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On Stewart's Apple TV Plus show ends, reportedly over coverage of AI and China (theverge.com)
75 points by thecybernerd on Oct 19, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 25 comments



This isn’t the first time Apple bends to the Chinese regulators. You can’t type Taiwanese flag on Chinese versions of Apple hardwares, code was one liner clean, but that was a beginning. Then we see that Chinese state level anti-scam app came preinstalled on brand new iPhones on Chinese models.

Get a Chinese SIM card or have your iPhone under a Chinese base station, you’ll find some difference.

I’m sure Apple has done some great effort to prevent anything worse. But getting China to dictate the content maker part of Apple may be another milestone.


I love how the PRC now gets to dictate our content moderation policies (on a show that’s not even available in China).


More like Apple decided to self-censor so as to not provoke China, which is despicable. Same happened with Disney and praising the local government where Uyghurs are put in internment camps.


>I love how the PRC now gets to dictate our content moderation policies

It is not now, They have been doing this for close to a decade.


Apple needs that big cake, so they won't let it happen.


Nice iPhone factory you have there.


(... and the story is flagged.)

In case anyone missed his Colbert appearance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSfejgwbDQ8&t=171s


That's not the money clip, this is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V_sEqfIL9Q

Especially the latter portion.


Jon has some great points here about let’s have the hard conversations, and i support his fearless contrarianism. However it’s more of a moralistic liberal ideal than anything resembling a real solution.

I think one of the misses is the implication that we can treat people like intelligent adults, and allow them to show up as adults. Vs if we censor conversations (infantilizing the audience) the bad ideas will metastasize.

If we if had to choose between metastasize and sepsis, the choice is clear.

If we are talking about a school environment i would 100 agree with Jon. But i think the larger population has proven that they are not intelligent adults (a really sad state) and can not be trusted with bad ideas prone to virality.

I lean with Jon’s idealism. I prefer the new Twitter over the old. But the tradeoffs are nuanced. There are not many clear and articulate thinkers equipped for the insanely complex times we find ourselves in.


> If we if had to choose between metastasize and sepsis, the choice is clear.

Fortunately, that is not the choice here. Strawman reductionism is not very productive, especially when dealing with really important consequences like reducing interactions and genuine connections between people.


I agree with you it’s not a dichotomy of one or the other happening per se, rather the choice is the risk of one vs the other happening. The risk that a nation could become fully infected with racist or tribalist views is unfortunately anything but a straw man. I’m not arguing for anything resembling censorship, but i think there’s a reason that moderation on social media platforms is a big topic right now.


I thought this was r/TitleGore but it turns out that thecybernerd just chose to omit the leading "J" from the title: (Jon Stewart)'s (Apple TV Plus) show ...


  > Apple approached Stewart directly and expressed its need for the host and 
  > his team to be "aligned" with the company's views on topics discussed. 
  > Rather than falling in line when Apple threatened to cancel the show,
  > Stewart reportedly decided to walk
How do you Apple fanboys turn a blind eye to this level of bullshit.


They block posts about it on their subreddit, ironically enough.


I don’t. But I do find them more aligned with my interests elsewhere. Much more so than Google, Facebook, Samsung, or the other monsters out there. Pick your poison.


You don't have to pick a team.


I use the best tool for my problem. This doesn’t mean I pick a team.


I’m not a fanboy, and I disagree with it. I’m not going to stop using apple products, because what’s the alternative?

For phones I get to choose between apple and google. This pales in comparison to what Google’s doing. So it’s like choosing between a punch in the face and being set on fire. I don’t like being punched in the face, but I have to have a phone.

For work, it’s between Apple and Microsoft. Again, holy mole is there a difference. Do I want this behavior from apple or ads on my desktop and forced patches in the middle of my presentation. I need a computer.

Don’t mistake this for “turning a blind eye.”


You have no idea how much I wanted a third alternative instead of Google and Apple.

But right now I don't have much of a choice. And that is as someone who is well versed in Apple's supply chain and China policy well before it even got to the media.


> How do you Apple fanboys turn a blind eye to this level of bullshit.

Google deserves credit for giving up some of their search and app business rather than submitting to censorship.

However, as I understand it, many Pixel phone components (and some of the phones themselves) are still made in China, although Google has some manufacturing in India and elsewhere.


Jon Stewart has never been a journalist, he's always been an entertainer. The Daily Show was not news, it was entertainment. His current iteration is worse because he now he pretends to do real news where before he was self aware of being entertainment, it was part of the joke. But he isn't different from Tucker or Maddow. He's now just cranking the Rage Machine to get his nut. The outrage on your part is just as false as the outrage he spews. He's entertainment. His entertainment should be controlled and owned by the people paying for it. There's no editorial independence to protect because it's not journalism.


He can be entertainment, while still being informative. Richard Prior was the greatest standup comic to ever live, but yet his social commentary was poignant and thought provoking.


Please We all know how the game is played from his Tucker Carlson Crossfire appearance. When it comes to awards or what he says being important he's a journalist When it comes to criticism, fact checking he's just a comedy program. And just keep switching between those 2 footings. John Oliver does the exact same thing https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140610090003-43504-and-the-...


> The outrage on your part is just as false as the outrage he spews.

You think this is outrage? I think you're missing the forest for the trees.


for future generations who stumble upon this, the NYT link (which actually has the correct title) is getting quite a bit of action: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37955468




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