“China has shut down Apple Inc.’s online book and movie services in the country, suggesting an intensifying campaign to bring Web content in line with Beijing’s stringent guidelines for traditional media,” Eva Dou reports for Dow Jones Business News. “The shutdown has sent shockwaves through the U.S. high-tech sector, which has long seen Apple as a China success story. The brand’s popularity in China has helped it maintain strong growth there in the past two years, even as Beijing’s buy-local push has crimped sales for many U.S. electronics makers. ‘We hope to make books and movies available again to our customers in China as soon as possible,’ the company said in a statement.”
“In last week’s meetings with Apple, officials pointed to broad new rules issued in February that ban companies with any foreign ownership from engaging in online publishing, one of the people familiar with the talks said,” Dou reports. “They also cited a 2008 provision that requires companies to get a license to broadcast videos on the Internet and limits license eligibility to Chinese companies, the person said. People in China’s entertainment industry have long wondered why this provision hadn’t prevented Apple from operating its movie service in China.”
“‘It’s a big and successful pattern for regulators to claim big targets at the outset and scare everybody else,’ said one Beijing-based lawyer. ‘Apple won’t be the only one,'” Dou reports. “The suspension appeared to have taken Apple by surprise. The company still lists a Beijing-based ‘Studio Relations’ job on its website. ‘The key responsibility is to grow iTunes’ movie business in Greater China,’ reads the posting, dated Dec. 22.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: What is so dangerous that the people of China cannot be allowed to read, see, and/or hear? Who doesn’t trust and/or fears an informed Chinese public and why?
A word to the unwise.
Torch every book.
Char every page.
Burn every word to ash.
Ideas are incombustible.
And therein lies your real fear.
— Ellen Hopkins—
Apple has always had the discipline to make the bold decision to walk away. — Apple CEO Tim Cook, March 2015
SEE ALSO:
Apple CEO Tim Cook joins Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights’ board of directors – April 6, 2016
Information is dangerous to the establishment. That is why handwriting is no longer taught in U.S. schools, math has been corrupted so our children cannot add, and history is being distorted.
An informed society is required for freedom and is dangerous to any government trying to control it’s population, US or China or anywhere. Just ask our Founding Fathers.
I don’t think that handwriting is going to save our children.
You’d think so on the face of it, but you’d be wrong.
Research has shown that improved handwriting skills has benefits for cognitive development and motor skills and can lead to improved writing skills and reading comprehension.
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/importance-teaching-handwriting
“Children not only learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand, but they also remain better able to generate ideas and retain information. In other words, it’s not just what we write that matters — but how.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-handwriting-fades.html
If you have a child with dyslexia, you know all of what he says is true.
Paranoid much? You may need medication. If not, then you are truly a blithering idiot.
I have four kids, and they write a lot. They have notebooks and binders full of homework and notes. If you had said, “They do not teach cursive writing anymore,” then you would have been correct, at least in our school district. But the lack of cursive writing ability does not render my children unable to record and disseminate their ideas. Indeed, the Internet and mobile devices have amplified that capability to a fault.
My kids can add quite well. The school district offers accelerated mathematics and they have all progressed through advanced courses. Their are opportunities that were not available to me when I was in school decades ago. They can add far, far better than you can reason.
You have a valid point with history. It is distorted. However, the fact is that history has always been distorted and always will be. Ask ten people about an event that happened yeasterday and you will get ten different answers. It is also true that history gets reinterpreted from time to time…sometimes based on new information, sometimes based on a different viewpoint (like religious people trying to control the content of textbooks), etc. Some good reasons, some bad…but no one can claim that they have perfect knowledge of history. If you were able to go back in time and interview the Founding Fathers, I strongly suspect that their viewpoints would surprise many people and contradict some aspects of recorded history.
I suggest that you stop looking for and generating conspiracies. Life is difficult enough without fantasizing about low probability events.
Not sure where you’re getting your information from. At my son’s school they do math on paper without calculators and they learn handwriting including cursive. Some schools have stopped teaching cursive. But to claim that handwriting is no longer being taught is patently false.
One suspects they fear the gay marriage propaganda may be corrupting the population morally.
After all, there is an anti-corruption drive on and they are very family oriented.
“What is so dangerous that the people of China cannot be allowed to read, see, and/or hear?”
You should ask yourself that question MDN when I put forth a legal idea, developed by Apple, available to most surfers, valuable info to the overall community, and delete my posts, ban me temporarily and refuse to answer my email on the topic as to why such posts were being deleted.
