[smoldesu]

We could do the same to Google; it would require Apple working with the government, though, and adding more regulations is the last thing Apple wants. This is a shame, because we're never going to make lasting change by having private corporations do our battles for us. Furthermore, we have no way of holding Apple accountable if they're doing the same thing as Facebook. I don't care if you're the biggest company in the world, you still have to play by the rules.

> If you took the same ability away from Apple, they would be fine, because most of their business model is actually trying to provide something of value to the world

Sure, they make money hand-over-fist by exploiting Uighur labor for your shiny metal laptop. Bettering the world is just their nature!

Pragmatically, though, none of these companies will ever champion true privacy. What's the point of even arguing over this stuff when every one of these corporations is compliant in PRISM? Here on HN we love to white-knight for multi-trillion dollar companies and quibble over whitepapers, but everyone has lost. Privacy is unattainable. Security is feasible, but privacy? It doesn't matter if you're on iPhone or Windows or MacOS; you're not in control of your data. Period.

[JKCalhoun]

> Furthermore, we have no way of holding Apple accountable if they're doing the same thing as Facebook.

Not buy their products?

[smoldesu]

Well sure, just tell everyone to do that with Facebook products too. That will definitely solve the issue, right?

[astrange]

> What's the point of even arguing over this stuff when every one of these corporations is compliant in PRISM?

PRISM = subpoenas. It’s not an illegal spying program. You don’t want companies to answer subpoenas?

[aaaaaaaaata]

Not FISA ones that are never public.

[mistrial9]

> they make money hand-over-fist by exploiting Uighur labor for your shiny metal laptop.

your case would be stronger if you don't overreach .. overall component assembly business is race-to-the-bottom for worker rights, in China now.. that ethnic cleansing you mention is horrible but not exactly the same thing, and intelligent readers may know that. From my point of view, it is the Tibetans to be concerned with, not Uighur. And that is possible a more potent insight .. that Apple knowingly profited from race-to-the-bottom worker conditions, orchestrated under a government responsible for Tibetan cultural genocide. But, it is not the Tibetans that did the assembly, nor to my knowledge the Uighur.