The Chinese Communist Party’s latest quixotic COVID lockdown has virtually paralyzed a city of 6 million in China that houses much of the country’s electronic information, forcing Apple’s iCloud datacenter operator to take emergency measures.
The CCP sealed off parts of Guiyang this week after an increase in virus cases triggered yet another quixotic “zero COVID” authoritarian lockdown.
Apple’s partner in Guiyang, which operates the server center that houses all online data generated and stored by hundreds of millions of Chinese iPhone users, described what amounted to a “closed loop” system under which employees are barred from leaving the premises. Many haven’t seen their families for a week, Guizhou Cloud Big Data, Apple’s government-backed partner, said in a WeChat notice.
The firm, which also manages data for other clients, didn’t say whether the iPhone maker’s servers had been affected or when the lockdown will lift.
Since its unveiling in 2017, Apple’s Chinese datacenter has become the heart of its nationwide operation, storing and handling an array of information from photos and videos to email. Apple was forced to hand control to a state firm under Chinese law, which critics have said jeopardizes user privacy and security.
MacDailyNews Take: At this point, anyone advocating for mass lockdowns over COVID is either morbidly stupid or has an ulterior motive. (Given the CCP’s socioeconomic ideology, it’s certainly the former and also very likely the latter.)
There is no such thing a “zero COVID.”
The repercussions from stupidly shutting down entire economies over COVID in a rights-trampling panic, instead of thoughtfully working to protect those with comorbidities who were most at risk, will be felt by all of us for many years. – MacDailyNews, August 30, 2022
The real virus is the panic. – MacDailyNews, March 9, 2020
As per iCloud data being stored on Chinese servers:
Apple should immediately make iCloud an opt-in service, rather than opt-out, for Chinese users.
Chinese users should not use iCloud for any data they wish to keep private.
Exit question: Why can’t Chinese citizens be trusted with freedom? — a href=”http://macdailynews.com/2018/02/26/apple-moves-to-store-icloud-keys-in-china-raising-human-rights-fears/”>MacDailyNews, February 26, 2018
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The sooner businesses stop looking at China in terms of profitability and market share and begin to understand the CCP represents the world’s biggest threat to free markets and individual freedom the better. Nixon awoke a sleeping dragon. The CCP plays to win by dragon rules. The rest of the world plays by Queensbury rules. Governments and businesses believe the myth they can influence the dragon to stop being a dragon by playing fairly and showing the CCP the moral superiority of their wokeness. It didn’t work for Chamberlain with Hitler, Nixon with Mao, and it won’t work for Tim Cook or Joe Biden.
Freedom wins every time in the long game. What we have today was started 3,000 short years ago in Greece. This genie is not going back in the bottle. Right to free speech, right so free assembly, right to private property are truly inalienable rights. As people learn more and understand what freedom means it will spread. There will be contractions by despots and bad actors (hello Trump and Biden) but the trajectory is always more freedom less oppression.
TomInTulsa: You are a foolish tool with a severe lack of understanding history. Please go back to pontificating on something else about which you know nothing. Let us know when you are ready and able to lay down your life for the future freedom of others in the future, as did the founders of this country against ALL odds.
I’ve risked my life on a daily basis in combat for this nation. Let us know when you’ve done the same and maybe, maybe, we’ll have a bit of respect for your silly views.
Explain to me again how more aggressive lockdown protocols save lives and make things better. Great example of what happens when Governments are allowed curtail individual citizens freedoms for the sake of the “greater good”. Taking peoples freedoms without due process scares me more than any virus. If you are afraid stay in your home, wear a mask, wash you hands continuously but leave me the hell alone.
What’s the difference between the CCP and the Democrat Party?
The CCP admits it’s a communist regime? What did I win?
TulsaTom: Well, you surprised me with your follow-up posts. I dislike your first ones but the few you put up afterwards show you do have some common sense; hence, I retract my harsh criticism of your first one.
Kudos to you for putting that in words!!!!!👊🏼👊🏼👊🏼
NOTHING!
What’s the difference between insurrectionist CRAP and the Republican Party? Absolutely nothing.
Please think about the number of people in China. They do not have spawning suburbs – hide rises are it. Everywhere.Their medical systems were overwhelmed in the beginning of COVID and that is what they are determined to avoid. They calculate that the approach they are taking is the better bet than risking a full system collapse. Unless you have been there, you cannot understand how populous and densely packed the Chinese cities are. In the province that includes Honk Kong, there are over 100 million people. I am not saying their approach is right or wrong. It IS what they think is best for THEIR country. A bit more perspective and thoughtfulness would be much more impressive than some of the unenlightened paranoid jingoistic chest thumping I am reading here.