So I know exactly what is so dangerous to MDN that the people of this community cannot be allowed to read, see, and/or hear because you refuse to let it be heard.
Oh I won’t reveal it unless you tell me to. I recognize the power of a censor and I respect that you do not have to allow free speech here.
I also recognize your hypocrisy.
???
I won’t repeat the technique as MDN has not replied as to my inquiry as to why and they are the gatekeepers in that respect.
To put some perspective on it I’m fully supportive of 95% of the work MDN does and the ideas that they promote.
I hope this helps.
It probably hasn’t occurred to you but, Maybe MDN deletes some of your posts because you are a whiny petulant child who cannot resist hurling insults at people you don’t really know or understand. You live in your own little bubble. You have demonstrated that you are not so much interested in rational debate as in slamming whole groups of people based largely upon you own twisted perception of history. When you stick with Apple related commentary your comments are welcome. But you have well earned a loss of respect from a number of people on this site for your over the top, and frankly, whacky diatribes.
You’re so angry at the world. You might start looking with yourself for answers as to why.
I guess it hasn’t occurred to you that a lot of my post are quite civil, as was my suggestion. MDN has been quite courteous in replying to me and explaining to me the reason for another series of deletions and we’ve come to an agreement on that issue in a civilized fashion. Why they have not replied to my inquiries on this particular topic is a mystery.
I can resist hurling insults but I guess you don’t see that. Instead of nurturing that sort of behavior you can’t resist throwing out the petulant child diatribe. Frankly I’d rather be a petulant child than a dehumanized entity that tortures, violates people’s privacy, invades other sovereign nations on pretense, ignores the white flag, has an 80% history of being at war, holds people without justice, and so on. To me those are the ones full of fear and hate. I’m simply pointing out that the evil empire has no clothes. No hatred then, just a clear observation but you’d rather attack the observer, as if your free will.
You read my response but either chose not to consider them or simply didn’t comprehend them. Your own words continue to make my case. If you’re really interested in a dialogue with people who have a different point of view, you don’t go into it with guns blazing. And that’s what you’ve been doing for many months. It comes to a point where it’s tiresome and annoying and not much else. Is this how you really want to engage the world? Is this how you would like to be perceived? I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that it probably isn’t. Maybe you should read Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. Because right now, “you ain’t.” And mostly, that’s sad for you.
And by the way, it wasn’t me that down voted you.
I left you a reply down below.
Again, I’ll repeat to the issue at hand:
1. What is so dangerous that the people of China cannot be allowed to read, see, and/or hear?
2. I commented to MDN: “You should ask yourself that question MDN when I put forth a legal idea, developed by Apple, available to most surfers, valuable info to the overall community, and delete my posts, ban me temporarily and refuse to answer my email on the topic as to why such posts were being deleted.” In doing so I’ve acknowledge MDN’s right not to allow free speech and to censor replies as they see fit. I’ve added that I find this hypocritical.
3. Your first reply. “Maybe MDN deletes some of your posts because you are a whiny petulant child who cannot resist hurling insults at people you don’t really know or understand.” Talk about guns blazing. Talk about ad hominem attack. Talk about “you this” and “you that” and to the issue at hand. Nada, zip, the typical do anything you possibly can to ignore the issue.
And even though you either choose not to address the issue again I’ll point it out. Right now on my screen using a legal ethical technique I see three ads on my screen:
– The latest joy of tech
– An ad for Amazon.com
– An ad for Gazelle.
Now compare that to your screen, if you can put your blazing guns down and your personal attacks and look at the issue. If you can.
Are there more ads on your screen, or less?
It’s really simple. Now I could tell you how I do it if I wasn’t going to risk being censored or banned for doing so. I’ve taken the time to write about it to MDN, they have not replied so I take it to comply and keep that simple technique to myself.
Can you deal with that or are you going to run one of your your petulant child diatribe? So far that’s what you’ve done, you’ve spent all this time on how I’m going guns blazing, how tiresome it is, how I should review my perception all the while totally ignoring the issue at hand. Find, I’ve told you that is your free choice, and it’s the free choice of so many others to attack the messenger, use smoke and mirrors and never ever address the issue at hand.
When it comes to friends, I’m here to make quality friends, not a quantity of them, quality friends are usually a minority of people who can grasp and debate issues. So far, you don’t fit in that category in my books but let me quote to you what someone from this site recently said about me:
“I have observed you engaging other raving maniacs with consideration, and even sympathy. ”
That’s the kind of nurturing statement that I find inspiring, not the drivel you expound and certainly not the lack of addressing the issue you have so clearly illustrated.