>Why shouldn't apple? For some reason apple gets a pass on HN

Or, you know, Apple gets the same or more kind of criticism, but since you are biased to agree with it, you are blind to it, and only see the praise/defenses.

>for things like fighting to keep forced labor camps open

That's probably because the framing of this by the media is BS, playing into the trade war objectives and narrative of the US foreign policy.

It's just that these companies have a lot of suppliers in those areas, unrelated with any "labor camps", whereas the US/law has put a wide canvas that includes a huge area and all kinds of inoffensive suppliers. Seeing that the companies can't just cut off their supply chain on the drop of a hat, they ask for extention period, better monitoring on which and if any of their particular suppliers might actually involve such labor, etc.

But that doesn't make for good headlines for the masses, or for good propaganda.

>Or, you know, Apple gets the same or more kind of criticism, but since you are biased to agree with it, you are blind to it, and only see the praise/defenses.

Do you honestly believe if this post was about apple or an apple product with the exact same lack of content, it would have gotten the same number of up votes as quickly as this one did?

In HN, where every third post is "Why I'm leaving Apple" or such? Yes.

I dont see any apple related post on the front page, let alone negative ones. Do you see a different front page than I do?

Yes, it's called "bias blind spot" :-)

Here's one in the front page, just a few days ago:

Falling Out of Love with Apple, Part 3: Content and Censorship (hardware.substack.com) 321 points by zherbert 7 days ago | flag | hide | 292 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2020-12-07

Wait, so we went from every third post on HN is a negative post about apple to here is one post from 7 days ago? Talk about "bias blind spot".

This law is untenable. For one thing outside of companies like Apple or Amazon who -might- be able to negotiate with the Chinese government on audits, middle to small businesses would have no possibility of that because they mean nothing to the CCP. This is a government to government thing, not a company thing and the bill doesn't make sense to make companies culpable for the entire supply chain. It's just punting responsibilities to companies who trade rather the US government whose job it is really to investigate such things. It's just a feel good law to blame corps rather than Congress Critters, which they've been trying to get rid of responsibilities for decades.

Or, you know, maybe the world isn’t black and white, and you could read the whole linked article to see why Apple might want to reasonably oppose certain provisions of the bill, instead of simply being “evil”, whatever that means:

> However, there is one potential explanation.

> In July, campaign groups called on Apple to err on the side of caution by ceasing using production facilities based in the Uyghur Region of China. The bill as it is currently written might make that the only way that US companies could ensure compliance.

> > One provision in the bill requires public companies to certify to the Securities and Exchange Commission that their products are not made using forced labor from Xinjiang. If companies are found to have used forced labor from the region, they could be prosecuted for securities violations.

> If Apple cannot easily avoid using downstream suppliers based in the region, it may be that it is trying to dilute the provision to something more along the lines of a requirement to conduct audits, investigate claims, and to take all reasonable steps to prevent the use of forced labor.

With Apple you get what you've paid for. With Google you pay for what you've got for "free".

Seriously, why not? And why was wnevets getting downvoted?

The linked article references a source I’m sure most on HN would agree is reputable, to the extent it confirms their biases.

> A report in [The Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/20/apple-u...) claims that Apple is trying to weaken provisions in the bill.

> > Apple lobbyists are trying to weaken a bill aimed at preventing forced labor in China, according to two congressional staffers familiar with the matter, highlighting the clash between its business imperatives and its official stance on human rights.

Yeah, just bad reporting.

"Apple lobbyists are trying to weaken a bill aimed at preventing forced labor in China, according to two congressional staffers familiar with the matter, highlighting the clash between its business imperatives and its official stance on human rights."

1) The US legislators could not care less about "forced labor" in China (or even in the US for that matter, e.g. penal labor). Same way they don't care when it is their allies doing it (or worse things). It's all about the trade and dominance war with China.

2) Apple and the other companies involved don't care about forced labor either (if they could legally and without media repurcusion use it, they would). But they also don't need and don't seek forced labor. Good old capitalist low wage labor is good enough for them. So it's not like they try to defend China's forced labor because they benefit for it.

3) What Apple and the other companies have is multiple suppliers all over China, including that area. Most of them (if not all) have little or nothing to do with forced labor. But because the law aims to hurt China and not to stop forced labor, it doesn't care about little details, but uses blunt force and a wide net.

4) Understandingly (from a business/logistics perspective) Apple, Google, and co, can't just drop/replace suppliers at the drop of a hat. So they ask for more time for check, and a better look at which suppliers are actually problematic to be added to the bill. So "weaken the provisions" is actually "make the law more accurate and fairer", but they won't say that.

Then the mix of propaganda for foreign policy (as if those legislators care), hypocrisy, business interests (from Apple and co) and extremely bad reporting for clickbait and patriotic reasons, then turns into:

"Apple lobbies in favor of force labor".

It's as if some companies wanted to continue to use some useful drug medically, and e.g. tried to "weaken the provisions" of an strict anti-drug law that forbade it without nuance, and the headlines were like "Company X lobbies in favor of heroin".

I agree, this is a deal that should be between governments, this is just an attempt of the US government to push responsibility to companies rather than actually acting against the Chinese government to end these labor camps. Whether tariffs or whatever. Few companies have the ability to follow every link of the supply chain for corruption. Most small to mid size to just find a distributer and buy what they need, they don't have the ability or authority to send in a small army of auditers, that the CCP isn't going to allow anyway.