Selectively break Unicode without warning because... politics?
People with out of date versions of OSX may now be subjected to more scrutiny. Apple may have made an undocumented decision (or introduced a bug) that could cause death.
Bad, but also ‘just’ an extension of ‘tweaking’ maps by changing country names and borders, something every map maker that wants to have global presence has to do.
It's not as bad as it looks – he clarifies the situation in later tweets:
"The region you choose on the setup assistant will stay unchanged untill [sic] you reinstall the OS. I saw users who bought the Chinese model set the initial region to elsewhere, thus 🇹🇼 is properly displayed on their Mac and the 10.14.4 upgrade won’t affect them."
"So again there's no hardware lock. It has nothing to do with T2 chips. The only thing that changed is the mechanism macOS use to detect regions. You are still in control of your China model Macbooks."
Yeah I get "to de legitimise the Taiwanese govt", 1984 Newspeak, etc. But people are going to convey the idea one way or another. Its just petty and pointless. I suppose you could say that about a lot of censorship, but this just takes it to an extra level.
It's a bit like the efforts of the Iranian government to force people to use the term "Persian Gulf" rather than "Arabian Gulf." They passed a law in 2010 that was supposed to ban any international airline from Iranian airspace, if it referred to the body of water as the "Arabian Gulf" in its in-flight maps or other public displays.
> The body of water is historically and internationally known as the "Persian Gulf". Some Arab governments refer to it as the "Arabian Gulf" or "The Gulf", but neither term is recognized internationally.
In this case the PRC is trying to combat something that might be seen as undermining the One-China Policy. Their argument would be that you don't have flags for other illegitimate governments so why have one for this illegitimate government?
Governments have to periodically kick up a fuss about these kind of things or it can be used to undermine their territorial claims, etc.
Similar stuff happens when companies start frivolous lawsuits about trademarks just so it can't be argued they aren't defending their trademarks.
Does the British government banning or allowing the IRA flag legitimise or delegitimise their presence in Northern Ireland? What about Spain and the Basque flag?
I would contend that the fact you feel you need to ban it, legitimises it.
Plus Taiwan's government is democratically elected, so if you go down the path of illegitimate governments, Chinas ruling party isn't looking so great there either.
I agree though, that probably is what they're trying to do. It just comes across as petty and pointless.
It’s only “petty” if you know about the censorship, which obviously is not what China intends to happen.
The people in 1984 weren’t talking about how petty it was that the party censored that news article the other day. They just literally never know about that news article.
The Orwell comparisons may seem trite to you, but the fact is that if there's no available word for a thing, it becomes difficult for people at large to discuss it.
Some organisations conclude that if the masses can't name a thing, then it's impossible for anyone to think of it, and that this makes it go away. Personally I think this underestimates individual people's capacity to think up new names for things, and is therefore doomed to failure.
"Personally I think this underestimates individual people's capacity to think up new names for things, and is therefore doomed to failure"
Agreed, so I'm not sure why you're disagreeing?
I only mentioned it, to show I understand the wider context, so when I ask "why?" I don't get a load of "because censorship" answers. So not intended to come across as trite.
what they didn't tell you is the fact that the current government in Taiwan also refuse to display this exact same flag.
I posted links in my reply this thread, don't get too shocked when you read the full story. The real question to be asked is why people always tell the censored version of the story in line with their political stands.
From what I can read (wikipedia) your links say the opposite. "The flag has a ubiquitous presence in Taiwan", "found in numerous government offices in Taiwan and is that which the President and Vice President face to take the oath of office".
Readit News
Can't see this emoji (Taiwanese Flag) on macOS https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/328474/cant-see-th...
You can’t use the Taiwan flag emoji on a Chinese iPhone https://qz.com/1250884/you-cant-use-the-taiwan-flag-emoji-on...
People with out of date versions of OSX may now be subjected to more scrutiny. Apple may have made an undocumented decision (or introduced a bug) that could cause death.
Not completely unheard of...
https://emojipedia.org/pistol/
(Not trying to pass moral/political judgment, but let's please get the facts straight.)
For example, see https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2016/aug/10... (found by googling “map borders change depending on location”)
I wonder if anyone else can see the cognitive dissonance of this half-assed Boycott...
"The region you choose on the setup assistant will stay unchanged untill [sic] you reinstall the OS. I saw users who bought the Chinese model set the initial region to elsewhere, thus 🇹🇼 is properly displayed on their Mac and the 10.14.4 upgrade won’t affect them."
"So again there's no hardware lock. It has nothing to do with T2 chips. The only thing that changed is the mechanism macOS use to detect regions. You are still in control of your China model Macbooks."
https://twitter.com/thisboyuan/status/1111545977624621056
Deleted Comment
Yeah I get "to de legitimise the Taiwanese govt", 1984 Newspeak, etc. But people are going to convey the idea one way or another. Its just petty and pointless. I suppose you could say that about a lot of censorship, but this just takes it to an extra level.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/22/iran-airlines-...
> The body of water is historically and internationally known as the "Persian Gulf". Some Arab governments refer to it as the "Arabian Gulf" or "The Gulf", but neither term is recognized internationally.
Governments have to periodically kick up a fuss about these kind of things or it can be used to undermine their territorial claims, etc.
Similar stuff happens when companies start frivolous lawsuits about trademarks just so it can't be argued they aren't defending their trademarks.
I would contend that the fact you feel you need to ban it, legitimises it.
Plus Taiwan's government is democratically elected, so if you go down the path of illegitimate governments, Chinas ruling party isn't looking so great there either.
I agree though, that probably is what they're trying to do. It just comes across as petty and pointless.
The people in 1984 weren’t talking about how petty it was that the party censored that news article the other day. They just literally never know about that news article.
Some organisations conclude that if the masses can't name a thing, then it's impossible for anyone to think of it, and that this makes it go away. Personally I think this underestimates individual people's capacity to think up new names for things, and is therefore doomed to failure.
Agreed, so I'm not sure why you're disagreeing?
I only mentioned it, to show I understand the wider context, so when I ask "why?" I don't get a load of "because censorship" answers. So not intended to come across as trite.
I posted links in my reply this thread, don't get too shocked when you read the full story. The real question to be asked is why people always tell the censored version of the story in line with their political stands.
So what is your political 'stand' in this?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Republic_of_Chin...