Apple Aids Brutal and Oppressive China Censorship Crackdown

Anti-government protests flared in several Chinese cities and on college campuses over the weekend. But the country’s most widespread show of public dissent in decades will have to manage without a crucial communication tool, because Apple restricted its use in China earlier this month.

AirDrop, the file-sharing feature on iPhones and other Apple devices, has helped protestors in many authoritarian countries evade censorship. That’s because AirDrop relies on direct connections between phones, forming a local network of devices that don’t need the internet to communicate. People can opt into receiving AirDrops from anyone else with an iPhone nearby.

Apple put a stop to it.

AirDrop has been an effective communication tool for protestors in Hong Kong, as Quartz previously documented. It’s been used to communicate with other protestors, reach passersby, and spread messages to tourists from mainland China visiting Hong Kong. On the mainland, protestors have also AirDropped protest literature, particularly on college campuses where some of the current protests have broken out. China’s control of the internet has become so strong that dissidents must cling to any crack in the so-called Great Firewall.(more here)

I am embarrassed for my country.

Related: Apple Threatening to Remove Twitter from App Store

I’d like to know why ⁦@Apple⁩ continues to aid and abet the totalitarian regime in #China while campaigning against free speech at home. My letter to Tim Cook 👇 pic.twitter.com/TrnQcBmz4i

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) November 29, 2022

.@GovRonDeSantis: Apple Acting "As a Vassal to the CCP", Suffocating Free Speech in China AND U.S. pic.twitter.com/uU5Ey3bZAI

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) November 29, 2022

In 2019, @Apple removed an app that helped Hong Kong protesters track the police and they just limited the use of AirDrop in China that anti-lockdown protesters were using to communicate and now they're threatening to de-platform Twitter as videos of protests in China go viral.

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 28, 2022

Apple relies upon Uyghur slave labor in China.

Sweatshop conditions at Foxconn's iPhone factory triggered a spate of suicides in Shenzhen.

There's also tax, warranty, and privacy concerns at Apple.

I bet Tim Cook would enjoy a subpoena from the GOP congress on all this.

🤔

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) November 28, 2022

WATCH:

Tucker Carlson's reaction to massive freedom protests in China against CCP lockdowns is his most IMPORTANT monologue ever:

"It's very obvious now that from Day one China was the model that American officials"

pic.twitter.com/yH6H35TcWR

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 29, 2022

Apple turned off a private communication tool in China just before major protests broke out
Protesters were using Apple’s AirDrop feature to directly share uncensored messages.

By Will Henney, Reclaim the Net, November 29, 2022:

If you’re tired of censorship, cancel culture, and the erosion of privacy and civil liberties subscribe to Reclaim The Net.

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Earlier this month, Apple restricted the use of AirDrop in China. The file-sharing tool for iOS was used by protesters to communicate freely without the risk of censorship, because the tool uses direct connections between devices, creating a local network that cannot be monitored by government internet regulators.

Initially, people could choose to receive AirDrops from everyone nearby. However, a recent iOS update has made that impossible. The update made a change to AirDrop’s usage that only applies in mainland China, while the rest of the world can still use it to communicate as before.

Users in China can only receive from everyone nearby for only ten minutes, putting restrictions on how it’s used.

AirDrop has been used by protesters in Hong Kong to communicate with other protesters and bystanders, as well as send messages to tourists from mainland China. On the mainland, protesters have used AirDrop to spread protest literature.