“Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook is scheduled to attend China’s state-run internet conference next week, the most prominent executive from a U.S. company to participate in an event that promotes China’s vision of closely regulated cyberspace,” Yoko Kubota and Tripp Mickle report for The Wall Street Journal. “The annual World Internet Conference that kicks off Sunday in Wuzhen is organized by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the powerful internet bureau whose job includes censorship of content and blocking access to unapproved sites, including Facebook and Alphabet Inc.’s Google.”
“Mr. Cook joins the list of foreign executives and officials set to attend the internet conference, which includes Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai, Facebook Inc.’s Vice President Vaughan Smith, LinkedIn Corp.’s Co-Founder and Vice President Allan Blue and Microsoft’s Executive Vice President Harry Shum, according to the conference’s website,” Kubota and Mickle report. “Their presence at the state-led event highlights the importance they place on China and its massive consumer power, as they face a tough operating environment in a country where the Communist Party maintains tight control on communication tools.”
Kubota and Mickle report, “Behind the chilly environment in China for technology firms is a new cybersecurity law that went into force June 1. The law has imposed tougher standards on companies running internet platforms in the country as the government sought to block content that ‘endangers national security, national honor and interests.’
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MacDailyNews Take: The filament that Apple CEO Tim Cook, newly-minted recipient of the Newseum’s 2017 Free Expression Award, walks in China is increasingly tenuous.
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