Apple has simply said it will pursue user privacy and security to the limits of what the law will allow. That is all.

What's the point when the world is legislating our privacy away? It's a pointless self-defeating marketing ploy then and nothing more.

Do you think it is ethical for a company to require it's employees to break the law?

If the law is unethical yes.

“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

And also force others to do so, via exploiting your power over them as an employer? Really?

In this case no one would have to do anything as the app was already live on the appstore.

And, in this case, the company will decide what laws are unethical?

It's not about breaking laws but about not having to break laws by not operating in regimes like China.

Do you not buy any goods made in China?

"If you can't be perfect, don't even try."

There's that and then there's being minimally consistent in one's efforts.

Kind of like someone who would make a fuss about not using plastic straws but systematically takes their car for <500 meters trips and washes their pants 5 times a week.

It's not a bad idea to remind people that if they make the effort of not using online services which compromise for China, they also should make the similar effort of reducing their physical Made in China goods consumption.

It's not possible to boycott China so no.

I try not to.

It might be a bit much to require employees to break a law as it might expose individual employees to some legal consequences. But there are plenty of laws that are immoral. There are a number of good examples in the peer comments (some of the laws of Hitler's Germany for example). Any company manager or officer that insists on enforcing such laws is themself immoral. But it takes some skill to craft a company policy that could address the situation adequately.

I think you're being a bit cavalier with the distinction between complying with a law and enforcing it. If complying with a law is morally equivalent with enforcing it, you're tarring a lot of Jews in Nazi Germany with a very nasty smelling brush.

I really don't get this. Apple has done far more than any other company in the whole industry to fight for privacy rights. They have gone right up against the legal limits every time, while all the other vendors rolled over belly up at the slightest chance.

iMessage is one of the most secure messaging systems available anywhere and is very widely used in China. For most Chinese it's the only practical secure communications system they can buy. It puts industrial strength end to end encryption in the hands of millions of Chinese.

So I get you're angry about china, that's fine. I have family over there, so I know what it's like. But going after Apple, of all the companies doing business in China you could go after, just makes no sense to me whatever.

I was trying draw the distinction between being forced to comply and enforcing, but I guess I did not get it right, or maybe I can't really get it right. I feel like enforcing is making someone else do something, while complying is doing it personally yourself, perhaps wilfully, perhaps not. So the managers are enforcing by coercing their employees to comply with immoral laws, and I think that is immoral.

> It puts industrial strength end to end encryption in the hands of millions of Chinese.

But China doesn't allow stuff like that, surely there is a backdoor.

There is. https://www.wired.com/2015/09/apple-fighting-privacy-imessag...

> Do you think it is ethical for a company to require it's employees to break the law?

Unless Apple happened to be a Chinese company I'm having a trouble at finding the law that Apple is breaking. I'm sure the customers can decide if a shiny iPhone produced by an company subject to Chinese law is worth it and employees can decide if they want to be employed by a Chinese company.

Apple used to think so when privacy was on the line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_San_Bernardino_attack#Pho...

Yes. Ethics is quite explicitly orthogonal to the law.

E.g. It was ethical but illegal for some to refuse participation in the holocaust.

Law encodes what those in power want you to do. Ethics encodes what society wants you to do. The two are rarely entirely aligned.

Actually, Tim Cook said:

"Compromising the security of our personal information can ultimately put our personal safety at risk. That is why encryption has become so important to all of us."

https://www.apple.com/customer-letter/

That to me is hypocritical as to what Apple is doing in China.

No, Apple unambiguously said on multiple occasions that they “believe privacy is a fundamental human right”[1].

[1]: https://www.apple.com/privacy/