It was discovered by Larry Salibra and others that Apple has been disabling its Apple News Service in China. Perhaps most troubling is how Apple is doing this:
The New York Times reports that Apple confirmed, off the record, that it is indeed turning off Apple News in Mainland China.
China is Apple’s most promising market but unfortunately it is controlled by a government that wields total control over information and the media. Simply removing the news App might be better than upsetting Beijing. Google famously ran afoul of the Chinese government in 2010 after sustaining a state-sponsored hacking attack on its Windows computers and was effectively kicked out of the country. Only in the past few months have attempts been made to mend the bridges. Apple certainly doesn’t want to hurt its cash cow over censorship. From a PR perspective, it probably doesn’t want to hand the reigns over to Beijing either.
I don’t expect this to change soon.
Apple, as is usually the case in matters like this, hasn’t responded to request for comment.
Creepy thing re Apple News censorship: it happens on your device – to content downloaded b4 u enter China https://t.co/GfAsfhQOvq
— Larry Salibra (@larrysalibra) October 8, 2015
When censors censor censors: https://t.co/HlVMqKLeUB
(/via news censor @Techmeme)
— Gabe Rivera (@gaberivera) October 10, 2015
