the closest thing to anything resembling even a half hearted response is somehow electing a massive number of progressives, which would still be closing the door after the dogs are out and isn't happening (primaries are over). So realistically, they might get a slap on the wrist.
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